As satsang was about to start, Sri Mahaprabu noticed a disciple’s attention drifting and pointed it out to him. Mahaprabu spoke about this.

Attention

A single thought can quickly multiply into so many thoughts and drag you along. We have to be alert, attentive. Attention is inbuilt and ever-present. It is Consciousness, but for our understanding let us call it Attention. Even in sleep when you dream and wake up, something tells you that there was a dream and also tells you what kind of dream it was. That something is Attention. It is watchful of the dream even though your body and world did not exist while you were sleeping. It is present 24×7. Similarly, so many people in the world sleep on a small cot. They toss and turn throughout the night, without their knowledge, yet they don’t fall off the cot. Something is making sure. That something is Attention. Another example is that of a mother taking an afternoon nap near her baby who is sleeping in the cradle. A lot of noise will be around her. Husband watching a cricket match, children running around, and construction noise outside. With all that, she will be sleeping soundly. And yet, at the slightest sneeze or sound from the baby, she will instantly wake up. There is a portion of Attention that is kept even in that deep sleep. Attention exists 24 hours.

Love and attention

If you open up the human body and separate out the flesh and bones (physical body), you will find that separate from this, there is this Attention (Gavanam or Consciousness). There is also Love (Anbu). When you are attentive, for example while reading a book or while locking the door as you leave the house, there need not be Love in that attention. While cooking you know when exactly to add salt, vs. when to add sugar. There is no Love in that attention. So, it does not mean that whenever Attention is outward, Love should accompany it, but whenever Love comes from us, Attention will be there. You hug someone with love. You are aware of who you are hugging. A girl out of true love will kiss her brother, sister, and her parents on the cheek or forehead, but when it is her husband, the kiss is on the lip. See how well that attention is working. So whenever Love comes out, Attention follows but when Attention is coming out, Love need not come out. So, there are 2 portions. One is the physical: flesh & bones. The other has no name and form but is a mixture of Love and Attention.

How do we even know we have Love? Only because of Attention. Since Attention is ever-present. See, without Attention, Love would have been there, but we won’t know what it would be like. Attention is always functioning. Even this is known to us because of Attention.

We are searching for Love

Even though there is unlimited Love in us, we are not showing or showering love 24 hours. It can come out but it doesn’t. We don’t create the situations to bring it out. We also don’t have situations that favor it. Vasanas, likes, and dislikes interfere, make our attention focused on them and prevent our Love from coming out. If you made the effort and went beyond all this, then this unconditional unlimited Love will flow continuously as a jiva nadhi, a river of life filled with Attention and Love. This is what we are all actually yearning for. To reconnect with our own jiva nadhi. This yearning will never be quenched until you merge with this ever-flowing river inside you. Till then you will be looking for it outside. In relationships and things. For some time the relationship will appear to give you that Love. But after some time things start to sour, and when you sense that Love is not coming from that relationship you will start to yearn for it again. Like this you take on many, many births, yearning and searching for Love. It never ends. Because you are looking for borrowed love. Love from outside. That borrowed Love is not the same as the ever-flowing river inside you. It won’t sustain.

Give. Don’t Yearn

Instead, if you put in all your effort in bringing out the Love that is already inside you then one day or the other the yearning will totally end. So instead of YEARNING for Love outside, we need to change our mindset to GIVING Love. We have that channel, that madai (dam) of Love. Instead of opening our own dam, we are running here and there trying to open so many other madais like a madayan! (fool).

So when we open up the spring of Love that is inside us, Attention will always accompany it. And the beautiful thing is that the first person to quench this thirst from this spring is us. We are first saturated and then others are. It is for this saturation that we are constantly looking for. We have had it, but we have lost it and have been searching ever since. Like a dog that has been separated from its owner by several kilometers will continuously use its powerful smell ability to find the route to its owner and eventually reaches him. See how many wrong routes it would have tried and finally come to the right way. As it nears the destination, imagine how intensely, how fast it would have run. This actually happened with a dog in the Rest house which came back after a separation of over 10 km. If this is possible for a dog, a more evolved being like a human definitely can reach his home.

We fell into this trap

At one point we were living as an ever-loving, ever-attentive being, flowing vibrantly. Somewhere we fell into this pothole, this trap, this dead body. Since then IT has been struggling, pulsating, (thudippu) pushing the boundaries of the body, and trying to come out of its death trap. The body is a hindrance, a torture to this spring of Love that had been flowing. That feeling of that ever-flowing love is the smell that the dog used to find its owner. The spring of Love keeps trying to find its home and not be limited to this body. That’s why even someone who has had a loving nature for a long time can one day become frustrated and hateful (veruppu), or simply bored, tired of it (salippu). That Love he had in the beginning for someone or something has weakened. Now he is just hanging on just as a duty.

