Mindfulness

It is paying attention in a particular way without judging. It has nothing to do with the religion and it is just a practical way to notice our thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations and attending to everything around us with full and complete awareness. 

It sounds simple. Isn’t? But actually it is very difficult. Do you know why? Our mind is fully tuned and many of the work we do, we do it without being aware of what we are doing. For example take the simple act of bathing. How many of you would have taken a shower with full awareness? How many of you would have felt and enjoyed the chillness of water flowing on you? How many of you would have enjoyed the soothing effect of the soap and the aroma of soap? How many of you would have seen taking shower as a meditation? Sounds crazy right? We find it difficult to do so.

Our Heads are too busy thinking all the time. We think about the past and get depressed or we focus on the future and become anxious. We never focus on the present. The time of taking shower is the only time where we devote to our self completely. But even there we keep thinking about many things. The noises we hear outside, the food that will be served when we come out of the restroom, the unfinished fights with the wife, newspapers etc. We always think about these things and miss the crux of the life.

If you are travelling in a car, how many of the time you drove with full awareness. That too if we drive on a very familiar road, we drive as if we are tuned and drive without really being aware of what we are doing. This is so because, we are so used to travelling in that particular road and we are so used to driving, we know where the road turns left, where there is a bump, when to put indicator etc and many a times we drive like a battery operated car. 

But this is what is mindfulness all about? Being aware.  As said above our mind always wanders. By practicing mindfulness we try to become aware and focus on the attention in a non judgmental way. 

So let’s practice some mindful activity

Let’s start being mindful. When you sit in front of the computer instead of being monotonous, use your five sense to be aware of you are doing. As you type feel the texture of the keyboard keys, the sound of the keys, the cool breeze that comforts you, the brightness of the computer screen, the fast movement of your fingers etc. Once you start being mindful your work will become a meditation and even the quality of the work will improve. 

Many complain that they are overweight or underweight. Do you know why? Many of the time we eat without any awareness. We eat in hurry or we eat with our mind fully loaded with all worries or happiness. So we may tend to eat more or eat less. So from now when you eat enjoy the aroma of the food, the flavor, the texture, your body movements, enjoy the action of your food being chewed in your mouth and the way it passes from your mouth to stomach. Once you eat with full awareness you will eat only to your capacity and you won’t get the craving to eat more.

You might ask me in this very busy schedule, do you think it is possible to enjoy all this. What I would say is, we became busy, and our life became materialistic just because we lost the awareness. In this context I remember one of the famous saying of Osho, “Do it joyfully or quit joyfully. In either of the cases, do it joyfully”. How true! So start being mindful. 

So don’t stop yourself being mindful only at restrooms and dining table. Whatever you do, do with your full awareness. Be it drinking water, or going for morning work, or smoking, or playing with kids whatever, do it with full awareness. Enjoy all the things around you be it big or small. Enjoy your own body. Don’t oscillate between the past and future. Be here right now.