Unwavering Focus | Dandapani | TEDxReno 

stop scrolling through comments and concentrate on the video!

"imagine if you train to distract yourself 6hours a day, 6 days a week, after a year... what are you going to be good at?" this hit me hard! Damn!

How to concentrate 1. Do one thing at a time 2. Practice it 3. Finish what you started 4. Understand the mind, learn how mind works. Once you know how the mind works you can control it and once you can control it you can focus it

If you are watching this not out of mere curiosity or entertainment but have actually recognised personal distraction and really intend to change, I wish you all the best, You are among the very few who have recognised it, let alone change. Edit 1 - I love all of you. Wish you the best. Let us beat distraction together. Edit 2- It helped me secure wonderful marks in school to achieve admission in a very decent college and thereafter, I am now, a successful student of law. Hope you do well too!

*life is a manifestation of where your energy is flowing*

I watched this video around Jan 2018 just after graduating from my undergrad, i took an action and started concentrating. By October 2019 I started consulting as a technical Advisor for DFID, OPM UK, IMF, Uganda Revenue Authority, ..... etc. The only thing i can say it works and thank you.

Hinduism and Indian sciences are so great!!

Dandapani - The God who rules the Tamils. Om Muruga 🙏

"Yes, Its OK for Monks to use emails, as long as there are no 'attachments' " :-)

Man believe me he solved the entire generation's problem

Honestly this is one of the best TED talks I've ever seen !! I regret why I didn't see this earlier .. Its true everyone , every motivational video just tells u have to concentrate and work hard to come up in life and stuff ..but no one tells us how .. This is so informative .. Im gonna see this over and over again whenever my mind drifts away

Man, Im so happy to see Dhalsim went from fighting in the streets to be a motivational speaker

When someone speaks so clearly and eloquently, logically meeting all points of a topic and making it crystal clear and easily digestible to an audience, that itself is an impressive indication of their ability to concentrate. When you’re mentally aligned so staunchly to exactly what you wish to convey without even sub-moments of distraction, you’re naturally creative, funny & engaging and at the peak of your eloquence and intelligence. In a way, I even think intelligence is simply a measure of your ability to concentrate. Why is that geniuses just shut themselves up and intensely focus on one thing they do for an extended period of time? It is a way of incubating their awareness on an object of study for so long that it yields unbelievable, magical results utterly incomprehensible to the average mind. Yogis of the past really had it right in ancient India to develop droves of methods to articulate this lost art. Each breathing/kriya practice is engineered to center your mind and preciously improve what is termed ‘intelligence’ in today’s day and age. Sadly this knowledge is now horribly fragmented and known minimally, the mainstream still believing yoga to be a fitness & lifestyle gimmick to their pretense-filled, exterior life. The seriousness and grand scale of this topic is so underrated and grossly under-understood, I think it’s real time to reveal it’s true meaning and application to the deteriorating state of human affairs.

DAMN THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT VIDEOS I HAVE EVER WATCHED

Thanks Guru Dandapani... Sir, you have taught the big lesson in few and simple words... thanks and again

Were your focus goes energy flows... 15:52 “Life is a manifestation of where your energy is flowing”

Take away points: - The mind and awareness are 2 separate things; ball of light analogy. - The art of concentration is the art of keeping awareness, that ball of light on one thing for an extended period of time. - Learn to concentrate by doing one thing at a time. - When talking with your partner, keep your awareness on that person, if it drifts away, bring it back. ‘Give him or her your undivided attention’

I'm really good at ignoring the distractions of my phone, schoolwork, and even my fatigue, and instead focusing exclusively on my video game.

My mind immediately stopped wandering after he mentioned the awareness part. Crazy stuff

"As long as there are no attachments" This man is the greatest comedian of all time.

"Learn to concentrate by doing one thing at a time". "Keep bringing awareness back". I practice meditation some minutes a day. As an Elementary teacher I am going to put these advices into practice with my students. Thank you.

Buddha said: "Who is your enemy? Your mind is your enemy. Who is your friend? Your mind is your friend. Learn the ways of the mind. Tend the mind with care." Great Tedtalk. Thanks!

