My Concentration | Swami Sarvapriyananda | Vivekananda Way

[Music] namaste everybody i am very grateful to icsi and dr gulshan for organizing this program in fact organizing the entire sequence of programs on swami vivekananda's philosophy of education for youth empowerment swami vivekananda's education philosophy has many aspects what is the aim of education what is the methodology the role of the teacher the role of the student um but i am i wanted to focus on one particular thing which i feel is very essential at this this juncture which is the role of concentration as uh sudhir babu just said swami vivekananda considered concentration to be the key to success in education um swami vivekananda he has praised concentration and pointed out the importance of concentration in many different on many different occasions in the complete works you will find one part i just wanted to read which struck me was he says how has all knowledge in the world been gained but by concentration of the powers of the mind the world is ready to give up its secrets if only we know how to knock how to give it the necessary blow the strength and force of the blow come through concentration there is no limit to the power of the human mind the more concentrated it is the more power is brought to bear on one point that is the secret now why i chose this particular quotation is recently i was reading about um an a very nice article about the life and work of von neumann one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century he was here in the united states um tremendous mind i mean his his contributions are across multiple fields now in that article there was a lot of biographical information how he would work and they described how he would concentrate intensely on a particular subject and master it very fast and make breakthrough discoveries in that subject and then the key thing was he believed one neumann the scientist he believed that every problem could be solved if one could concentrate hard enough on it now this is almost exactly swami vivekananda's language i was immediately reminded of this observation by swami vivekananda that the secret to all knowledge lies in in concentration swami vivekananda said that the difference between an ordinary person and a great person lies in the degree of concentration i myself have seen on various occasions i love visiting universities educational institutions and watching scholars professors students working and i have seen this thing one thing common that it is concentration which makes the difference between a successful student and not so successful student between a successful teacher scholar and not so successful scholar or teacher um i have visited um some of the best campuses on in india i used to go to iit kanpur to give talks there and i prefer to stay on campus go to the library and watch students at work recently i was um privileged to spend a one year at harvard university last year 1920 uh 2019 and 2020 i was for nearly one year i was at harvard university and there also i did the same thing i watched um students at work scholars at work one thing i noticed common across the world in the top institutes wherever i've seen um it is this power of concentration the best students the best scholars and and professors they have this unique ability to focus on something to cut out all distractions and to hold that focus steady on that subject this is what i want to talk about swami vivekananda gates gave so much importance to this and in this day and age what is the problem the challenge to concentration and what are the ways in which we can face those challenges and overcome them and develop the power of concentration i think this is one thing one area where the youth today across the world especially in india we need to focus we have a tremendous what is called a human capital boom in india the population there and that is the greatest resource dr gulshan sharmaji knows shuddhi bhav also knows that especially when you come out of india and you look at the advanced countries in the in the world in europe in america australia new zealand you see the um importance of human capital sometimes we think that when a population can be a problem overpopulation can be a problem as we see in india but we see the importance of human capital you see with the achievements of indians in all these countries the indian diaspora is one of the most well to highly accomplished highly regarded sections of the population wherever indians have gone so the advantage of uh of the population human resources you can see in these countries and the key to it the key to it i believe it lies here in the power of concentration to key to empowering our younger generation problem right now there is this documentary you can you can all watch and i highly recommend that you watch it it's called the social dilemma people here are watching it also and i saw it um and it is about the harmful effects of social media on concentration on the lives of people um especially young people so what has happened is that uh the most common social media platforms like facebook and other things um how they are being used and what is the effect on the psychology of people who use these social uh platforms that's the topic of this a very interesting documentary um they're talking about how you know when we see the internet today so many websites so much is on offer wonderful content uh audio video everything and what strikes us is it is all free all this tremendous content is there which can engage you day and night it's all free easily available there is a saying nothing is free if a product is free then you must realize that you are the product if you're getting something for free then what is being sold there is you are being sold how are we being sold there it seems that in the in silicon valley in the last 20 years or so they they realize this fact that they people cannot compete in the internet on the basis of content alone there's so much content there no matter how nice you make you make your web web page no matter how nice and you make your youtube channel whatever you do uh there is so much competition there's so much content there so uh how can we grab your attention that