Mindfulness really means staying immersed, focused and
concentrating on whatever you are doing, without letting your mind wander into
the past or the future.
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| Geet Sethi Picture Courtesy: The Hindu/Internet |
We were guests at the recent annual convention of
the Madras Management Association. One of the speakers at the event was Geet
Sethi, nine-time World Billiards Champion. Sethi’s talk was inspiring, simple
and evocative. He rightly demystified success as being different from the
popular notion that people hold of it – which is acquiring name, fame and
money. He said that true success is when you can enjoy and love what you are
doing. “When you have a meditative experience whenever you do what you love doing,
that feeling is success,” he explained. He urged that we simplify our lives. He
said that the mind is the most important part of the human experience; and reining
in your mind is the biggest challenge, yet the biggest opportunity, you have.
Sethi added: “We must stop this incessant wanting in us to grab, acquire and
possess more. Keep Life simple. Every time I bought a car or a house, I lost a
World Championship. All my distractions were so time-consuming. When I saw the
pattern I realized that I was losing focus and concentration on my game. So,
when you are pursuing something, stay immersed. Stay focused.”
What Sethi is advocating is mindfulness. While his
advice is very relevant for those who are targeting high-performance – like an
Olympic Gold or a business target – that requires consistent dedication to the
cause over a period of time, even in everyday living mindfulness is key to
inner peace. All of us are veterans at worrying. More than the art of living,
for which we ironically believe we need to go learn from someone else, we are
masters at letting our mind graze in the past or in the future. Resultantly,
the mind is never in the present moment. It is only in the now, in the present, that you can find the peace that you so desperately seek. This is why many of
us are searching for peace. Practising mindfulness simply means you have to
train your mind not to slip away from the present moment. Like any other form
of training, this requires diligence and an initial continuous 21-day practice
discipline.
Once you learn to control your mind, once you learn
to be mindful, then each moment is an immersive, meditative experience in
whatever you are involved in, in whatever is happening to you. That, and only that, is the way to being peaceful and happy!
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