By Jayaprakash Ramsaran
“The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus.” Bruce Lee
The magnifying glass is a source of constant fascination for young kids; I know it was for my brother and me. We used them to learn wilderness survival. Ostensibly, if we were ever backpacking and got lost, we’d have to start a fire. So, we took advantage of that to see how many things we could start alight by using the heat of the sun.
There we were in the backyard, finding little pieces of paper and stacks of leaves, seeing how long it would take to get them burning. How does that work, anyway? Photons pass through a convex lens and are centered on a single point. The glass is shaped in a particular way, bringing everything to a point. That’s focus.
We can design our lives to be convex, where everything slopes down into a single point, just like a magnifying glass. It has to do with our overall focus in life. What is your life’s purpose? Write down your main purpose in life, or put your top 10 purposes in order. If you spend time on this, I promise it will energize you and everybody else in your life as well. To focus on your purpose for an hour, or some hours over days or weeks, can be extremely powerful. If you discern your life’s purpose, that’s your magnifying glass. It’s your right to discern; the wisdom literatures say you have free will to decide. So, decide your life’s purpose. That’s where you get your power if you don’t have it.
For instance, if I stood outside at Giants Stadium in San Francisco and asked people coming out, “What’s your main purpose in life?” What would they say? “Get out of here, kid. What are you talking about? I’m going to a baseball game.” Purpose leads to focus and focus leads to progress. So, what is your main purpose in life? Understand it. Anyone can become extraordinary by employing the superpower of focus.
This excerpt is from Vaisesika’s upcoming book, Your Seven Spiritual Superpowers. Want more wisdom? Join his weekly zoom class here!
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