You’ve just finished a wonderfully peaceful meditation, opened your eyes and suddenly think, what about the rest of my day? I’ve got another 12 hours of relentless bombardment by modern life and how do I take some of this feeling with me? This is a question that all of us who meditate and live in the hustle and bustle of modern life often ask ourselves and find ourselves without a ready solution.

The answer lies in the use of our attention, or our awareness itself. When we practice Sahaja meditation our attention is drawn within ourselves and becomes very focused and concentrated upon our inner energy as we establish the state of thoughtless awareness. As we begin to engage in our normal active day, through the medium of our eyes we very rapidly look at a myriad of things that attract and scatter our attention and then generate random thoughts about everything we are seeing.

This fracturing of our attention is a symptom of how we use our awareness and has the unfortunate byproduct of endless and unnecessary thought and wasted energy. The tendency to absorb unwanted negative energy is also an unintended side effect of this behavior. If we are able to keep our attention within and upon our inner energy despite being engaged in the activity, this process can be circumvented and we can remain more self-contained and less reactive to the world around us.

It all starts with our eyes and how we use them. Ideally, we would keep our gaze steady and in front of us, without swiveling the head from side to side and trying to take in every person, retail outlet, or sign competing for our attention. If we then place our attention on our inner energy, preferably at the top of the head at the crown of the subtle system while engaging in other activity, we can discover a new level of clarity and focus in whatever we choose to undertake. An added benefit is that when we attempt to return to a state of meditation later on, there is less to undo to get there.

Of course, this takes a bit of practice and remembering to actually attempt it, but if you do I am sure that you will see results and gradually experience a settling of the attention that is quite refreshing. The more we are able to reside in this more meditative state the easier our daily journey through life will become.