became the new area of research so they call it the attention economy and why they are interested in grabbing your attention is of course money at the bottom of it is all money all these outlets the media channels and all they they they need money from sponsors and the corporates they give advertisements and based on that these content providers generate revenue for them it is very essential to grab your attention so over the years these platforms have developed to grab our attention the psychology of which is very interesting people of earlier generation um dr sharma or sri babu or i we will feel that technology is neutral we all always hear this our parents uncles and aunties will tell us technology is not to blame it is the human being who's to blame technology is neutral you can use it for good you can use it for bad but that's not true what we don't realize people of our generation is they pointed out that this new technology is not neutral it is being designed and redesigned continuously see the phone which we had telephone land line which we had um even now it's there on my desk it is covered with dust the telephone landline um that was this it was stable technology it remained in the same form a phone would come into our house and the same we all from childhood we grew up seeing the same telephone with the rotary tile same instrument maybe 20 years it would stay and it will be replaced by another one like it that's it but the phone that we use today the smartphone even i have got one so what is happening is that there are these very smart people in silicon valley many of them indians they are spending their days and nights improving and changing this phone continuously changing you will see your phone is continuously updating new software is coming and new apps are coming it is changing not only the hardware is changing every few years you replace this phone but every day the software of the phone is being upgraded new things are being downloaded automatically even if you don't know it many of these upgrades many of these changes are designed to capture our attention so in this social dilemma this document it is shown how these apps social media platforms are programmed continuously to catch our attention they can track us they know what we are browsing so they all of it is to not for any evil intention but to sell their products so for example simple thing on facebook if you send a message to somebody you will find a little dot dot dot is coming that the other person is responding when the other person is typing at that time they will show you that the other person is typing so that just generates an anticipation in our mind we're waiting for the reply for that little period of time our attention is caught there again and again you will see the um phone little ping will be there little thing will be there so some sound will come little vibration will be there on purpose on purpose why and they discovered that when you give this once in a while a little message will come little advertisement will come and we try and take a look at the phone just taking a look at the phone this micro diversion of attention we become trained to that and there is a neuroscience this um they have gone into it that just as we get a little burst of or dopamine in in the brain which gives us a little tiny little burst of pleasure uh whenever we do something which we like the phone trains us for that so it becomes like a like a little bit of an addiction not an intense addiction like drug drug addiction in that case it would be banned but a small addiction which seems innocent but still is a very strong addiction you notice how all of us have been trained over time to just look at the phone again and again hundreds of times throughout the day we take a look at the phone just for a few seconds so it is very damaging for our attention it's very damaging for concentration concentration requires paying attention to something unbroken attention for a chunk of time like our whole habit is to look here and there uh is to look at the phone again and again go to on social media and look at our posts look at updates not related to our current work it has a very bad effect on attention and we it becomes a habit which is very difficult to break a very good test is something common to people all over the world now if you take away your phone if you switch it up immediately you feel a little uneasy that little uneasiness is because we have been trained we have been addicted to that form i was hearing that people here in columbia university in new york ivy league universities they are watching this documentary social dilemma and many of them have vowed to go off social media altogether students young students in the top universities in america i don't know how many will be able to do it but it just shows the scale of the problem i saw recently someone in harvard university they are organizing watch parties that means the students will get together and watch this documentary so the point here is um daniel goldman who is a psychologist journal journalist who wrote the famous book on emotional intelligence eq he has recently written a book on concentration this book is called focus daniel goldman focus he says that over the years i have been hearing these complaints about the loss of concentration especially among young people students i've heard it from parents i've heard it from teachers i've heard it from the students themselves i've heard it from corporate leaders who are hiring the youngsters who are coming out of universities and they find this problem loss of productivity inability to concentrate so he said that's why it prompted me to write this book now i'll say a few things about what the findings of this daniel coleman daniel goldman's findings which he has put in the book focus um one thing he says is we must make a distinction between this wandering mind and reflective thinking so it's not that we do not focus it is not that we are not using our minds our minds are in fact overused we constantly chattering so minds are going from one thought to another thought being distracted little bit by computer or phone again going back to our work again thinking of something else so this is