Getting Distracted? Just Get Involved!

“Do not try to concentrate. Do not try to focus. If you bring involvement, something becomes fantastic in your experience.”

—Sadhguru

Are you feeling out of focus in life? Finding it hard to concentrate and avoid distraction? Sadhguru says, don’t try to focus, just get involved. Like a movie-goer captivated by the screen, anything in life can become fascinating simply by one’s involvement.

Q: Namaskaram Sadhguru. Every time I plan to do any work or start any work, I will be like, “Okay, I’m gonna do this, no distraction,” but somehow I get distracted by food, movies, or whatever reason it is. How to be focused all the time? You say, “Simply sit,” but I find it very hard.

Sadhguru: Simply sitting may not be in you right now. Do not try to concentrate and focus. It is not a pleasant experience. Just get involved. For example, when you are watching a movie, it is only a play of two-dimensional light and sound. Nothing so significant. But when you are really watching, it becomes larger than life. People love Rajinikanth more than they love their family. They have never seen the guy and he does not look like that, but he has become larger than life for them because of their involvement. All that happened was that they got involved. Because of this, though he is not a three-dimensional human being, he is just play of sound and light, people started loving him more than anything.

Something becomes fantastic not because it is. Everything is fantastic or nothing is fantastic in the universe. For instance, someone is looking at an atom. They spend their entire life looking at one silly atom. But because of their involvement, that single atom becomes so fantastic! So much life to see all around, but someone is looking through the microscope at one single atom, or a bacterium for that matter. Because of their involvement, bacteria become so fantastic.

Do not try to concentrate. Do not try to focus. If you bring involvement, something becomes fantastic in your experience. Then I do not have to tell you, “Be focused on it.” The problem is how to get you out of it. Unfortunately, the world has become goal-oriented. They want mangoes, but they do not like the tree. It does not work like that. If you get involved with the tree and nourish it, mangoes will fall on your head anyway. You do not have to say, “Mangoes, please come. Be sweet, be sweet, be sweet.” If you nourish the tree, mangoes will fall and they will be sweet. Similarly, focus and concentration are consequences of involvement. But people are trying to have the fruit without the tree, and it is freaking the hell out them. Trying to concentrate on something with which they are not involved is just killing people.

Editor’s Note: Isha Kriya is a free online guided meditation that has the potential to transform the life of anyone who is willing to invest just a few minutes a day. Try it out!