Global Holistic Motivators

Wednesday, 13 August 2014

Technique:Watching the Mind

“I am willing to be a witness to my mind, without judgment”

“This is the only distinction between the dream and the real: reality allows you to doubt, and the dream does not allow you to doubt…. To me, the capacity to doubt is one of the greatest blessings to humanity. ” ~Osho

The essence of all meditation is to watch, observe, witness, be mindful.  What stops us from being able to access that natural state of being, which is why we need methods, is our complete and automatic immersion in the process of our thoughts and feelings, collectively called the mind.  We seem to have lost the “Off” switch for our mind and so the process of thinking is a relentless companion.  Even when our body is tired, our thoughts will keep us sleepless.  interestingly, Osho includes the emotions along with the thoughts in what is collectively called the mind.  We will probably all agree that this thinking and feeling machine can drive us crazy and that it would be just great if we knew how to turn it off at will and have some peace and quiet when thinking isn’t actually needed. 

Can the mind commit suicide?  No because whatever the mind does, strengthens it.   Any doing that mind does, makes it stronger.  So suicide is impossible.  Mind doing something means mind continuing itself so the mind cannot do it.  Mind cannot commit suicide but suicide can happen.  it happens by watching the mind.  The watcher is separate, deeper, higher than the mind.  The watcher is always hidden behind the mind.  A thought passes, a feeling arises.  Who is watching this?  Not the mind itself because the mind is nothing but the process of thought and feeling.  The mind is just the traffic of thinking.

Who is watching when you see an angry thought has arisen?  Who are you?

The mind is like a printed book on white clean paper, words appear.  The empty paper is the container and the printed words are the content.  Consciousness is like empty paper..  Mind is like printed paper.  What exists as an object inside you, whatever you can see and observe, is the mind.  The observer is not the mind.   So if you can observe without condemning, creating conflict with the mind, without following it, without going against it, if you can simply be there, indifferent to it, suicide happens.  When the watcher arrives, the witness is there and the mind simply disappears.

Mind with cooperation or conflict – both are ways of cooperating.  When you fight with the mind, you are giving energy to it.  In your fight, you have accepted the power of the mind on your being.  So whether you are in conflict or cooperate, the mind becomes stronger and stronger.  Just watch, be a witness, and by and eventually you will see gaps arise.  A thought passes and there is an interval before another thought arises.  In that interval is peace, love, all that you have been seeking, and never finding.   In that gap, you are no more an ego.  In that gap, you are not defined, confined, imprisoned. you are one with existence.  Your boundaries are no more there, you melt into existence and it melts into you – you start overlapping.  If you keep watching and don’t bet attached to the gaps, they are tremendously beautiful, they are immensely blissful, and it is natural to get attached to them.  If desire arises to have more and more, then your watcher has disappeared.  The gaps will again disappear and the mind traffic will again be there.

The first thing is to become  an indifferent watcher and the second is to remember that when beautiful gaps arise, don’t get attached to them, asking for them, hoping they happen more often.  Watch them and keep your indifference alive and eventually the traffic simply disappears with the road.  They both disappear and there is tremendous emptiness – the mind has ceased.  This is suicide but mind has not committed it – it can’t.  You can help it happen.  You can hinder it or help it, it depends on you – not your mind.  So meditation is allowing the mind to have it’s own way and not interfering in any way, just remaining watchful, witnessing it.  It silences, becomes still.  One day, it is gone and you are left alone.  That aloneness is your reality.  And in that aloneness, nothing is excluded, everything is included.

Meditation: “Creating a Gap from the Mind”

The first technique is a “STOP Exercise” – it is effective because you do it with the body, not with the mind. And it hardly takes any time.

Do this at least 6 times a day, more is fine but not less. The most important thing is: it has to be done suddenly.

While walking on a quiet street, or doing anything in your home, in your garden, or out in nature, or in whatever activity this can work for you, suddenly remember yourself, and STOP – stop completely, no movement – and just be present to whatever is happening. Then start moving again.

“If you just become present suddenly, the whole energy changes. The continuity that was going on in the mind stops, and it is so sudden that the mind cannot create a new thought so immediately. It takes time; and the mind cannot work without time, so when you do it suddenly – in that stopping suddenly the mind stops, and for a single moment there is a clearing. All thoughts disappear; there is emptiness, and in that emptiness there is an opening.”

You may have had that experience when there is a sudden, unexpected, loud thunder-clap in the sky. Start watching those gaps, those clearings, openings.

And when you stop, don’t prolong it – because after half a minute the mind will come back and destroy it. So when you do your STOPs, do them for less than 30 seconds. This is one way to create a distance, a gap, from the mind.

Meditation: "Enjoy the Mind"

This is another way of strengthening that “watcher” that is separate from and beyond the mind, the thoughts and feelings.

Enjoy the Mind. Don’t try to stop your thinking. It is a very natural part of you; you will go crazy if you try to stop it. It will be like a tree trying to stop its leaves; the tree will go mad.

And just not stopping it will not be enough; the second step is to enjoy it, to play with it! Playing with it, enjoying it, welcoming it, you will start becoming more alert about it, more aware of it, without any effort, very indirectly. When you are trying to become aware, then the mind distracts you and you become angry with it – and again the conflict and friction start that strengthen the mind.

So this second method is to start enjoying the thought process. Just see the nuances of thoughts, the turns they take, how one thing leads to another, how they get hooked into each other. It is really a miracle to watch! Just a small thought can take you to the farthest end.

Enjoy it, let it be a game; play it deliberately and you will be surprised: sometimes just enjoying it, you will find beautiful pauses. Suddenly you will find that, for instance, a dog is barking and nothing is arising in your mind, no chain of thinking starts. The dog goes on barking and you go on listening and no thought arises. Small gaps will arise… they come on their own, and when they come, they are beautiful. In those small gaps
you will start watching the watcher – and it will be natural. Again thoughts will start and you will enjoy that. Go on easily, take it easy.

And now, for a moment: if you are not already standing, stand up… and STOP! Stop completely, no movement – and just be present to whatever is happening.

http://myoprahlessons.com/tag/day-17-osho-a-course-in-meditation/

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