Mindfulness, Conscious Attention and the Harmonious Development of the Body

There is a discipline that asks an individual to focus on conscious attention to each thought, each emotion and each movement he makes, through a process called ‘mindfulness’. This is intended primarily to center the individual’s mind and attention and focus the person on the present moment rather than having the mind jumping in all different directions. The process however can also be utilized proactively as part of a development of physical culture, the use of conscious attention to strengthen the physical being and bring its activity into a harmonious and consistent movement.

There is in fact a considerable discipline including the use of such techniques for helping children become conscious of and develop their physical nature, and indeed their entire vital, emotional and mental being, in a positive way. Dr. Becky Bailey developed a systematic methodology that she teaches called the Conscious Discipline Methodology. While the technique was originally developed for use in the classroom, it has expanded over the last several decades into a comprehensive program that supports childhood education using evidence from study in developmental psychology and in brain science research.

It is clear from the evidence that harnessing the power of the mind to consciously carry out the body’s activities can lead to more complete, more powerful and more harmonious development than the normal mostly unconscious actions that dominate our daily lives.

The Mother observes: “But you only have to try it, you will understand very well what I mean. For instance, all the movements you make when dressing, taking your bath, tidying your room… no matter what; make them consciously, with the will that this muscle should work, that muscle should work. You will see, you will obtain really amazing results.”
“Going up and down stairs — you cannot imagine how useful that can be from the point of view of physical culture, if you know how to make use of it. Instead of going up because you are going up and coming down because you are coming down, like any ordinary man, you go up with the consciousness of all the muscles which are working and of making them work harmoniously. You will see. Just try a little, you will see! This means that you can use all the movements of your life for a harmonious development of your body.”

“You bend down to pick something up, you stretch up to find something right at the top of a cupboard, you open a door, you close it, you have to go round an obstacle, there are a hundred and one things you do constantly and which you can make use of for your physical culture and which will demonstrate to you that it is the consciousness you put into it which produces the effect, a hundred times more than just the material fact of doing it. So, you choose the method you like best, but you can use the whole of your daily life in this way…. To think constantly of the harmony of the body, of the beauty of the movements, of not doing anything that is ungraceful and awkward. You can obtain a rhythm of movement and gesture which is very exceptional.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter V Will-Power, pp. 52-53