False concepts regarding mindfulness

The following excerpt is from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question (Q): Acharya Ji, some teachers say that one should never forget that one is a watcher, and teach oneself to be mindful while watching, eating, sleeping, etc. Is it doable? What is its significance?

Acharya Prashant(AP): I just do not subscribe to this. It is quite harmful in fact. The mind is already too eager to gather news from here and there, like a very suspicious old man — what is happening, where? It needs rest, not more news. Because any bit of news, any bit of information that comes to it, would only be misutilized. And it already has millions and trillions of Terra-bytes of information.

Could that do any good?

Isn’t it far better to just forget everything? Why add to your existing and overflowing repository of information? Just forget everything, and be engrossed in rest. Ignore these things, they belong to the body.

The body will take care of them: eating, walking, sleeping. If you start being observant about every step that the body takes, you will go mad.

Such advice has managed to sustain only because such advice has never been fully implemented. If somebody could actually fully implement this advice about watchfulness and mindfulness, then the…