called wandering mind and he says this is the enemy of concentration so concentration is when you pick up a certain thread of thought a certain aspect which you want to think about and hold on to it when distractions come you come back to that you disengage with the distraction not go to the phone not go to the computer not check your phone again go back you come back to your focus of work or your thought and go on with that let me give you an example um few years back i heard a talk on vedanta given by another monk a friend of mine who is a noted mathematician some of you may know him mahan maharaj uh he got the emphasis about bhatnagar i think first time monk has been given these awards uh he has been borrowed by tata institute of fundamental research tifr in mumbai they asked balurman that can we borrow your monk for a few years for research work in you know mathematics in topology actually that's his area anyway so this is the background of the person exceptionally focused person tremendously focused person now he gave a talk on vedanta several years back i want to just make one point here so i heard the talk i was very impressed how from beginning to end of the talk for one hour it was one flow of thought one chain of argument we often talk about many things we get scattered we go here and there just no wasted words no distractions no diversions just one continuous argument from beginning to end so i asked him how do you do it and um he said well in mathematics that's how we are trained you cannot do pure mathematics unless you take up one thought and follow it for hours and hours and days and days and weeks you have to be absorbed in that one thought only and i have seen him working you know in mathematics uh he is a pure mathematician so sitting quietly just looking at the board and sitting quietly another collaborator mathematician from australia had come he was also sitting quietly and looking so what are they doing they are working just pure thinking no computer no phone not even a book just sitting and thinking for hours and hours and hours on one topic and at the end of it one paper will be written maybe so that is the power of of continuous thought without distractions that's what uh daniel goldman says so this is basically the sense of concentration we all have that power but yet unless you protect it and nurture it it will be lost he says one point he makes is that this there's a rhythm to our concentration it's also worth learning often we cannot concentrate not because we are not trying it is because we are trying too much our brains our minds are continuously engaged from morning till night it is like as if i have hands i have legs just because i have got hands if i keep grabbing different things i will get tired just because i have legs if i keep on walking around here and there without sitting down i will get tired very soon we never do that that's that's insanity but with our minds we continuously do that we are constantly thinking not consciously not deliberately just mechanically out habitually our minds are churning on they're going on and on with a variety of thoughts out of control so what he recommends is this is what we see in the lives of great spiritual teachers also there is a rhythm to our lives and if you see the life of say vivekananda received the life thousands of years ago the bhagavan buddha you see something similar there is a period of engagement in buddha's life if you see the daily routine he comes out he teaches the big shoes he meets the visitors he's engaged in transmitting knowledge but there are three four times in a day when he withdraws completely away from people away from the monks also to sit under a tree and go into deep meditation swami vivekananda as you mentioned he was here in the world parliament of religions and by the way this vedanta society where i am it is the first one it was established by swami vivekananda himself in 1894 when he was here in new york more than 125 years ago under 30 years ago he the people who saw him they noticed it i was just reading yesterday the reminiscences of cornelia conger who was a little girl in chicago when swami vivekananda came and he stayed in their house with with her grandfather and grandmother and she was a little girl so she would run up and talk to swamiji and swami vikkan would tell her stories about india all those things she remembers but she also remembers at times he would be unapproachable he would sit quietly in meditation and that such as such as honor of seriousness and depth that we would be afraid to approach him here there are there are nice accounts of swami vivekananda here in new york uh how every now and then he would be quiet sitting sitting quietly in his room absolutely absorbed inwards in deep meditation so this rhythm of external engagement and withdrawal meditation is a very good thing or it could simply be take a walk in nature or just sit quietly not what we normally do for relaxation this is an important point this problem was not there in sewing vivek under this time what dow days a lot of people not only students especially students but also others what is relaxation oh i am browsing on the internet but what is this browsing what are you doing i don't know going from one thing to another thing very damaging for our concentration it incul it instills a very bad habit in the mind why is it so uh attractive why is it so easy because it mimics the natural movement of the mind the natural movement of the mind is to go from one thought to another so i am reading something then it reminds me of something else and that reminds me of some work that i have to do that reminds me of another person then some worry comes back or some hope expectation comes and my mind has gone off now mind goes from one thing to another jumps from one link to another this the internet the way we browse in the internet is exactly like that it goes from one link to another and it mimics the movement the scattered movement of the mind that's why it's so so easy to get lost in that so this is one thing that when you relax when you withdraw from engagement it's better to sit quietly in meditation do a little pranayama let's sit quietly maybe repeat a mantra or just take