Greetings from Montserrat, Reader,

Imagine what the Temple of Apollo at Delphi would have looked like if it had been designed by Dr. Seuss.

That’s a fair description of Parc Güell, a festive 42-acre garden complex draped across the southern slope of Mount Carmel on the northern edge of Barcelona.

Designed by Antoni Gaudí, whose Modernist architectural imprint is practically synonymous with the capital of Catalonia, Parc Güell’s undulating architectural forms are rich in symbolism, its native Mediterranean flora provide a home to over 60 species of birds, and its elevated walkways offer great views of the city.

All of which is why it’s also one of the biggest tourist magnets in the city.

So, as dutiful tourists, we trudged up the steps, ambled through the porticoes, and meandering around the fluted columns beneath the central balcony earlier this week.

By mid-morning, hundreds of people had arrived. The place was packed.

And yet, hardly anyone was there.

How could that be?

About 12 years ago, I attended a workshop led by breathwork pioneer Max Strom.

I remember it being a great workshop, but the thing I remember most wasn’t anything he said about breathing.

It was what he said about memory.

He said that the reason we can’t remember most of what we experience in our lives is because we weren’t there when it happened.

I thought this was a great way to describe how prone we are to letting out attention wonder off rather remaining fully present in any given moment, to say nothing of being present on a moment-to-moment basis.

And it makes total sense: if our attention is elsewhere — in the past, in the future, in the who knows when and where — then there’s no reason to think we’ll remember what’s happening where we are right now.

And that’s why I think so many of the tourists at Parc Güell won’t remember they were there: because they weren’t.

They were in their phones.

Hundreds of people in a fantastic place having a once in a lifetime experience . . . placing a digital screen between their eyes and what they presumably came to see.

In the process, they put up a barrier between themselves and the experience.

Research has shown that we fundamentally alter how we process, enjoy, and remember events when we use smartphones to record, share, or interact with a live environment.

One study found that we invest fewer cognitive resources into transferring live experiences into our long-term memory banks because we assume that the device will remember the event for us.

Another found that using a smartphone as a "witness" can induce a positive sensation of anticipated nostalgia at the expense of pushing our bodies into a kind of performance mode that undermines genuine physical and emotional presence.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not objecting to taking photos of memorable places. I’m questioning the wisdom of non-stop mediation of experiences by means of a hand-held weapon of mass distraction.

Seeing so many people watching their phones as they recorded everything around them without ever looking at what their phones were recording reminded me of how our material senses, which ultimately flow int the reservoir of the mind, mediate — and distort — our experience of reality.

We generally take our material senses for granted, accepting them as the natural interface that connects our consciousness to our experiences the same way we’ve grown to accept the cultural normalcy of smartphones as digital proxies for direct experience.

Yoga wisdom tells us that, however real they may seem, our material mind and senses are getting in the way of our perception of our own true nature.

In other words, the mind and senses are to consciousness what a smartphone is to a tourist: a mechanism that stands between us and realization by direct perception.

Having the discipline to put our phones away and allow ourselves to be fully present in any given moment, or, better yet, on a moment to moment basis, can be a first step in developing the discipline of directing the mind and senses rather than allowing ourselves to be controlled by them.

Parc Güell was nice, but if you have plans to visit Barcelona and want to experience something truly transcendental, visit Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. It’s totally amazing. I highly recommend the guided tour to get the inside scoop.

If you’re not sure what I’m referring to, search “basilica of the sagrada familia photos.” Every tourist who’s been to Barcelona in the past 20 years has probably posted a picture of it.

Wishing you all good fortune,

- Hari-k