What do people most regret at the end of life? Either not spending enough time with family and friends or spending too much time on inconsequential things. What it all boils down to is not protecting their life’s greatest asset— what they direct their attention to.

Sahaja is all about attention and attentional control. It’s the lifeblood of your existence. Our consciousness manifests as the power of our attention. And our attention gets subtler and begins to focus on better and higher things soon as we perceive any journey of self-improvement, let alone Sahaja meditation.

And something like Sahaja’s Self-Realization process elevates your attention to a higher plane where it becomes powerful, richer and self-regulating. We become constantly aware of where our attention is, how much of it we’re spending on what all the days of our lives. Even better, it helps us instantly identify things, situations, people and pursuits that will benefit us and take us to higher stages of maturity and evolution versus those that take us on the downward spiral.

Having the power to manage and control your attention also helps you manage your time and all other resources you have at your disposal.

If you haven’t already, you’ll realize some day that money is a means, not an end. Money offers you more opportunities to spend your time as you wish, but research shows that money offers diminishing returns to what it can do for you. In actuality, what money can do, and research proves, is its ability to buy you time through conveniences.

Everyone has 24 hours in a day, which seems like a lot when we’re young, but the truth is our time is limited. What enlightenment helps us realize is the more we sharpen the power of our attention, the more time and opportunities we have to experience joy and fulfillment.

What is Competing for Your Attention?

Thoughts. From the past and the future. And from the present depending on where we’re directing our attention. The simple formula to maximize time and have a high-quality life is to be able to control and even eliminate these thoughts from the past and future. And to develop the power to capture our attention, separate it from our thoughts and direct it towards beneficial things and situations.

Meditation is one way to help you dilute time to expand it beyond what most other people get out of the same quantity. And it doesn’t have to be as hard as it sounds. In reality, the more you are in Sahaja’s state of Thoughtless Awareness, the more you go beyond the dimensions of time.

One of the biggest problems today is while our time and attention is increasingly valuable, the world is conspiring to steal away as much of it as possible. For example, how many times have you checked your Twitter feed and an hour or more later, realize you wasted your precious time?

Advertising is all about enticing your attention to things which companies want you to buy. Don’t we know by now that politicians rule by creating distractions and sensationalism?

The internet and technology offer everyone around the globe the same or similar opportunities, a positive result for everyone. But it doesn’t come without costs. Smartphone and social media addictions are real as is technology-induced stress.

How can You Get Complete Control of your Attention?

Attentional control is central to the practice of Sahaja meditation. We’ve written extensively about this and dedicated an entire section to it. But it boils down to 3 key things –

1. Elevating Your Attention to A Higher State or Plane of Consciousness

Sahaja’s Thoughtless Awareness automatically gives you a fighting advantage over thoughts that cloud your attention – on this higher plane, thoughts cannot exist. And so regular practice of meditation can help you retake control of your attention. Longer term impacts show that it positively alters our brain and degree of alertness. Our brains actually get bigger due to regular meditation, research shows, leading to improved ability to process more information.

2. Reduction of Attentional Blink Deficit and Improved Attentional Control

Meditation changes the way our brain allocates mental resources. We are able to continuously adapt and improve our attentional skills to almost intuitively control and manage sensory input handed or presented to us. In this world where we’re continually bombarded by inputs from different directions, this can make a great difference. Experienced meditators can switch regions of the brain on and off to achieve better attentional control.

3. Improved Awareness and Use of the Attention to Focus on the Present

Meditation helps release the distracting sensory events. In simple terms, the quality of our attention is much better because the not so good and bad things in our attention can be shut out to improve focus on what’s important and what’s happening in the present. Not only this, but our attentional sensitivity increases and we are able to appreciate things in a nuanced manner or things that are subtle that we could not earlier.

Aside from meditation, there are other things that can help improve our attention and recapture the time we lose.

Get Your Sleep and Rest

Even if you are using meditation to supercharge and turbocharge your brain and attention and even if you are the busiest and most important person in the world, sleep and rest in general go a very long way in restoring balance in your body. When you find yourself too distracted or unable to focus, this may just be the best solution. The good news also is that Meditation can help improve the quality of sleep, so you get a double dose of attention freshness when you meditate and also get the rest you need.

Your quality of life is at stake. Being careful and mindful about how you control your attention and how you’re using your time has the power to make you appreciate the little things that others overlook in life. And making better use of the attention you have helps you lead a fruitful and fulfilling life that bypasses the regret and limitations of death others may experience.

Sahaja meditation allows you to find happiness, productivity, presence, and fulfillment by exercising control of where you direct your attention. Although technology can be helpful, you need to practice the right habits to take control of your time and your quality of life. And meditation is the right step towards protecting and cultivating your best use of the faculties you have.