a walk in nature or just listen to music change the occupation what you are doing change it to something more relaxing something which makes you more introverted then one more point which uh daniel goleman has mentioned is that um he mentions walter michel's marshmallow experiment this is something i referred to sometimes he was this psychologist in 1960s here in usa walter michelle who conducted a very interesting experiment on young children four-year-old five-year-old children what he did was he gave them marshmallows that means it's like a sweet here and he told the little child that would you want to eat it and all the children said yes now and each child was taken separately i will give you one marshmallow but do you want to and the children said yes we want to then you keep this marshmallow i'm going out for some work i will come back in a few minutes if you don't eat it it is in front of you if you don't eat it i will give you one more then you'll have two you can eat two then but if you eat it then this one only then you will not get a second one so will you wait all the children said yes we will wait then the psychologist leaves the room by the way the original experiment of ultra michel you cannot see but philip zimbardo who is a very well-known psychologist whose textbooks are studied in psychology classes everywhere he repeated this experiment and that experiment you can see on youtube if you google marshmallow experiment it's recorded so the video recording is then of the children when the psychologist leaves the room the children are sitting with that sweet their marshmallow and then you can see the reaction of the children all the children are attracted to it they want to eat it but two responses are there some of them simply eat it they cannot wait anymore though they said we will wait but we can't wait they cannot wait they eat it and of course they don't get a second marshmallow other children are attracted to it but somehow they control themselves and they don't don't eat it and then the psychologist comes back it's difficult for a child to find a sweet in front and god knows when the gentleman will come back 10-15 minutes is a long time for a little child to wait yes but they waited some children now the interesting thing is walter michelle made divided the two groups he did not tell the children anything just on paper he divided the two groups and he followed their career for the next 15 years till they went to college these children and he went back and talked to the parents and the teachers and the children and he found a huge difference a huge difference in the success in education in studies in co-curricular activities in personality development in all of them just this small difference in self-control small difference in self-control those children who are able to control themselves they are on the average their sat scores in america they talk about this sat examination so now were much higher their success in academic subjects was much better the co-curricular activity sports learning music all these things there they demonstrated persistence they took up something and held on to it and completed it the other group of children the same problem followed them throughout their lives that that inability to resist impulse poor impulse control so something comes up they were they start doing suppose the child takes up learning music playing violin or something like that it's difficult it takes long hours of practice to master it now many children enter and every teacher knows music or sports or anything that many will drop out many start when you drop out only a few remain so after when it becomes boring difficult some nice distraction comes many children drop it and go elsewhere so the difference between success and failure in academic life it was clearly shown is a matter of self-control now what does this have to do with concentration daniel goleman points out that this ability that some children had to notice the distraction when it comes and to disengage from it so i have to wait and not eat the sweet the sweet is in front of me and attracting me notice that and not engage with it disengage with it and to resist that distraction again and again not allow one's attention to be taken away there and keep one's attention on the future goal what is the future goal i will get two marshmallows to keep the attention there and not to be distracted by the present distraction what our modern social media does is that it offers continuous distraction and our attention is pulled into it just like the little child who takes up the marshmallow and eats it though he had agreed he or she had agreed i will not eat it but because the distraction is so powerful in front shining and our attention goes away from the future goal and comes here see the child wants two marshmallows the child wants to complete learning violin the child wants to complete the assignment but at present this is so attractive that marshmallow or the phone call is coming from my friend or some chat is coming or some facebook post is there that is so attractive and immediate our attention goes there studies have shown once your attention is diverted for even once just doing something seriously your assignment or your office work if you divert your attention it may be just for a few seconds what an amazing and rather horrifying thing that has been shown by studies is that it takes on the average 20 minutes to get back full concentration again what a huge price to pay for just looking at the phone once 20 minutes your concentration will be less you cannot fully focus again it may take up to 20 minutes of course to get your concentration back again recently i was reading this interesting work but done by cal newport he talks about something called deep work the success in this is in this internet age is that quality is the predictor of success so on youtube for example you will see that one song gets millions of views and the others get only a few thousand maybe one lecture it gets hundreds of thousands of views other one gets maybe a thousand views now is your song thousand times better than the other songs is your lecture a thousand times better than the other lecture it cannot be but