Points to Ponder: January 26, 2018

Today we will understand another very important spiritual law- The law of attention. We would start by understanding what attention means. Attention means focussing one’s mind on any particular object, idea, person or situation. The mind is the creator of our inner world. Our inner world comprises of thoughts, feelings, attitudes and perspectives. These are manifested as words and behaviour which is precisely our outer world. As we focus our attention on a particular state of something, which is usually the present state which is less than perfect, we are nourishing it with the power of our mind and hence empowering its persistence. The law of attention states that wherever attention goes, energy flows and that thing grows. A mind which is preoccupied by worries empowers a worrisome situation. Although we intend to change the uncomfortable situation, we are actually intensifying it by focusing our attention on it. Revaluating our actions in the light of this new understanding would reveal we are mostly perpetuating situations which we actually wish to change.

One must pay attention to withdraw his attention from behaviour, situations, ideas, things and happenings that are unsavoury and diverted it to those that one wishes to empower. Sometimes being real or practical is understood as keeping one’s attention on what is but the fact is if we kept all our attention on what is then the future that we wish for ourselves would not be nourished enough to become a reality. So instead of empowering the unpleasant reality, we could actually use our mind to capacitate a beautiful future which seems impossible right now. It is because whatever is in our mind, manifests as words and actions. For example, my child is indisciplined and I want him to be disciplined.I instruct him to maintain decorum in the house or in his personal conduct but while doing so on the external, I keep thinking inside that he is a lousy child and he will not follow my instructions because he has never done so. I also take care to apprise every other person in my family about his laziness and indiscipline. So my words spoken  to my child are actually rendered powerless by my thoughts about him and my words about him spoken to others. Also, my gestures tell that I do not believe he would mend his ways. We ourselves lessen the probability of our thoughts manifesting into reality by the disalignment between my thoughts, words and conduct. If only in this case, I could focus my attention on the specialities of my child and have faith that he would mend his ways, my faith would have enabled my child to have faith in himself and my efforts would have been fruitful. It requires really conscious and intensive practice to bring about this  alignment and consequently ensure that I empower what I intend to empower.

In Spiritual Service
Brahma Kumaris
www.bkshilpa.com
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