Do you find it hard to concentrate?
You can concentrate on 2 hour movie but you can’t concentrate on fluid mechanics for 20 minutes. Have you ever thought why? Don’t cheat yourself by saying it takes effort to study science. On an outer level, it may sound right but it is not right on a subtle level.
When something is appealing and makes you interested, you concentrate without any effort or your concentration is spontaneous. But if you are not interested, you lose it. Right now I am feverish. I was just lying in bed. I am tired and don’t have the energy to do something but a thought of writing this topic popped up. Because I am interested in writing, I am writing right now. How did this happen even though I have a fever? Because I am interested.
Whenever you find it hard to concentrate, ask yourself “Am I interested in this”. If not, that’s why it is hard to concentrate.So you can ask me, how to concentrate when not interested. To concentrate on not interested things is to take time to invest in it and with time, you develop some ability to concentrate or you find parts which interest you.
So the second question comes, Why I am interested in one topic not the other? It is because you have impressions of it. Impression means you have done many actions related to that which is in your memory which created desire. If you are happy with what you are interested in and it is healthy for you, go on unless remove the impressions by meditating. Meditation simply means witnessing thoughts and emotions just as they are. It means you don’t reply to a thought, you don’t analyze, judge, comment, or whatever. Just be with it.
Most people think differently about meditation and they think people who meditate are deaf, weird, and boring. But it is not. The reason they find people who meditate boring is that people who meditate don’t argue and give food for the mind. So meditation simply means just being a witness to thoughts and feelings without doing anything.