then how is it that everybody is getting very little and only one person is getting so many views the reason is this the psychology of this modern internet ages if you are offered one high quality product and many average or low quality products everybody will select that high quality product mostly 99 will go there earlier what happened when the information was not so widely available and freely available and equally available across the world we would select whatever was available i would go to my bookshop and select whatever book selection what is given by the my local bookshop whereas now amazon is there you can select whatever is available and if new york times recommends this is the best seller everybody wants to read that that's best seller only and not the second best third best so what has happened fortunately unfortunately in this new world is if your work is even a little better than others you will grab the whole market everybody will go to you it may not be thousand times better so to make yourself a little better than everybody else it requires that power of concentration it requires that that focus this is some a reality about our new world which we must realize um one more point i would like to make a lot of work has been done on what concentration is and how we can increase concentration recently uh in this branch of psychology called positive psychology so there is a psychologist mihai chiksan bihar who has dedicated his life to the study of attention to the study of how we focus how we get we get concentration his basic insight is this actually our power of attention is limited we say the mind has unlimited power he says no no no just the opposite we have limited power only what uh and he quantifies it he says at any moment moment our attention has only a limited bandwidth he says it is 110 bits per second approximately that's the amount of information which means the computer science bit of information so at any given second we can consciously um process only 110 bits of information per second now that might seem to be a lot but it is not for example he says just to process the words of one person who's speaking to us so i'm speaking to you if you are attending to me if you're listening to what i'm saying and trying to understand you're using up about half of the available cognitive bandwidth this is around 60 bits per second it requires to listen to a person and understand what the speaker is saying that's why if two people speak to us at the same time we do not have enough cognitive bandwidth to understand both at the same time you see it becomes very irritating if somebody speaking to you another person starts speaking to you you become very upset it's very difficult to concentrate and focus and understand anything it's because it goes beyond our limit bandwidth limit now here is the key insight from mihai chicks and mihai what is concentration he says this 110 bits per second which is available to you how much of that we can take and focus on one subject that is concentration so out of 110 bits per second can i take 70 80 little bit will be left over for just being aware of oneself can i take 80 90 or 100 bits per second and focus it on my object of concentration so i'm studying a book a chapter in a book how much of 110 bits per second is concentrated there if i'm not interested and bored what will happen is maybe 30 40 bits per second is there but what happens is the excess cognitive capacity which is left over and this is crucial the excess cognitive capacity which is left over that is not being used so anything in the environment that pulls your attention that that excess will go there and you will be distracted a noise is there um tv is there phone is ringing or phone is giving a little beep or a thing immediately mind goes there and that is distraction so um when a person child says child is not interested in studying is fidgeting is bored no concentration is there because the only little bit of the cognitive capacity of the child is there on that book and maybe sixty percent seventy percent is left over and continuously distracted by things in the environment those children who are concentrating they're giving eighty ninety percent of the total capacity on the object and the external environment is not making a difference to it there's no bandwidth left over for loss of focus you're holding on to that focus every child especially children have actually a power of tremendous focus notice when the favorite cartoon or favorite tv program is there how much focus is there for hour after hour the child will sit there and look so ability to focus is there it's only not under our voluntary control swami vivekananda says that if i had to do my education all over again i would develop the power of attachment and detachment the power to focus my mind at will and then to detach it and put it on another subject like that so this is a key idea um that we get from mihai chicks and mihai and he gives us this idea that how do you develop so what what is this power of concentration very important idea is that when we are concentrated deeply concentrated you are using 80 90 percent of your focus the cognitive ability to do something read a book write something whatever it is it is actually a very pleasurable feeling it is a very enjoyable feeling concentration focus is not boring it is enjoyable not only it makes you more productive more effective it is also very enjoyable he calls it flow and he's written a book about it called flow which is a very important book in his whole literature on attention and concentration he says the quality of my life it depends on how much concentration i have and what i concentrate on how much concentration and what i concentrate on on that makes all the difference to the quality of my life i read about the case of this lady who wrote another book on concentration she says that she got cancer and then chemotherapy and are very miserable you know physical littleness the effects of chemotherapy the financial worries about all the expensive treatment so her life became hellish and miserable then she decided no i am a writer i will focus on my writing and give minimum attention to all these other problems these problems