Begin with the breathing – Vigorous breathing followed by the Rhythmic breathing.

Be aware of the body.  In fact, feel the body – overall feeling. ­­You can begin with parts or just have an overall feeling of the body, being aware of the body.

From there, reach to being aware of being in the body. Be comfortable and restful in the body. You feel the body, you are aware of the body.

Be aware of the one who is aware of the body. You are in the body ­­– be aware of that. You are not the body: you feel the body, you are aware of the body, but you are not the body – you are in the body.

Come to this awareness, come to this presence – feel it. Be centered in that. You are being aware of the body; you are feeling the body.  And yet you are not the body.

In the meanwhile there may be thoughts. Are you the thought? You are aware of the thoughts – You are aware of the thoughts. If you were the thought, then there would be no other who is aware of the thoughts.

Since there is one who is aware of the thoughts, there is the one who is aware, and the thought of which you are aware is different from the one who is aware. It is in that one you must arrive at. Be centered in that.

The thoughts fly past if you allow them to, like birds in flight, like clouds moving in the firmament of an open sky. This is the movement of thoughts. Even so feelings, emotions and memories can be experienced in this way.

They rise and pass away. You are the experiencer and they are the experienced. They are the objects – you are the subject. It is in the subject that one must be centered: that is one’s Self, the one that is aware of itself, and so also of the object. Not only outside of the body, but the object that is the body, the object that is the thought, the object that is the memory, the object that is the feelings, the passions, the urges, the hungers and the desires.

So you can begin the meditation by feeling the body, by being comfortable first in the posture, arranging your seat to make yourself comfortable. Be erect in the body, and yet relaxed – upright, back straight, head straight. And yet you are comfortable and relaxed in the body.

Then feel the body, be aware of the body – overall feeling, overall awareness of the body. Not involved in the body, but overall light awareness of the body – a detached awareness of the body.

And from there, to feel, to be aware of the one that is aware, of the one that is in the body.  Call it space, call it one’s Self. Be there, and from there you can be aware of the thoughts, you can watch the thoughts with a detached awareness – remembering you are not thought. Stand aloof in that space; stand aloof in the Self, as you remain aware of the movement of the object – object that is thought, feeling, emotions, passions, desires, memories, pleasant, unpleasant – whatever that comes up. Be aware of your detachment from the object.

Once you have this, it is easy then to turn to concentration in the Self and Freedom. Feel that silent space within; be with it. All objects have been left outside: not only objects of the outer environment, but objects of the inner environment too.

Keep with the feeling of the presence of the inner silence. It is being with this inner silence, space – that will bring about the awakening of the Force – and the Self-unfolding.

One has to keep with it, persevere. The sounds are all outside you. You remain centered within. Turn to a Self-concentration, being with the silence. You are turned inward.

Enraptured in the silence of the Self, one feels, one moves anywhere in the fullness of joy, free and untouched by the conditions of nature, by time.

Remain with the silence. Stand aloof of everything that may arise – even so of the most attractive movement. Freedom is the goal, liberation from all that which moves, from that which is Time.

It is then that we get centered, stabilized, settled in the changeless, the immutable – the eternal. So to watch is to understand – that that one is beyond movement, beyond time:  it can take to movement, or remain at peace with itself without taking to movement.

Even if it were to take to movement, it is at peace, it is Self-Content. And when it moves, it can move like the wind – swift, and yet remain free in action.

Arya Vihar

17 December 1996