Vigorous breathing followed by the rhythmic breathing to begin with –

Always helps to start the meditation.

 

Watching the breath….

 

Before that, feel the body – watch over it.

 

How to watch? It is to observe objectively, impartially, impersonally – watching without judging.

 

And yet if there is judgement it can still be done – watching the judgement.  That is what is meant by being impartial.

 

Watching not only the thought but the feeling behind the thought, the motive behind the thought, the bias, the prejudice behind the thought – the prejudgement – in the face.

 

To be straight, to watch anything and everything – that can bring you to a stop in you the Watcher.  So just watch for the sake of watching, no other objective. Whatever that comes up, stand behind and watch it. Be the watcher.

 

Something unpleasant – watch it so as not to avoid, not to move away from. Fixation, inclination towards the pleasant – watch. It is to be, therefore, then centred in your Buddha-self.  The Buddha watches over both, the pleasant and the unpleasant – and remains beyond, remains untouched, neither inclined towards nor away.

 

Like the example from the Gita – the drop of water on the lotus leaf – it moves on the leaf but does not wet it. ‘Wetness’ is our biases, our likes and dislikes, attractions and repulsions, that which conditions our seeing.

 

To go beyond is to arrive at freedom in the Self. You have to practice watching and begin with the body. You can begin with different parts of the body and then move to watching over the whole body.

 

And the objective would be to become aware of the watching. But that will follow. And then from the body to move to the breath – next step. Watching over the breath brings you even closer to being aware of the watcher.

 

So watch over the breath, attend to watching over the breath, watching over it until the self-awareness of the watcher comes. Then move over to the thoughts. And of course if there are no thoughts you can find yourself laughing!

 

Watching over the thoughts like watching the clouds moving in the open sky, or like the birds flying in the open space. Just watching like one would a moving picture.

 

Before you get to the watching over the breath, just feel the body, feel yourself in the body. Then spend five minutes watching over the breath.

 

So we will do that now – spend five minutes watching over the breath. Just watching –there is no other objective. And in case anything comes up – thoughts, emotions, feelings… it is no concern of yours – practice allowing them to pass. We will remain with the breath for five minutes.

 

So five minutes of watching the breath continuously. Allow yourself to relax as you watch. Remind yourself to relax. Remind yourself not to be anywhere else but to be here, doing what you are doing. Be wholly there with it, completely, totally.

 

Then at the end of five minutes, we will take a question and turn inwards to understand the question. Five minutes of watching the breath, and then five minutes of being turned inwards.

 

 

Who is I? Not who am I, please note – that too but it answers differently.  That will be the question.

 

For now we watch the breath for five minutes. At the end of this you can analyse as to how much you could be with the watching, with the breath, watching of the breath – how steady was your watching.

 

It will be your steadiness that will bring you to self-awareness. It is the steadiness that will then – when you are turned inwards – reach you to a concentration in yourself.

 

Who is this I? What is I? A door to your own awakening…

 

Now you turn away from that which you were watching and with the enquiry – ‘Who is I?  Who is the watcher?’ – you turn inwards letting it hang in space so to speak, leaving the question suspended in open space.

 

You were watching the breath for a few minutes, now you turn to the Watcher and inwards with the question to yourself, away from that which you were watching. The question as to who is the Watcher can remain with you suspended in space like a mantra, to keep you motivated to inquire of yourself as to who you are, what you are, what is the truth of your existence, what is the reality of your being – so that you continue seeking of yourself, in yourself.

We will remain so for five minutes.

 

Now we will spend few minutes just analysing how much you could manage the watching – how continued, how steady it was; what you could manage, what you could not; how much you could manage to be in yourself when you turned inwards; how continuous and steady was your turning inwards, with the enquiry ‘Who and what is I?’ How steady were you in keeping yourself there? We can analyse ourselves like this for a few minutes before we begin the second round.

 

As you analyse, relax. Otherwise you will not be able to analyse clearly. Go over what you did for the last ten minutes; go over how you felt doing this meditation – before and during the meditation.  This is also watching.

 

Did you come up to your expectations with your watching, with your meditation? How did you feel? Did you feel good? Or not so good because you could not manage, since you had expectations? Learn to see all this, and this will bring you to a greater alertness for the next round.

 

So watching is the uncovering of the layers of your consciousness, from the outermost to the innermost, and therefore to stand naked in the innocence of your Being – to arrive at your own innocence, in the Truth of your being – and to rest there and reach to meditation.

 

And through that meditation to awaken and unfold the Reality that you are.

 

Amen.

 

So we will begin now the second round. We will watch over the breath for five minutes – being with it, continuously, as steady as you can be, relaxing – impartially, impersonally, objectively – just watching the breath.

 

And then after five minutes, with the enquiry ‘Who is the watcher? What is the watcher?’ we will turn away from watching the breath and turn inwards, keeping the question suspended in the open space of our awareness, thence fore to motivate continuous seeking in ourselves.

 

So we will begin watching the breath for five minutes. Breathing should be long and deep, longer the better, strong enough to be able to hear it, strong enough to keep you energised. Remember to relax continuously; remind yourself to relax.

 

For five minutes we will be watching the breath in this way, just watching very impersonally. That is the only concern, the only objective for this moment in time – just being with the breath, watching the breath for five minutes.

 

Now with the question ‘Who is the watcher, what is the watcher?’ we turn away from the breath to being inwards, turning inwards, keeping the question – ‘What is the watcher, who is the watcher?’ – in our awareness. That is the mantra to motivate the seeking in yourself. So for five minutes you will stay turned inwards with this enquiry – and of course relaxed in yourself.

 

If you are relaxed, there will be a steadiness to your seeking.

 

Now you can relax and analyse as to how you felt doing what you were doing, all the reactions to this watching and enquiring – you can watch over them. See what comes up.

 

For during this meditation, the idea is to maintain yourself either watching the breath or turning inwards with the question, with the enquiry suspended in the inner as to who and what is the watcher.

 

So you can mull over all that you did, and the reaction you may have had, the responses and reactions you may have had. You can go over and see, how the nature of your breath was, whether short and quick, or deep and long. Whether you were aware of all this, and how much you managed to be with the breath. Whether you got carried away with the feelings, emotions, thoughts; how aware were you of all this, of being carried away and then returning.

 

When you were turned inwards, could you maintain the question, the enquiry in your awareness? How continuous and steady was this awareness, while you sought in yourself the response to this question? How and what did you feel in the last ten minutes, and how do you feel about it now? Allow all the reactions to come up, the responses. Go over them, analyse them, even so whether you like or dislike them; whether the state you were in was the objective state and therefore the view you got was objective.

You can go over all this, while you remember to relax.

 

 

Arya Vihar

13 April 1998