will go on so once she said that once she shifted her attention from her troubles cancer chemotherapy financial problem to writing and writing alone and minimum attention required for all the other things whole quality of my life changed she says because what i was concentrating on is am i concentrating on my problems or on my work my work is writing i am concentrating more attention will be given to that by that what i concentrate on and how much i concentrate that makes the whole difference in my life so this is a very important insight and uh gives this the crucial technique for improving concentration very deep insight he says there are these two factors one is challenge consider challenge to be like a y-axis and other one is skill consider skill to be the x-axis now as our skill increases as the challenge in our life increases if something is more challenging and we are not skillful it will probably make you anxious and worried so there is an assignment for example for a student something you have to write and i don't know i've never done such a thing earlier i'll be worried my skill is less challenges more worry skill is more you are very confident and challenge is less you get bored imagine when you are learning how to drive for the first time skill is less and challenge is more you're very concentrated and anxious and tense i should not hit or get hit by another vehicle when you are an expert driver after some time the same driving it is almost mechanical you then you can enjoy music or talk to another person and drive automatically so the skill is more challenges less than now his crucial insight is when skill and challenge are equally balanced in between there is this thing called flow concentration what is concentration when the work that you are doing what activity that you are doing is very challenging and your skill is exactly equal to it not more or less so you are forced to use all of your power all of your focus all of your skill to accomplish that task then you will be in flow in concentration full concentration and that flow state is is a very healthy state it's a very beneficial state very enjoyable state i remember i was i noticed how students in iit kanpur they worked in the library i worked with what i would sit in the library and read and watch them sometimes same group of students come early in the morning sitting there afternoon when i went i went back to take my bath and i had lunch and came back same group of students still sitting there seven eight hours later eight hours 10 hours 12 hours sitting and studying the same thing not one many of them have the same capacity i don't know this is sad that we have not recognized that the crucial factor in education is the power of concentration and we are not helping children to develop that so students studying like that i went to another engineering college many years later to give a talk to the students private engineering college and well-equipped i mean all good facilities are there i went to the computer lab and it was empty i asked the professor so uh it's 5 30 or the students not there in the lab he said again they have gone out it is open if they want they can come but nobody is coming so when i went and talked to the students i said see the difference you see iit kanpur and you is not that whoa yes you got the same kind of facilities it's not a difference in teacher so much it's not even that one of the other intelligent i'm not intelligently here not at all that also there's only one difference and the difference is how persistent those students are and how persistent you are not one difference same computer same kind of laboratory maybe your laboratory is more latest equipment is that more shiny and it is empty and i can guarantee you at 5 30 if you go to the lab in iit kanpur it will be full now what is the difference the difference is that the ability to hold on to one task and go on hour after hour to do it and the interesting thing is you may think ok boring it is not boring it is not troublesome as bihar chicago concentration is very enjoyable you throw out everything else in your life and hold on to it for hour after hour you will see the joy and satisfaction you get so this active engagement in one task psychologist says that see if you passively do something like passively consuming you're sitting in front of tv or or internet and watching hour after hour two three hours at the end of it you feel disturbed you feel disintegrated you feel your mind is lower than it was earlier but the same thing suppose some sports is there if you actually go out and play that game instead of watching it on tv at the end of one or two hours you feel energized you feel happy so any kind of active engagement concentration is actually better for you psychologically more enjoyable more satisfying at the end of that activity you will be happier more engaged and more fulfilled you will feel more integrated inside people say i spend i wasted wasted so many hours browsing on internet how do you feel after that very bad i feel bad yeah so one cartoon i saw yesterday it is there that one man is walking and there's it's written goal of life is walking towards goal of life from behind another cartoon comes it's written netflix a movie it is coming and catching that man and taking him away so away from the goal of life so you feel good when you're concentrating on something and then moving forward it is more enjoyable i told the students whose students and i saw in the iit kanpur library working for seven eight nine hours sitting with the same book same assignment they are not bored they are actually more happy than you are this is the trick we feel bad k pannai karna mehnat karnatis mahanath we put it you know it's hard work boring no it is actually enjoyable it's actually fulfilling it is actually you end up being integrated at a better level psychologically than you were when you started so this is one more insight from high chicks and mihai um swami vivekananda if you see the logo he designed for the ramakrishna mission um if you remember there is a serpent like a snake surrounding the whole thing like this it's there in between there is a swamp there is the waters wavy waters once sunrise and lotus