Src: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O81754/krishna-painting-unknown/
“In his seminal work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Csíkszentmihályi outlines his theory that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow— a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove. The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what he is doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterized by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill—and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored.”
If you read Gita, Shri Krishna talks about this flow at greater detail. Yog and Yogi. Yogi lives entire remaining life (Life after realization) with this feeling, a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill.
What is the way suggested by Shri Krishna by demonstrating in his life?
Play. Take life as a play. Purposelessness of mundane life to realize real purpose of life. Play activities don’t seem to have any survival value. They don’t help in getting money or food. They are not done for their practical value. Play is done for its own sake.
And how do we realize this truth that life is a divine play?
You play! Yes, spend everyday sometime to play sports. Play for the sake of fulfillment. Not for win, not for prestige, not for medal but to experience divine play for few seconds. When we are fully engaged in play, we lose a sense of the passage of time. We also experience diminished consciousness of self. We stop worrying about whether we look good or awkward, smart or stupid. We stop thinking about the fact that we are thinking. Like you go in to dream while in dream as described in movie Inception. Life is play and to realize it, you play sports everyday. Dream withing dream.
Playing everyday helps more than doing intellectual analysis here 🙂. Go play. Play for at least 45 minutes daily. And you don’t need company for it! Rush to playground and play!
Picture shows Bal Krishna playing Hockey with cowherd friends. Walk the talk. Demonstrate. This is one of my fav pictures.
Dear MARUT
Greetings.
It has been a ‘great’ knowledge sharing by you, caring for our ‘Health’ & the ‘eco-system’ surrounding it. !
Please do let us know if you also deliver lecture / interactive series on these aspects / themes. Details will help us to connect. Regards Ashok Meda
Dhanyawad Ashok ji. Lectures are too early for me as I am still in my learning and experimenting journey. I shall let you know if anything like that comes up in near future from my side.