I went to a yoga workshop last weekend that was on the practice of trataka – the practice of steady gazing. The practice involves gazing at an image, object or candle flame until your eyes begin to get tired or tear, then closing your eyes and gazing at the after-image, which remains for some time in the dark space behind your closed eyelids – the same space in which we see our dreams and imagination. It seems simple, but like many yogic practices it is actually quite difficult to do with focus and control. Your attention wanders, the after-image fades in and out of your vision or wanders from side to side. Your body becomes restless and your mind becomes filled with thoughts that snake along like brambles on the side of the road.
The instructor’s remarks on the practice really got me thinking about focus. In order to do something we need to be able to visualize ourselves actually doing it. If we cannot imagine something, we cannot make it happen in the world. And so if we want to achieve things in our life, we must first be able to imagine it, and then we must be able to hang on to that idea in our mind and focus on it while the rest of life goes on around us. We must be able to cling fast to that goal amidst the crashing waves. So the first step to manifesting positive change is visualising that change and keeping the visualisation steady and strong in our mind.
In the practice of Trataka, you must choose a single point in your image to focus on. If gazing at a candle flame, you focus on the end of the wick. You cannot gaze at both the end of the wick and the tip of the flame at the same time. It is impossible. True focus necessitates a single point on which attention is directed.
Naturally, this got me thinking about my own focus in life. Where am I gazing? In what direction do I want to travel? What do I want to manifest in my life? I realized, not for the first time, that I am lacking a single point of focus. It is true that mothering has become a goal towards which a lot of my energy is being directed, but at the same time I am still letting my mind wander off towards a million other potential goals. All of this energy that could be focused into a strong beam is being refracted and dissapated.
I need to make a choice about my direction in life, I need to choose a single point of focus and gaze steadily there. What do I want to be doing in five years? ten? fifteen?
Do you have a single point of focus? What is it?

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