is there of course we know the meaning for yogas and the lotus symbolizes bhakti yoga the water symbolizes karma yoga the sun rising symbolizes yoga and the snake symbolizes concentration raja yoga and the swan is the paramahamsa that we you reach the goal you reach god realization you realize your paramatma by a combination of work and meditation and devotion and knowledge for yogas but i want to concentrate on that raja yoga the snake notice that is the symbol for concentration three things are there what are the three things one is the snake is constant when it when it is say focusing on its prey a mouse or a frog how intense its concentration is intense focus on one thing that number one number two what does the snake do you see that the hood the hood of the snake is expanded so as if by expanding the hood of the snake what is the snake doing as if it is cutting out all distractions now i'm saying as it because any biologist or expert on snakes will point out that it's actually doing that as an intimidation tactic you know it's a part of the intimidation of the snake but you can imagine like this that it is cutting out all distractions it is saying no one aspect of concentration is to focus on one thing the second aspect of concentration is to cut out everything else if you do not cut out other things then they will come and interfere with your concentration so nothing else no friends no mobile phone by the way i gave you the example of mahan maras the mathematician the monk who is a mathematician one of the persons leading cutting edge mathematician topology working on string theory one of the persons who is least interested in a mobile phone computer i think he has no mobile phones even if he has mobile phone you will never be able to reach him because he does not answer it's permanently when he wants to use it he switches it on and makes a call otherwise off and this is something i've seen in monks in scholars those who are seriously interested in doing some work they cut themselves off from computer social media and all of that so that's an interesting aspect that ability to second aspect is like the snake and the wood cutting of things have you seen how little children study sometimes when they are very focused they will do like this let's study like this yes what are they doing they're cutting out the world only this thing i'm focusing on one thing he need not do like this but mentally we should be like that everything else no so that's the second aspect the snake is like that cutting out the whole world the third aspect of concentration is the snake holds on that focus for a long time holding on the focus for a long time so three things are there one is focus on one thing second is cut it cut out everything else third is hold that focus hold that focus daniel goldman in his book focus he has dwelt a lot on meditation see both mihai sigzun mihai and daniel goldman in their books mihachi zimmer and his book flow daniel goldman in his book focus they've dwelt for a long time on meditation um mihai cheeks in me says the best methodology to attain flow i have studied the literature across the world on attention in all different cultures the best one i found is the manual on meditation written by patanjali the patanjali yoga sutras two pages he goes on describing the patanjali yoga sutra in his book flow daniel goleman also spent some time talking about the different stages of meditation and the neuroscience behind it he says when anyone tries to meditate what happens is you take up one object of meditation in whichever tradition of meditation is basically training of attention all meditation techniques are training of attention whether you are repeating a mantra whether you are following the breath whether you are visualizing a deity or the chakras whatever you are doing or you are using a vedantic approach to take any experience and become aware of the witness or whatever you are doing it is basically training the attention now there he says when you train the attention it will go through these stages first of all you will pick up something to focus on maybe a mantra or maybe your breath then second what will happen some distraction will come always some distraction will some thought will come some sensation will come and the mind will go there not only go there from there to something else and it will mind will start wandering then third what will happen is you will notice oh i have to repeat the mantra namashiva or something or have to follow the breath breathing in breathing out now my mind has gone elsewhere so i must now bring it back to the object of focus and hold it there so these are the stages bhagavad-gita also krishna says you concentrated on the atman then yato yato mana mischarity that wherever the mind goes from there you notice it and bring it back and then again put it on the on the object of concentration the interesting thing that that daniel goldman adds is he says our latest neuroscience shows that each of the stages has its own neural activity in the brain when you select something to focus one set of neurons fires when there is a distraction another set of neurons is firing when the mind is wandering there are other neurons which are active when you notice that the mind is wandering another set of neurons becomes active when you consciously withdraw the mind from those distractions and bring it back to the object of concentration another set of neurons is firing so the whole process which is described in bhagavad-gita for example in patanjali yoga sutras or in buddhist meditation manuals it is actually based on firm neuroscience they noticed these are different processes in the brain selecting distraction wandering noticing that the mind is wandering and then bringing it back as we repeat meditation daily we do that the mind becomes trained in noticing the distraction and in bringing the mind back from distraction and focusing on the object of concentration so repetition like a mental jib it trains the mind so this is one more thing that regular meditation it improves the power of concentration it enables you to notice distraction enables you to consciously bring the mind back from distraction and focus on the object of concentration