Focus on the mind before focusing on its focus

Suppose we were studying in a library and our neighbor repeatedly pointed our attention here and there, mostly towards unimportant things and only occasionally towards something worthwhile.

In due course of time, we would train ourselves to respond discerningly to that distracter. Instead of immediately focusing on whatever they wanted us to focus on, we would first focus on them, assess their mood and then decide whether to pay attention to whatever they were pointing to.

We need to adopt a similar strategy for dealing with our mind. The mind often wanders to various things, many of which are not important or valuable. If we naively let our attention go wherever the mind wants to go, we will find ourselves underusing our time, talent and energy. And such underuse is far from the sole result of the mind’s distractedness. In worse cases, it can even make us abuse our energy for self-defeating and self-destructive purposes.

Can the mind come up with some good ideas? It’s possible, occasionally. But that usually happens when the mind is situated in the mode of goodness, at least partially, and is capable of the sustained reflection necessary for assimilating, verbalizing and actualizing a worthwhile insight.

That’s why we need to evaluate the mind before deciding our course of action. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (06.26) urges us to restrain the mind whenever it wanders. Gita wisdom explains that we are at our core souls and we can realize our fullest potential for happiness in loving and serving Krishna. While we are engaged in purposeful service to Krishna, if the mind starts distracting us, we needn’t shift our attention to its object of interest. Instead, we can focus on the mind first, evaluate the mode influencing it and then decide whether it’s worthwhile to make its focus our focus.