When I'm on the field when I'm betting especially, when you play a ball, obviously
there's a little time that you get because the bowler is going back to his run up.
And that is the time I just take a moment.
That calmness for that two, three seconds is very important at that stage.
A crucial game, a critical series, the championship
point, physically these situations are challenging enough.
But the added challenge is in the mind.
At these critical junctures, the mind races with multiple thoughts, the fear of losing, the
fear of disappointing oneself and others, the expectation of winning and what it could mean.
All this is going through one's head and interferes with physical performance.
That is why we sometimes see even physically fit and highly
trained sports people faltering at critical junctures.
I would always get really nervous and not be able to think clearly
in a situation and like just become very defensive on court.
I used to really get in my own head and, you know, I
would never be able to play the way I would in practice.
I felt almost guilty to a point that why am I not doing what I'm training so hard to do?
Why isn't that showing?
Sportspeople train hard to effortlessly perform tasks, like
kicking a ball with accuracy and hitting a small moving target.
Similarly, can they train their minds to remain calm in these situations?
Legendary basketball coach Phil Jackson feels that meditation can help.
He has coached the likes of Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal and Michael Jordan.
He attributes a large part of the success he enjoyed with the
Chicago bulls and the LA Lakers to the practice of meditation.
However, not all get the results they want from meditation.
Most meditation involves concentration and freeing the mind of thoughts.
And this is hard to do.
The effort to remove thoughts is often self-defeating because when we are thinking constantly
about not thinking, there is a mental effort exerted, whereas ideally it should be effortless.
Yogic science speaks of a state of samadhi, which is a state of complete balance.
Sports psychologists also speak of a state of flow where the mind is not detained by anything.
Not by thoughts.
And not by the idea of stopping thoughts.
It is a natural state where our training takes over and we respond effortlessly.
A flow state is not just helpful for sports people, but for anybody performing any task,
one of the ways to simply and easily achieve flow is heartfulness meditation.
With heartfulness practice, you're able to dive deeper in a very easy way.
Someone who can take 40 years to master Samadhi can happen just within a week.
It's just a different ballgame.
It's just a piece, of course, when you're playing, there's a pressure.
There is expectation, there is everything which relates to cricket, but
like I said, I've learned to keep them away and just focus on the job.
Heartfulness training is available for free online and in person.
Everyone is encouraged to try it.
And judge its efficacy for themselves.
Talking about, heartfulness meditation I think it personally helped me a lot because, I
think not only physically or mentally, but it's more of like understand what's going on within
yourself and at the same time, how to deal with things that you, that you know come to your mind.
And at times you think that, you know, what's happening and what can be done.
earlier, before meditating, I would not be able to recognize the kind of tightness
you feel in your chest when you're in a nervous point, or like you're losing
a few points now after meditating, I'm so much more aware of how I'm feeling.
So to much more easy to reset . Mind training, relaxation
having the right perspective has always mattered a lot.
And that is what has given me the clear focus, especially when things were not going
the way I wanted, but to see the big picture, I think it was important to slow down.
And for me,this whole journey, inwards has also benefited in my outlook to the outer world.