By Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar | Posted: September 13, 2019
Someone asks the following question to Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: “What is inside us, which asks or seeks for attention from other people? Is it our ego which takes us away from simplicity? I love being sahaj (natural), but as soon as I step out of the ashram it starts fading away. How to maintain that?”
Attention brings energy. When a mother attends to her baby, the baby feels stronger. With a mother’s attention, the baby grows, not just by food. If you keep a baby in an incubator for too long it isn’t going to be able to grow. For some time, in an emergency, incubators help, but later on the baby needs the biorhythm or bioenergy of the mother and father. So, as a child, you got energy from attention. And when you grow up, then you get attention from other people around you.
Unless and until you turn inward, find inner strength, and realize you are the source of energy, and you don’t need energy from the attention of others, you’ll keep seeking attention, because it’s like food for your consciousness. It’s a sort of nourishment for your mind, your ego. Your ego needs that nourishment from others.
But if you’re centered, if you’re on your feet, if you’re on the spiritual path, you’ll see that seeking attention from others simply dissipates, withers away. You might have noticed this happening to you. Just imagine, before you started Sudarshan Kriya and meditation, what was the state of your mind? Your mind was looking outside, saying, “Oh, what attention is he going to give me?”
Either you’re seeking attention or you’re scared of attention. If attention has been uncomfortable for you, you become shy and closed up. If you have received a lot of critical attention, you shrink. You withdraw from that. Somewhere, there’s a fear of being insulted, hurt. Or, if you have experienced positive attention, you crave it because it makes you feel good. But when you’re on the spiritual path, you’ll find that both hesitation about attention and wanting attention from someone else simply vanish. It may take a little while to vanish, but it does reduce. Just turn back and see how much you were seeking attention before, but now, you don’t care! Right? That’s maturity.
A small baby needs someone to hold and make them walk, but when you grow up, you walk yourself! You don’t want someone else to hold you to walk. You’ll run. In the same way, seeking attention is a normal, natural phenomenon, but as maturity dawns in you, this will disappear.