Dandapani is a gem 💍 he speaks so flawlessly that you can't be distracted 🔥

Concentration is the key to the universe.

Video summary: The art of concentration is keeping your awareness on one thing for an extended period of time. Repeatedly bringing it back to that one thing when the mind gets distracted. We practice this by doing one thing at a time throughout the day. When you have a conversation with someone, keep your “ball of awareness” fully focused on that person. It drifts away, you bring it back, if it drifts away again, you bring it back. Over and over. The more you practice this, the better you will be able to concentrate. Life is a manifestation of where your energy is flowing. The benefits of being in full control of where your energy and awareness is flowing are endless. Other notes: Most people can't concentrate today for 2 reasons: 1) We're never taught how to concentrate. 2) We don't practice concentration. Instead, we're experts at distraction because we practice distraction, all day every day. If every time your phone beeps and you react/respond immediately, you are not in charge of your phone, and you are living in the world of distraction. To learn how to properly concentrate you must understand the relationship and distinction between 2 things: awareness, and the mind. Too often we allow external factors to manipulate our awareness to different areas of the mind.

One of the most underrated TED Talks. Deserves more appreciation. I feel pity for those 1.7k who disliked this video.

This man is a genius. He is not just telling us to concentrate but explaining it in a beautiful way ,how to really control awareness and focus our concentration for an extended period of time. What a Highly valuable content this is.

I like the analogy of a ball and on a surface for awareness and mind. I'm really grateful to learn this knowledge and also love the note that life is a manifestation of where your energy is flowing. Now I will need to be confident to find where my passions are and practice concentration because that's where I want my energy to flow! I also remember one day I joked with a friend on a difficult subject or major he took upon, but what he said shocked me a lot, and still keeps echoing in my head: "It's not that hard if you pay enough attention". I was touched by this attitude and also felt different. It is a very powerful, inspiring yet encouraging statement that I kept in my mind. Hope ones who see this comment be happy and successful in your life. Good luck my friends!

“Do one thing at a time and while doing it put your whole soul into it to the exclusion of all time.”

*distraction brought me to this video and then it brought me to the comments halfway the video*

Life is the manifestation of where your energy is flowing.- dandapani

For anyone who has to deal with the painful struggles of adhd, this is life- saving information.. quite literally! 😂🤍🙏

I scrolled through the comments AFTER watching the video :)

“As long as there are no attachments.” so beautiful. Connection > attachment

life ia a manifestation of where your energy is flowing. Amazing

"The art of concentration is the art of keep awareness, that ball of light, on one thing for an extended period of time." Dandapani

good for him for speaking out against drugs and encouraging parents to learn to concentrate first

It’s finally learning that I haven’t even been breathing the right way, then at 40 I find a psychotherapist who teaches me!! Practice certainly makes close to perfection!! 🙌

To each beautiful soul, may you find what you’re looking for.

Can’t believe I missed this valuable 17 minutes 7 years ago. But I'm happy I found it today, not 7 years later!

Wow, this brought a whole new light. Just amazing how much a few minutes of learning from other's experience can change your entire life.

I've just been watching master Shi Heng Li of the Shaolin temple on Ted, it's a good combination with this one, in my view.

Thank you RU-vid for putitng this in my Recommended list. I seriously needed this. Thank you Dandapani ji.

Patience, perseverance, and persistence are coming to win your goals. Yes to you who is reading this. Good things are coming your way, my friend. Sending you good vibes. Now go and visualise

The realistic advice I've ever had, this teaches "how" and not "what" to do. You can clearly understand, your problems and then now I know where to start to change about myself. Thanks to this video it is really worth it to watch.

"it is okay for monks to use email. as long as there are no attachments.!" Simply BRILLIANT!

