This is a letter I wrote to a young friend. He reached out to me, sharing his struggles. He has high dreams in the film industry; he knows that reading and serious film viewing, along with technical training, are important for his future in that career. But he can’t concentrate on anything. He idles away his time watching short videos on YouTube and social media. He feels he needs the help of a Guru to come out of it.
Dear friend,
Your problem is not the lack of a teacher. Your problem is something you can solve on your own.
Let me put it this way. You have big dreams. But you have not been able to prepare yourself to go toward them. Your inability to focus and take action is to blame for this. As a result, you are filled with fear about the future. Right?
The solution lies in acquiring the practice of concentrating and acting. You only need to think about how to achieve it now. The external world is not the cause of this. No help will come from outside. You are completely responsible for it.
What can you do? One can engage in basic practices such as meditation and yoga. They are very helpful. We offer three sessions of meditation and yoga. Guru Soundar (yoga), Thillai Senthilprabhu (modern meditation), Amalan Stanley (vipassana). These teachers teach methods to awaken the mind and train it to concentrate. These teachers are also excellent personal guides.
However, we must do these exercises on our own. Teachers can provide assistance for this task. If we don’t consistently perform these exercises, they will be of no use.
Here are some achievable methods or conditions.
We should ensure that our daily routine is at least somewhat regular. There should be a routine in our activities from the time we wake up in the morning to the time we go to bed. Disorganization is the primary basis of distraction. What happens on an unplanned day is that sometimes activities pile up. Sometimes free time stretches out. We often become distracted during our free time and involved in futile entertainment. This habit becomes ingrained in us, making it difficult to break.
B. There should not be idle time. We should plan our days accordingly. Immersion in activity is the way to learn concentration. Boredom, emptiness, and loneliness are what drive us towards idle activities.
We should completely avoid external environments that distract us from action. Social media, Youtube, and idle chat. Often, it’s our friends’ idle chatter that leads us to distractions. We often believe that without those friends, we would be alone. That is not true. They are the germs that destroy us. If we concentrate on action and achieve basic successes, our real friends will come.
We should surround ourselves with individuals who closely align with the work we are undertaking. We should surround ourselves with individuals who share a personal quest for life. People who lead us to action. Such a circle can be small. They themselves will make us active.
We should perform a specific work at a specified time and place. This particular place and time foster an environment conducive to concentration and creativity. Even if you can’t perform the work properly, you should strive to do it every day at that exact time.
Concentrating on the action requires continuous practice. You have to do it. The only way we can practice is by doing it fiercely and with full force.
A person who prepares himself with complete ferocity never fails in vain. Although he may not achieve his goals, somehow he will win in his own field.
jeyamohan
