Meditation shifts your attention back to the spiritual.
Day to day we are immersed in our physical world. The physical world is really just a game, which we call “life”. Physical world, the real world, life, and the physical game are all used interchangeably below.
When we meditate, by removing our focus from the physical game, we reconnect with the higher power that exists beyond the physical world.
Some people may refer to this higher power as God, some call it the source, and others call it the spirit or the soul. There are many words people use for this higher power. These words are only approximations, attempting to describe the same thing.
Microcosms
The physical game we play in our everyday lives is a virtual microcosm within that higher connection that we are all part of. The physical game tends to steal our focus from the higher power.
Within our physical world, we also have virtual microcosm’s that can distract us from real life. Video games and scrolling on social media are microcosms that tend to remove your focus from the real world.
And the internet, our 9-5 computer jobs, movies and entertainment are also microcosms within the physical game that distract us from it.
Just like these virtual microcosms can remove our attention from the real world, our own physical reality steals our attention with so much completeness, that most of us forget about the higher power to which we are all connected.
These microcosm’s might look something like the below representation:
The key to presence
The key to being more present at any level of microcosm is to put your attention towards endeavors that support it.
- We become what we think about.
- You reap what you sow.
- A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.
- A man is what he thinks about all day long.
- Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
Sound familiar? Some great, dead philosophers said most of those bullet points above. They sure were consistent despite separation by time and place.
For example, woodworking and pottery are two endeavors whose outputs directly affect the physical game. Both woodworking and pottery involve creating something real, tangible, and physical which other people can interact and connect with in a physical way. You can pour coffee into a pottery mug, and place it on top of a wooden table, and drink the coffee with your physical body. You can sell or gift the outputs of both woodworking and pottery to other people, and they can use them in the physical microcosm to play cards or eat dinner or give as a wedding gift. By putting your attention into pottery and woodworking, you are enhancing your presence in the physical world.
Activities within the physical world can also support the microcosms above and below the physical world (the spiritual and the virtual).
For example, love supports the spiritual, but lust does not. And often, many distractions exist within the virtual that don’t support the physical.
What happens when our attention is on the virtual?
Activities within the virtual world can support the physical world, but not always. You can waste a lot of attention in the virtual microcosm if you aren’t careful.
Internet websites, smartphone apps, and jobs in IT all support the virtual microcosm. The internet has become a true virtual world.
Doom scrolling and video gaming tend to be a distraction and a waste of attention. There are of course exceptions, for example, you could play video games with others in the real world, to stay connected and talk to your friends.
Many people (many white collar workers and IT / computer folks) spend much of their career in the virtual world. Of course, their jobs do support the physical reality because it lets them earn money to buy groceries and pay their rent. But I think your attention is still affected if you work one of these jobs (I do).
That’s why I always find value in meditation. I level-sets my outlook on life, helps me to feel truly thankful for everything around me, and reminds me that there is something greater than ourselves that we don’t quite understand.
Even if the microcosm representation isn’t totally accurate, meditating with these ideas in my head helps to avoid distraction, connect to the higher power, and avoid getting immersed in these dopamine inducing virtual outlets like social media and television.
Further watching:
- Christian Sundberg on EvolutionFM podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ojLZTWfbtgv6Yh0AWvSV9?si=e57e3695f6a14b38
- Andy Weir’s “The Egg” short story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI
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