"Life is a manifestation of where your energy is flowing. And if you can't concentrate your energy, the things that you want to manifest in your life becomes very challenging"

No matter after how many years or how many times I have watched this, it still gives me a whole lot of things to takeaway🙏

7:45 "the first thing I learned when I went to the monastery was to learn 'how the mind works.' because once you know how the mind works you can control it, and once you know how to control it you can focus it. you can't focus or concentrate something that you don't understand." "from the monk's perspective, there are two things you need to understand; one is that there is awareness and the other is the mind. imagine awareness as a glowing ball of light. Now imagine your mind as a vast space, with many different sections with many different areas within it (one area of the mind is jealous, joy, science, art..etc.) this glowing ball of light called awareness can travel within the mind and can go into any area of the mind it wants to. when it travels and lights up those areas of the mind, it becomes conscious of them, individually." "each day we allow someone or something to take our mind throughout the day from one area to another. when we allow that to happen it's called a distraction." this was an amazing talk. hopefully, in one year I can become more aware of my actions and learn how to concentrate further on what I want to achieve in my life...thanks TedX and Dandapani. My journey starts today -- Nick

I rarely ever add public comments(I think this is my third one) but, this is exactly what I needed. So very, VERY beautiful, and easy to understand at the same time-Thank You!

simple and most helpful of all Ted talks ever staged . . . thanks

Concentration is my very challenging for me... I couldn't get concentration since last 5-6 years. I'm disturbed at the age of 21. Now I bored my non - working/ lazy life.

Focusing on one thing is basically eliminating all the unnecessary stuffs in your mind , a simple way to do so is by ask and decide method which says whenever you concentrate and plenty other things come to your mind , then simply ask yourself (like what do you want to focus on?) And you will notice that you will decide the most important thing at that moment and ultimately your focus will be on the most important thing. I'm not saying that asking yourself will help you to focus for long , but with frequent asking and practicing you will able to stick on one thing for long. Lately I've used this way and it's quite helpful ... just thought of sharing...it might help y'all too.

This is a wonderful presentation! It brings up such important points. So many times we just need skills, not drugs.

Namaste, I am grateful that the ancient wisdom of India and Hinduism ( yoga and meditation) is being appreciated and adapted all over the world now...

Here is a short summary: Awareness is like ball of light and our mind is vast area divided into different sections of anger , happiness, envy, so on . We can bring this ball of light to a section where we want to focus , we can enlighten that section Practicing deliberately to bring this ball to particular section for extended period of time is concentration. So practice concentration.

I told the school this. Concentration is an art. It needs to be practiced. That should be the first thing children are taught. I said this on behalf of my son when he started school. There are very few of us who were born to understand things like this and best of all be very aware of things like this. After the fools burn the world to the ground Hopefully people like us will get a chance to show how great things could be when we control our emotions and instincts and stop fearing eachother. If you're afraid of change let us show you how great it can be.

I feel 10x calmer after watching this. The way he formed a logical train of thoughts into our heads as well as the mind orb energy, that was something else!

So multitasking breeds DISTRACTION because you are doing so many things at one point of time that u lose focus at individual things. Thanks a lot for teaching me this !

जय सनातन संस्कृति🙏

A very unique video on distraction and concentration... Love his way of explaining... Thanks.

Guy's I just want to say one thing Hinduism is not a religion it's a way of living 😊

One of the better, more useful TED talks!

This is a superb video. I know for certain that if I had this knowledge and practised it, I would have enjoyed a fuller and more satisfying life. Thank you so much Dandapani for sharing. Keep spreading the "gospel" (Good news).

I always asked people how to concentrate but never got answer until I found this video, thankyou!

Truly a gift. This morning I asked for a message from the UNIVERSE...and this is what it delivered. Thank you! I am blessed!

I respect this teacher BLESSINGS SIR om namah shivaya 🕉🙏 🙇‍♀️ 🕉🕉🕉🕉 🙏🙏🙏

7:07 Video starts here☝️

Hello, I have ADHD. By God's grace, I will overcome my distractedness by training my concentration. I have two goals in life. The first one is to get close to God, and the second one is to learn a language to native-like fluency. Now, for this year I will intensely be concentrating my focus. Please respond to this comment in 2023 (a year from now), and I will update you guys on my progress.

me: "ah yes this man has a fantastic point, i should really be less distracted" also me: *proceeds to watch 20 hours of ted talks with assignments due*

5:57 thats the purest and most innocent self proud face ..

