Constant Integrated Awareness

Prakash Srinivasan

When contemplating on Swami’s teachings, I always wondered how can I follow at least one or two of them on a daily basis and see how they work. I thought even if I follow a handful of them but follow them100% without any compromise it would make Swami happy.

To implement this, first I identified one of my weaknesses: my impulsiveness. I have the habit of doing things too fast. I seriously needed to slow down my life. By being on the fast lane, I never enjoyed the journey but was more concerned about reaching the destination. One more disadvantage of my hurried living was that I was forgetting things, having minor mishaps and being extremely absent-minded. I was quite perplexed and was thinking how can I stop this and become slower and more organized.

A thought suddenly struck me about Swami’s teachings about “Constant Integrated Awareness.” I have heard this phrase from Swami directly in His innumerable discourses. I used to think and almost mock at Him by saying it’s a very fancy jargon that He has invented! I was doing my MBA at Parthy and had enough jargons to manage and remember. But at this juncture when I was zooming in life I pondered about this teaching and gradually began discovering its power. It dawned on me that it’s actually a very very powerful phrase. The English language has amazing variety of words for the same meaning and each word has its intensity and power but this phrase has 3 powerful words and it started motivating me whenever I thought about it.

So before doing anything and almost on an hourly basis I started telling myself about living with Constant Integrated Awareness. This meant to me that I was going to be very aware of my surroundings and I will be steady (not too slow) and will be very mindful of the actions I needed to do and the best way to do it. Actually it a little difficult to express it in words as it a very elaborate concept. I started enjoying the benefits of it almost immediately, I did not forget anything, and I did things better, faster and more efficiently. My memory also improved, I took lists from home and memorized them instead of jotting every small thing down. Working with computers dumbs us down to such an extent that we are too lazy to remember even the smallest of things.

CIA has become an everyday part of my life and it even improves my creativity and I try to think of solutions to complex problems. That’s the challenge of life. Above all it gives me some satisfaction that I am committed to at least one teaching of Swami and am trying to be honest about following it.

(Prakash is a student of Swami who completed his B.Com, MBA and PG Diploma in Culture and Philosophy from Sri Sathya Sai University. He is a talented singer with the enthusiasm for Swami’s work. Prakash is currently working at HP, Bangalore)