Secret of Concentration by Swami Sarvapriyananda (PART_3)

The secret of Concentration by Swami Sarvapriyananda (PART_3)

Sri Ramakrishna

you cannot understand what each person is saying if you try to listen and understand the reason is at sixty bits per second three people speaking to you would be 180 bits which are beyond human capacity to absorb and assimilate therefore he says that this capacity this is what we have from moment to moment second to second this is the cognitive capacity each of us has approximately doesn't take under 26 bits as a given figure it might be a hundred fifty it might be a hundred 

I mean it depends on how he's done the research but the principle is we have a very limited bandwidth okay keep this in mind so when in a school the teacher shouts at the students pay attention it's literally true each student has 126 bits per second which he or

Sri Ramakrishna

she can divide among the teacher and the classmates and many other things in the environment so when the teacher says pay attention he or she wants more of your 126 bits per second this is the basic idea what is concentration then defined by positive psychology by SIG's in behind concentration is very simple he says how much of that 126 bits per the second which you are I have how much of that am

 I able to give to the object of concentration 126 bits how much of that can I give to the object of concentration can I give 80 9100 you can't give Altura 126 bits because at least you must be aware of your own existence you're breathing you're aware of the environment to some basic environmental awareness is always there so maybe 100 110 bits you can give to the object of concentration if you can do that's perfect concentration now let's go ahead he has studied the features of the flow and he comes to certain characteristics of flow remember in the state of concentration deep concentration on 

Sri Ramakrishna

The objects of concentration it may be studying you may be playing you may be listening to music or singing or whatever any activity which absorbs an overwhelming part of that 126 bits per second he says it requires a challenging activity and where there must be some skills which you have developed over the years so he gives an example that the conductor who we spoke about composing music he says my hands move by themselves inflow so that hands move by themselves requires years and years of dedicated practice if you are I try to do that our hands will not move by themselves nothing will happen so it requires building up a lot of practice a high level of skill then you challenge that skill and flow will come to a difficult activity for which you are prepared that can lead to flow it comes to players it comes to athletes it comes to scholars when you're doing research in the lab when you're studying in the lab in the library so that is flow then he says merging of action and awareness this is very important the work which you are doing or the game which was playing whatever and your consciousness they seem to be fully merged and you know submerged in that swami Vivekananda here says when one works with concentration losing all consciousness of oneself the work that is done will be infinitely better he says if the painter losing the consciousness of his ego becomes completely immersed in his painting he will be able to produce masterpieces one thing we have all noticed and heard about and in this institute, you must be seeing this on a daily basis the scientist is the scholar who gets so absorbed in his or her work seems to forget about himself or herself here we have all heard the stories of the mad scientist who is working in a laboratory and forgets to eat and forgets to go home we have this Swami who is a mathematician was an alumnus of IIT Kanpur he got the Pentagon award last year he's a monk in the order and he tells me stories of well-known mathematicians sometimes there was this Norbert Weiner or Winer mathematician who it seems that he had changed his apartment one day and he went to the college he taught University was teaching or doing research and we came back and he had forgotten where they had they had shifted to from one apartment to another apartment the family had shifted but he had forgotten where they had gone to so he came back to his old apartment he's standing there he knew that you know we have shifted but where we went to that new the apartment is forgotten then he saw a little girl standing in front of the apartment and he said my dear do you know where these people who is to stay here which apartment they have shifted to do you know and the little girl said yes daddy mommy knew you would forget so she has sent me too so not only has forgotten the apartment is forgotten his the daughter also that happens because out of that 126 bits such a great the amount is absorbed in the work that everything else is blanked out it's forgotten and that's why you know when you are studying use many of you study with great concentration for long periods of time you forget that you're exhausted you forget that you know you have not eaten the reason is that 126 bits is not enough to accommodate the object which you are focusing it on and your personal discomfort also there's no space left over for that you are not aware of it afterward, when you finish you will feel exhausted or hungry and tired and so and so forth so merging of your small consciousness it's forgotten because simply there's no space to be aware I am hungry time for time to go and eat