Whatever power we have to do anything depends on our foundational power to focus. For example, a batsman may have phenomenal talent, but if he becomes distracted while batting, he will miss the line of the ball and find himself clean bowled. In every field, tapping one’s power requires focus. Distraction disempowers.

What causes distraction? External distractors and inner distractibility.

Externally, various worldly objects may divert our attention. Though we can try to remove such distractors, we can’t always remove them entirely. We need to push them to the background of our awareness by our determination to focus.

But such determination is deteriorated by our inner distractibility. We become distractible in proportion to our attachments. For example, if we have become hooked to social media, then while we are working on an important project on a computer, the urge to check the latest Facebook updates may push us. And by just one click, we may enter into and get lost in a endlessly entangling digital universe. Here, the distractors don’t come to us – our distractibility takes us to them. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (16.16) states that the consciousness of the attached gets distracted in myriad ways.

When we understand that distraction is a great power-drainer and concentration is a great power, we strengthen our determination to focus. A powerful way to boost determination is practicing bhakti-yoga. Such practice connects us with the supreme reality, Krishna, whose presence purges our inner world of the impressions that make us distractible. The more we thus concentrate on Krishna during our bhakti practice, the more we realize how relishable absorption in Krishna is and the more we develop the habit and the taste for absorption.

When this habit of absorption carries over to other walks of our life, we become empowered to tap our God-given gifts more effectively.

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