Spotlight

These small games illustrates how the ‘I’ and attention work. You need an ordinary torch. Start in normal light, but eventually you can play the game in a dark room. Turn on the torch and hold it in your hand along one side of your head like a headlamp.

Turn your head so the light points towards a specific point. Fix your eye and consequently focus your attention on this point. Hold the light, your eye and your attention on the point for a few seconds. Then turn your head, hands, light, eye and attention to another point in the room and fix your eye and attention on this new point for a few seconds.

It is the ‘I’ who determines the movements of the head and hand muscles, the direction of the light and direction of the eye line and attention, and the ‘I’ experiences instantly what the light and the attention puts the spotlight on. Right now, it is therefore YOU who decides what you experience. The “I” is also capable of moving the attention to thoughts and feelings, experiencing those thoughts and feelings, and moving the attention to other thoughts and feelings:

Cut some ‘thought bubbles’ out of paper in various sizes and colors. These symbolise significant and minor thoughts in ‘happy ‘and ‘sad’ colors. You might want to write down examples on the thought bubbles – thoughts about the world or thoughts about yourself. Put down the bubbles on the table or hold them against your forehead, as if they were thoughts in your head.

Use the torch as a ‘spotlight = attention’ on your mind. Your hand in which you hold the light, symbolises the ‘I’, who can direct the light/focus towards a thought and move focus to another thought. When ‘I’ (the hand) holds the attention (the torch) fixed it is similar to when you let your mind stick to a particular thought.

If you play in a dark room, it becomes very clear how there can be focus on one thought only, while other thoughts are left out in ‘darkness’. They do not really exist. We can think of no more than one thought at a time.

Continue playing by moving light and attention from one thought to another. Keep the light (and attention inside your head) fixed and concentrate on a particular thought for a while.