In all of us, that same jiva nadhi (river of live, love) is running. So it keeps shaking us, as it is not its nature to be trapped in the body. You can now see why relationships are fragile. So many oaths are taken, I will love you till death do us apart. But they don’t last. That spring won’t let you. Because it has become trapped in a small container called the body and is unable to flow freely as it did.

It is like taking a fish that is used to the deep, limitless ocean and putting it in a big pot or tank, which is then placed back in the ocean! Yes, it has water in the pot too but the freedom that it had in the ocean will constantly be missed by the fish. Something is missing. I don’t know what it is. That ‘something is missed’ feeling will continuously disturb it. No matter what you do, clean the tank, show it all the love, feed it, that feeling of missing something will always be there with the fish. But if you take it to the ocean and set it free, aha… imagine its joy. Because it no longer feels the suffering of the limitation it was constantly feeling. This is the plight of man. You might think, see how much I took care of that fish, it has no gratitude, etc. This is what is happening daily with us. Husband disappointed by wife, wife by husband, etc. The fish escaped to the ocean. But since you are bound by the world, there is no escape. So you keep complaining, keep yearning.

In all of us there is the ‘ocean-fish’. It is living in a limited pot. It is suffering, yearning for the ocean. If it finds its way to the ocean, its joy is unbound. The crocodile that shows the fish trapped in the tank, the way to reach the ocean, is the Guru.

We continuously crave for Love. But the secret is that the more we give Love, the less the craving becomes. When we give Love, it feels good to us. Look at nature. Look at the Sun. It gives light and heat continuously. Does it do it for itself? For the sun? No. It totally gives for others. And it does not mind whether you notice or not. Mahaprabu asked us if we noticed the sun today, did we look at it, and thank it. How many people in the world notice the sun and thank it daily? Hardly any. But it does not stop giving. And you did not create the Sun. Your father or grandfather did not. It was created by the Creator before you arrived on this earth. All this has been created for you. Imagine how much Love that Creator has!

What to do?

If you look at the example of the fish closely, you will see that in reality the fish has not been moved to a small tank. It is still in the ocean. But someone, something has given it the wrong idea that it is limited to a small circle, a small area in the ocean. This idea has been implanted so strongly, that it cannot ever imagine that it has the whole ocean for itself. It suffers endlessly, thinking it is so limited to this dirty small patch. So what separates the fish from the vast ocean? Just one thought. Imagine how powerful that thought must be. Therefore tremendous work must be done in order to get rid of it.

Everything must be dropped, given second priority to this task. First we need to withdraw attention from the body. I am not the body, so its needs, its sufferings, and its joys are no way connected to me. Keep on bringing back the Attention inward. Don’t squander it on the body. This itself is so hard. Then you need to disassociate from the World. So many traps are there and they are continuous. You have to disconnect as much as possible. Limit the connection only to the most essential. Keep on bringing back the attention inward. Don’t squander it on the world. It will drag you away. Whenever the Attention begins to drift, be alert and bring it back inward. Otherwise it will multiply so fast that you won’t know when you’ve been dragged out totally.

Be like the crane, the stork that is looking for the big fish. It waits on the banks of the river patiently, with tremendous attention. Not even a single movement. Even if many small fish go by it, the crane waits. A big fish may come near, but it will wait until that fish is within its reach. It will not be distracted by anything. Even though one doesn’t realize he is Atma, he is Atma. This will be learned when you are totally still. Our distractions come from the world, and from within us. It is like trying to keep the surface of the water still to see the reflection of the moon, but you are continuously throwing rocks from the outside. Will it ever be still? When you stop and the water starts to settle down, so many frogs (your thoughts, memories, imaginations) from inside the pond are trying to jump out. The water is never still. Don’t keep throwing stones in or letting the frogs jump out if you want the water to be still.

Being in Surrender is the best way. Surrender to whom? To a living Jnani. When you surrender to God or to a dead Jnani it is highly possible that your mind is cheating you. It is entirely a one-way communication. Your mind will create a comfort zone. You go to the ashram or temple regularly, do a few routines and believe you are in Surrender. The surrender and its boundaries are set by you! A dead master will not demand anything. But with a real living Master, he will demand the surrender. He knows whether you are in surrender or not and will keep pointing out whenever you are not, whenever you are being cheated by your mind. And since a real Master is Love, Attention personified, just being in his presence will have its effect on you over time. You will slow down naturally. He knows where the blocks are in you and creates situations for them to be destroyed. Then his love flows into you. His flow makes the flow happen in you. It will happen. All you have to do is to be in complete Surrender. Nothing else.

Devotion, Bhakti can help tremendously here. Keep on thanking the creator. Before you sit for Meditation immerse yourself in Irai Bhakthi or Guru Bhakti (devotion to God, Guru). Let that be the foundation. Then it will turn into Dhyanam.