When contemplating on Swami’s teachings, I always
wondered how can I follow at least one or two of them on a daily basis and see
how they work. I thought even if I follow a handful of them but follow them100%
without any compromise it would make Swami happy.
To implement this, first I identified one of my
weaknesses: my impulsiveness. I have the habit of doing things too fast. I
seriously needed to slow down my life. By being on the fast lane, I never
enjoyed the journey but was more concerned about reaching the destination. One
more disadvantage of my hurried living was that I was forgetting things, having
minor mishaps and being extremely absent-minded. I was quite perplexed and was
thinking how can I stop this and become slower and more organized.
A thought suddenly struck me about Swami’s
teachings about “Constant Integrated Awareness.” I have heard this phrase from
Swami directly in His innumerable discourses. I used to think and almost mock
at Him by saying it’s a very fancy jargon that He has invented! I was doing my
MBA at Parthy and had enough jargons to manage and remember. But at this
juncture when I was zooming in life I pondered about this teaching and
gradually began discovering its power. It dawned on me that it’s actually a
very very powerful phrase. The English language has amazing variety of words
for the same meaning and each word has its intensity and power but this phrase
has 3 powerful words and it started motivating me whenever I thought about it.
So before doing anything and almost on an hourly
basis I started telling myself about living with Constant Integrated Awareness.
This meant to me that I was going to be very aware of my surroundings and I
will be steady (not too slow) and will be very mindful of the actions I needed
to do and the best way to do it. Actually it a little difficult to express it
in words as it a very elaborate concept. I started enjoying the benefits of it
almost immediately, I did not forget anything, and I did things better, faster
and more efficiently. My memory also improved, I took lists from home and
memorized them instead of jotting every small thing down. Working with
computers dumbs us down to such an extent that we are too lazy to remember even
the smallest of things.
CIA has become an everyday part of my life and it
even improves my creativity and I try to think of solutions to complex
problems. That’s the challenge of life. Above all it gives me some satisfaction
that I am committed to at least one teaching of Swami and am trying to be
honest about following it.
(Prakash is a student of Swami who completed his B.Com,
MBA and PG Diploma in Culture and Philosophy from Sri Sathya Sai University. He
is a talented singer with the enthusiasm for Swami’s work. Prakash is currently
working at HP, Bangalore)
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