and enables you to hold on to the focus of concentration one more powerful idea from swami vivekananda about concentration how to get uh powerful concentration we know swami vivekananda himself and extraordinary powers of concentration so many stories are there in balur when he's sitting he's reading his disciples chandra comes and sees encyclopedia britannica not today like you see in dvd or in a website but those actual books heavy leather bound books so at that time it was 10 volumes and shahrukh chandra said to swami vivekananda so many fan books it one human being cannot read in one's lifetime swamiji very kind of said oh what are you saying i have finished nine volumes i'm on the tenth ask me anything from any of those values and shahrukh chandra actually took up the challenge he picks up this volume and that volume randomly opens pages and says to some viewer tell me what is there on this subject and swamiji replied to all the questions including sometimes the same language down to the comma and full stop character was stunned how is this possible and swamijirikantha says by the power of concentration and brahmacharya he says it is possible power of concentration brahmacharya he's in another place when vivekananda said the purer the mind the easier it is to concentrate the more you have purified the mind the easier it is to concentrate now one may not get that encyclopedia reading and memorizing power but definitely as we make efforts at concentrating you will find wherever we are whatever is our level definitely improvement will be there whatever is our age whatever is our condition in life health occupation our power of concentration will improve if we follow these methods especially meditation and swami vivekananda gives a very powerful method he says simple and powerful do whatever you are doing with the fullest possible attention not just meditation not just studying at whatever time whatever you are doing you may even be gossiping on mobile phone with your friend but do it with the fullest possible attention why he says remember you it is the same mind we have only one mind we have only one mind one swami in satyarupanji [Music] so if you take the shaving blade of your father say a pencil child if you start sharpening your pencil what will happen the student said it will become blunt will your father be able to shave no why because it has become blunt similarly we have only one mic now if throughout the day i scatter it joby karnakar whatever it takes its fancy especially the internet gives me full scope to scatter anywhere i like then when the time comes for concentration now i have to do this assignment i have to do this work the mind will not concentrate it has become habituated to being scattered so rather so vivekananda says do whatever you are doing with the fullest possible attention intense focus take up this 20 minute 25 minute chunk of time in this 25 minutes nothing else will enter enter you give yourself time for a break after 25 minutes five minute break will be there tell the mind you relax do whatever you want again 25 minutes at that time makeup consciously nothing else will enter intense burst of concentration far more productive than two three hours of little work little distraction little gossip little uh facebook that kind of it will not be productive at all so do whatever you are doing with the fullest possible attention just the opposite of multitasking so today we are so used to i'm doing my assignment i'm talking to my friend once in a while i'm checking my mobile phone for messages and facebook posts multitasking that is very bad that that is harmful for concentration time magazine in fact had a full page full cover story on multitasking and the conclusion was everybody concluded that multitasking is not good for our mental health or even for our productivity swami vivekananda says that do whatever you are doing with the fullest possible attention i have noticed these monks scholars good students who have got this tremendous power of concentration in their other activities also they are very concentrated in their other day-to-day activities if they are talking to you they will pay full attention not for long if you birth them they will go away but as long as they're listening to you they'll listen very carefully i've seen that i have seen professors in top institutes i ask a question do you remember my question every exact word two words they've listened so carefully they can quote my question back to me i cannot quote back what i ask maybe but they know exactly what about you so they give the tremendous attention even for a short span of time do whatever you're doing with the fullest possible attention remember we have only one mind last word i will finish i have talked only about concentration but in swami vivekananda's philosophy of education it is only one aspect it is not enough ravana also had tremendous concentration the demons in our mythology are people who had great concentration but we are not good people so just concentration itself is not enough to be a blessing to our life to make us helpful for ourselves and for society swami vivekananda gave great stress on unselfishness let our life not be limited only to myself what i do it should be a blessing to others in my community in my society for humanity at large um so the more you stand for something which is for lot of people not just yourself more you stand not for the individual but for the community the more um successful you will be for your own sake and for others not just the power of concentration but the power of unselfishness i would say power of unselfishness is greater and bigger and more beneficial than even the power of concentration both should go hand in hand okay so that's what i wanted to speak about this morning thank you so much i think i've taken a one full hour

Channel: Vivekananda Samiti IIT-Kanpur

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Keywords: vivekananda samiti, vsiitk, Saravapriyananda, Swami, vivekananda, vedanta, vedanta socirty, swami bodhamayananda, Pravrajika Divyanandaprana, Bodhamayananda, Divyanandaprana

Id: wwYH6TRE4dY

Length: 59min 28sec (3568 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 14 2020