Reclaiming Attention: Cultivating Peace in a Distracted World
Faith and focused attention nurture peace and resilience in a world filled with distraction and constant urgency.
Amid the pressures of a fast-moving world, reclaiming attention offers a path to inner peace and spiritual resilience.
The feeling of urgency is endemic to our times, and slowing down is difficult even though it is tremendously valuable. Consciously slowing down, learning to pause, observe, and let go facilitates what we most need at this juncture: to open to the wisdom of the soul and pay attention to what is happening around us without drowning in the deluge of worry and fear. How can we keep the mind aloft, the heart open, and our resilience strong in an age known for distraction?
The Power of Attention
Let’s look at the power of our attention—why it is so important and how we can reclaim it.
When my spiritual teacher Roy Eugene Davis guided us into meditation, he often said: Turn your attention within. Focus your attention and awareness on your essence of being.
"Dedication to your spiritual path is your most important life purpose. When you are spiritually conscious, your clarified awareness benefits everyone."
—Roy Eugene Davis
Meditation as a Guide to Inner Peace
Even when I didn't know how to meditate or have insight into the nature of the mind and consciousness, it was simple to follow his instructions. It was simple because we followed what he was doing as he demonstrated it. It was also simple because we all know about our soul depth and essence of being, even if we don't know how to access it.
With that basic meditation instruction, he taught us about the mind, much like an experienced environmentalist takes you on a walk through the forest and helps you begin to hear and see what lives there. You knew the forest was teeming with life, but with the guide, now you begin actually to experience it.
The Dual Flow of Awareness
By instructing us to turn our attention within and focus our attention and awareness there, he was demonstrating (and we could experience for ourselves) that our awareness flows in two basic directions—outward to the objects of the senses and engagement with thought activity, and inward to our essential nature that is beyond mind and sensory involvement.
When our attention flows steadily within, we experience our essence, our soul, which is no longer obscured by restless thought activity. We experience peace and can be open to the guidance and wisdom of the divine Self. This is yoga—the oneness of body, mind, soul, and Spirit. It is conscious oneness with the divine Self.
Yoga is the cessation of distraction.
Distraction: The Barrier to Stillness
Like most anyone who begins to meditate, we quickly observe that the mind is prone to distraction. So much so that we forget about our soul lives and what we are as spiritual beings. Prayer and meditation are remedies for that, but we often get distracted from applying the remedy!
Denise Levertov’s poem, Flickering Mind, speaks to this distraction and how it causes us to feel disconnected from the source of our life. We think God is absent or unapproachable, but that is not true. We have removed the connection ourselves by being distracted.
Lord, not you,
it is I who am absent…
I stop
to think about you, and my mind
at once
like a minnow darts away,
darts
into the shadows, into gleams that fret
unceasing over
the river's purling and passing.
Not for one second
will my self hold still, but wanders
anywhere,
everywhere it can turn. Not you,
it is I who am absent.
You are the stream, the fish, the light,
the pulsing shadow,
you the unchanging presence, in whom all
moves and changes.
How can I focus my flickering, perceive
at the fountain's heart
the sapphire I know is there?
The mind is wired for distraction. It is a survival mechanism. Our attention scans the environment for threats as well as the ongoing search for pleasure. Much like our ancient ancestors scanned the savannah for wild animals, so do we look out for our survival.
My husband used to tell me that's what he was doing with the TV remote as he scrolled through the channels—scanning the savannah for potential threats. That was a joke, but now not so much because daily, through the media, we experience an onslaught of either real or hyped threats of danger. Just like the highway patrol who try to get the ongoing traffic to move past an accident cannot keep the drivers from slowing down to look, so we cannot prevent our attention from being distracted. But we must. What???
Reclaim the Power of Your Attention
Learn how to reclaim the power of your attention through Kriya Yoga teachings. Discover how to focus and harness your attention for greater mindfulness and inner peace.
Attention as a Precious Resource
Our attention is one of the most valuable resources we possess. Oliver Burkeman, in his book 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, addresses our overfilled lives, our feelings about the press of time, and the scourge of distraction. He wrote:
Attention... just is life: your experience of being alive consists of nothing other than the sum of everything to which you pay attention. At the end of your life, looking back, whatever compelled your attention from moment to moment is simply what your life will have been. So when you pay attention to something you don't especially value, it's not an exaggeration to say you're paying with your life.
This highlights the profound truth that how and where we direct our attention ultimately defines the quality of our lives.
Redirecting Attention: High-Value Practices
Like a dog chasing a distraction, our minds are wired to chase after the next shiny object. But just as we can redirect a dog’s focus with high-value treats, we too can redirect our attention to high-value practices such as meditation, satsang, or spending unstructured time in nature.
This intentional redirection allows us to experience the peace and clarity that come from turning inward.
Faith: The Foundation of Focus
To consistently reclaim our attention and prioritize inner peace, a spiritual foundation is essential. Without it, the pull of distraction can easily derail us, even when we know what would benefit us most. This foundation is faith.
Faith as an Inner Aspiration
In the yoga tradition, faith is not based on belief. Rather, it is an acknowledgment of our innate soul yearning to realize the highest truth of our being. S. Radhakrishnan described it as:
"Faith is the aspiration of the soul to gain wisdom. It is the reflection in the empirical self of the wisdom that dwells in the deepest levels of our being."
Faith enables us to remember our true nature, even amidst life’s distractions, and helps us focus on the goal of spiritual awakening.
The Pull of the Soul's Yearning
The pull of the sense-driven mind toward distraction is ever-present, but the soul’s yearning for realization is equally persistent. This is our true nature. As the Bhagavad Gita states in chapter four, verse 39:
One with shraddha (faith) "directly sees, remains focused upon, and trusts that life is pervaded by divine purpose, and constantly remains focused upon that knowledge," valuing it above all else, quickly attains the ultimate state of balanced knowing of Parama Brahman (Ultimate Reality) .
That one quickly attains supreme peace. Imperturbable. Undistractable.
Building on a Strong Foundation
With faith and discernment that an intelligent power is running the universe, we are not so easily distracted or thrown off course. As Jesus said, don't build your house on sand (on conditions that change)—it won't withstand the storm. Build it on a rock, on a strong foundation. That foundation is faith imbued with conscious awareness.
With faith, we can reclaim our attention and make friends with uncertainty. Conditions come and go. Change is built into the fabric of nature. Be aware of conditions, but focus on your goal.
A Teacher’s Timeless Wisdom
During a visit to a CSE meditation group in Portland, a quote from my teacher, Roy Eugene Davis was displayed:
"Dedication to your spiritual path is your most important life purpose. When you are spiritually conscious, your clarified awareness benefits everyone. Avoid worry about world events. That which nurtures and maintains the world, and us, will continue to do it. Live wisely and skillfully while inwardly aware of your true nature."
This guidance encapsulates the essence of reclaiming attention, focusing on what matters, and living with faith in the divine flow of life.
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