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"Is there a point when things just click? Does it come with practice and time or can it just happen one day? And do those moments come in meditation or when?"
We start to see through practices such as yoga, prayer, or meditation, that we can actually make a choice as to where we place our attention. Speaking in terms of meditation, we choose to focus our attention on the object: the mantra, the candle flame, the heart, the breath, the silence, whatever the practice might be.
As we sharpen our attention, in time, we start to feel that we have more power in our lives as we’re not at the whims of the mind. A great sense of peace that can come in that. The mind no longer feels it needs to travel everywhere, it can rest on what we choose to focus on which is where the real gift of attention starts to come. It is from here that we can now inquire into the source of attention.
Where is the attention coming from? In the beginning, we are very interested in where the attention goes, and not even in just a spiritual sense, it can be french fries, shopping, a crush, whatever it might be in the moment!
Then on the spiritual path, we start to become interested in the mantra, the breath, and the peace that comes as a byproduct of focusing our attention. From here, the mind is quiet and focused enough to inquire into where the attention actually comes from; what is the source of attention?
We can understand attention as this connection between subject and object. Between the meditator and the object of our meditation.
When we first follow it back we recognize ah yes, there is a subject here; a witness, a perceiver, one who is able to observe thoughts, emotions, sensations, one that can say “my attention has strayed”.
But when we travel far enough back, in our inquiry, we never really find a subject. When we inquire into the origin of attention, we never find a place where we can land and say “yes, this is the place where attention comes from.”
In the disappearance of our believes and even the belief that there is an “I”, our attention goes back into its source. We are left with the space between subject and object; the being-ness that exists between perceiver and perceived.
And now we are resting in pure Knowing, in the dissolving of attention which happens when we suddenly have nowhere to place it. As pure knowing, peace and contentment are our very nature. The ultimate goal of our spiritual practice is to know ourselves as that pure Knowing, as love, as the Sacred. The beauty is that you can start right now, fresh again and again in every moment.
Are you feeling a call to dive deeply into the ultimate gift of spiritual practice?
We invite you to join our most in depth course in yogic and tantric studies, our 200hr-Yoga & Meditation Teacher Training.
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