Is witnessing a hindrance to living? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2012)

Question: Kabir is saying ‘attentive at a time.’ I can either be gossiping with my friend or watching that I am gossiping. How is it possible to be attentive and watch all the impossible to be doing both, right?

Acharya Prashant: Yes, it is a bit difficult because we have been in practice of inattention since very long.

*Attentiveness* is not a separate activity in itself. You do not do *attentiveness.*

This question is would I be doing one thing and also doing attentiveness simultaneously.

*Attentiveness* is not something to be done. If you are doing something that becomes another ‘action.’ *Attention* is the complete ‘absence of action.’

Attention is not doing another thing that I am already doing five things and I started getting another six things and that six thing is attention. If that is attention that will add further to the chaos. If that is what we understand by attention then this kind of attention will act further to the chaos. You see my mind is already divided in doing this thing, that thing, and that thing. And there is the fourth string that sums-up by the name of