Now, I’ve already shared with you that the most important thing in understanding the mind is understanding that there is a clear separation between awareness and mind. Once you’ve understood that you are not the mind but rather you are pure awareness moving through different areas of the mind, then the next step is to control where awareness goes. The first step in doing this is bringing awareness to attention.
Let me give you an example to clearly explain what I mean by this. Your brother is sitting on the couch watching a movie on TV. It is a really good movie and his awareness is totally absorbed in what is going on in the movie. His awareness is identified with what it is aware of — in this case, the movie. Now, in order to bring his awareness to attention, you would need to detach it from what it is aware of, which is the movie. So you call out his name loudly, “Anand!” His awareness detaches from the movie at the sound of his name and he turns to face you. You have now captured the attention of his awareness. You have brought his awareness to attention. Once you have brought his awareness to attention, you can then move it to where you want it to go — should he give you permission to do so. But the first step is bringing his awareness to attention.
