These days, children have replaced a sense of wonder for life with “www”. They know the whole universe before they are six. But if you look at scientists, they are more freaked out than ever—they don’t know which direction to go because wherever they look, it all looks deeper than it ever was. Do you know just on your facial skin, there are billions of organisms right now? As we look closer at life, wonder will just explode in you.
Today, modern science has done a phenomenal amount of exploration. They have gone into all kinds of things that we would have never thought possible. For example, they are telling you there are over a hundred billion galaxies—not stars but galaxies. As you explore, as you come to know, the wonder will increase because you realise the nature of the existence.
A sense of wonder is gone in people today because what we call knowledge are stupid conclusions about life. Today, people are carrying their attention deficit like a qualification. Anything in this existence will yield to you only if you pay substantial attention to it. But people have become such that they can’t pay attention to anything. In this condition, there will be no wonder, only conclusions in your head.
There are only monologues going on in your head; there is no perception. If there is perception, all the noise in your head will just stop. If you are looking at something absolutely beautiful and engaging, everything stops.
This is why people enjoy cinema: you switch off the lights and they are focused on the film for those 90 minutes. Their usual monologues are gone —something else is happening.
They don’t know what is going to happen next, and that is what keeps their attention. But the important thing is their attention is engaged continuously, which makes them feel something has happened to them on that day, going to the cinema hall. What is playing on the screen is instrumental in grabbing their attention, but it is the continuous attention that makes the experience what it is. This is a rudimentary form of meditation which is called dharana.
Every school should bring in a dimension that requires a child to pay attention to something continuously. It could be music; it could be dance or sport. You cannot do music, dance or sport unless you pay attention to it.
But you can pass an examination without attention. If you just do so much as make children walk in the forest in the darkness, without torches, without cell phones, without anything, in a protected atmosphere, you will see that their ability to pay attention and their sense of wonder will explode. But we are making them physically incapable of these things. Just sitting in front of the computer is making them physically incapable. When something hurts physically, they will protest; they will not do anything.
This is something that parents must take care of. Bringing up your child does not mean just sending him to school so that he gets marks and grades and all that stuff. In body and mind, your child should develop his full capabilities. That is when success will manifest in his or her life. When a child grows up with a deep sense of wonder, life will be exploratory and hence exuberant.
Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, a bestselling author and poet. He has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan in 2017. Isha.sadhguru.org