The Blind Man

Finally, I did it…

Today I kept my mobile at home and went for a walk…time to appreciate myself :)

At the same time want to share significant findings and experiences….

I was amused!! so felt like sharing this experience with you…

The first 30 minutes of my walk were fully occupied with some or other thoughts…

Saw a couple of familiar faces from our apartment strolling in the path…a small “hi” and “hello” and continued walking and again carried away with different thoughts and interpretations in mind…

Luckily mind was able to interpret some self-health facts :)…so started doing some brisk exercises alongside walking, like rotating my hands, swinging them left and right, shoulder rotation, and finally head rotation…etc …

My physical moments made me a little conscious because of the assumption that the ladies and gentlemen around and sitting on the stone bench were very curious about my actions…

As I mentioned these events continued for around 30 minutes, at some point suddenly something happened, and I started observing things near me like…there was a small kid's scooter lying on the ground, and one kid was holding a red and orange combination basketball, sound of bird and insects, saw leaves falling from the tree….I was feeling very present and mindful at that particular moment….a unique kind of feeling which I never felt before…

But it was not very easy since it was dark and close to 8:00 PM, but I tried doing it again… a guy passed by with Swiggy written on his T-shirt…. yellow flowers, and then orange flowers in a plant nearby…one of the yellow lights outside the clubhouse was tilted to right… 5 floors were there in a school outside of our apartment… there was a big plastic pipe kept outside the security room… the electric board of one of the camera units was open…and I kept walking observing and sensing things in and around me…

Sorry for the long list of items…but this continued for another 15 minutes, and I walked maybe around 10-12 rounds of my apartment.

I was not distracted by other thoughts when I was observing things around me, and the very IMPORTANT thing to mention is “I just observed it…. nothing much….no interpretation…. or calculations…or manipulations….:)”

I tried observing people around me as objects moving around and speaking to each other, doing some activities…. just objects and moments…did not want to get biased.

Not sure after reading so far you were able to figure out something…but I was really surprised to realize the feeling of MINDFULNESS, a consciousness, being present at that moment.

I feel most of the time in our life we live in either the past or future and very rarely do we kind of live in the present.

OK, the above comment is more of a philosophy now let me try to explain the science a bit…

“Daniel Kahneman” the author of the book “Thinking Fast & Slow,” says that our mind can be classified into two systems (System1 – Automatic) & (System2 – Manual)

In correlation to the above, author “Joseph Murphy” in his book “Power of Subconscious Mind” refers to these two states of mind as Sub-conscious and conscious mind.

According to my earlier statement, “living most of our life in either past or future” means, this is controlled by our subconscious mind or system 1/automatic system, which is like a mega computer or supercomputer performing all permutations and combinations creating intuitions, judgments, emotions, actions, etc…

And the result of this state is you already know…. we miss living in our present, being lively, mindful or whatever we call it…

That is why we feel like traveling to a different place or being in a new environment when we are exhausted, tired, bored, stressed, etc...

If you would have noticed a child or kid, they enjoy doing creepy or boring things why because they OBSERVE they are present in the moment, isn’t it?

Maybe that is why people often say to “bring out the child inside us”

So, if you are carried away with so many thoughts, when you feel you are lost, not present in that moment, being judgmental, biased, the very simple method to become mindful is to “OBSERVE.”

Just OBSERVE objects & and beautiful things around you and don’t let your sub-conscious (System1) interfere during that time :)

Just feel like “The Blind Man” getting the sight for the first time….

Thanks,

Sandeep Vasudevan