Getting in flow
Each time I come to Bali, I always go to the ancient ‘Sebatu’ waterfall temple dedicated to Shiva. It’s a powerful purification experience as you wade knee deep along a small river to this thundering waterfall that comes pouring out of slick black rock. The power of the flowing water and the Shiva energy of the temple washes away any stagnancy and makes you feel REALLY alive. Being there this time, it reminded me of the power of our attention.
A beautiful Vedic principle is that your attention is like water - flowing, powerful and nourishing. And whatever you put your attention on, it's as if you are watering it with your conscious awareness bringing greater life, energy and growth. An analogy I like to use is watering the garden. If you water flower and fruit trees then they will bear flowers and fruit. But if you water weeds... then obviously you’re going to see a whole a lot more weeds in your garden.
It’s the same in life.
When you place your attention on the seemingly negative aspects of your life, what you're doing is 'watering the weeds'. Placing your potent attention on wanting to be somewhere other then where you’re at, talking negatively about others or criticising yourself, only grows the negativity and it prospers in your life. You might even put your attention on a 'negativity weed' and think ‘Look at this weed! How horrible! I have to show someone how nasty it is!’ So you bring your friend over and both of you place your attention on the weed. Now receiving double the attention (and therefore double the nourishment) it grows even bigger. You call more friends, your family, you may even start recruiting people off the street to check out how big the weed in your garden has grown. More people = more attention = more growth. And this causes the negativity to root in deep with all that nourishment of awareness.
However, if you put your attention on the evolutionary aspects of your life - the positive qualities of yourself you want to nurture and grow, those friendships you want to nourish and the desires you wish to fulfill - then by virtue of the time you spend watering them with your attention, they too will flourish exponentially.
Through our daily meditation practice we are cultivating our awareness, to the point that it is so powerful and refined, whatever we place our attention on, flourishes beyond imagination. Therefore as a meditator it's really important not to water the weeds in our life. We want to let go of the habit of placing our attention on enhancing negativity and instead, water the beautiful fruiting aspects of our life we wish to see grow.
Not yet a daily meditator? Come and learn an easy and effortless technique with me. I promise you'll love it.