It was the greatest video I ever watched on Focus. Hindu scriptures are soo good in almost evey area🛕🔱

This video helped me to experience a mental shift in how I think and let myself get distracted. I used to think the distracting thought is just as important as the thought it's distracting me from, so it's ok to keep hopping back and forth recklessly. Thoughts are abstract, and every one of them can feel equally important, so how could I prioritize? Now I see it's not about the importance of the individual thoughts. It's about the importance of my ability to focus, so I shouldn't let myself get distracted from what I chose to focus on, whatever its abstract inherent merit.

Yes! The director must be a practiced teacher and transmuter of energy. The audience must trust the director for this journey. I love these thoughtful ideas. Blessings!

Makes me wanna be a monk!

"Life is a Manifestation of Where your ENERGY is FLOWING"

Marvelous, marvelous and just marvelous. What a lesson and most importantly how he taught us.

The Power of Unwavering Focus is a great book by dandapani. I recommend everyone to go through this book. He is really great.

"Life is a manifestation of where your energy is flowing." 15:51

"Life is a manifestation of where your energy is flowing."

Though this video was made way back in 2016, it still holds very true in 2022. Especially in the current Covid Scenario where Working from Home has become the norm. It is so very easy to get distracted at home, when you know there's no one to watch over you. Concentration is the key. And a very poignant point: How can e teach our children to concentrate when we haven't learnt the art of mastering it ourselves?

Absolutely loved this video. Thank you so much for this valuable information Dandapani 😘

"Life is a manifestation of where your energy is going"

I never ever commented on any RU-vid videos in my entire life but this one changed my life forever, because he just taught me how to concentrate and it urged me to write a single comment which I’d probably never write. This is life changing speech cause I always thought that I had adhd now I’m even able concentrate on this comment for the first time in my life. Thank you so much I would practice it for the rest of my life, and I’m going to change my life

FOCUS: Follow One Course Until Success. Again, and again, and again: PRACTICE. PS: 'Learning how to learn' helped me, specially the diffused pomodoro technique.

Hara Hara Mahadev!

8 years have passed, but it's Still relevant, a must watch for building concentration! ❤

And that’s some really good piece of distra- nah, knowledge I would love to pay my internet bill for.

This talk is changing someone's life for sure. Thank you so much for the presentation.

I'm said to concentrate for 23 years but no one had taught how to..... Now I get it.Lots of respect to you sir.

amazing indeed.

This video came into my feed when I needed it the most. Thank you Dandapani. You are a light in this Dark World.

Really nice. Kinda would like to hear more about that monk lifestyle and such

Literally to the 1% who's reading this, God bless you, may all your dreams come true, may you be successful in all spheres of life, stay safe and have a wonderful day :)

Watching this at 5 am gave me goosebumps... Thank you GURUJI from the bottom of my heart😇🙏🙏🙏

every ted talk keeps amusing me, I'm gifted to have found this video, I was able to understand that the mind consists of two different parts, the awareness and the mind (in a sense that consists of different kinds of options), meaning, awareness and options. setting your awareness on a particular option increases focus on that option. I also understand that distractions are things that comes easily i.e trying to drift you away from what you are at, at a particular time, and the only to keep focused or get back on track is to drift your attention back to what you are at. keeping focused in a sentence, is just drifting your mind back to what you are at. Dandapani mentioned phrases like you own yourself, you can get yourself focused on anything for as long as you want. i.e if you pratice something a day for 6hours for a year, you are going to get really good at it, meanwhile if get yourself distracted for your decades, what are you going to be good at? He also mentioned things like if you don't know or practice concentration, how can you know how to concentrate, which is a very important context because knowing how the mind operates will increase your concentration, keeping you more focused. Thank you Dandapani!!!!

I am so proud of my culture!

Wow... Dandapani...what a clear speech..... Let me be frank, just by listening it with closed eyes, really my mind became calm like a deepest river with least noise.....what an experiance ji... Really superb... God bless you.

amazing podcast ever

One of my favorite Ted Talks. Have watched it several times over the years and have shared it with people close to me.