Evolution of love

VIPASSANA

Buddha's way was VIPASSANA -- vipassana means witnessing.
And he found one of the greatest devices ever:
the device of watching your breath,
just watching your breath.

Breathing is such a simple and
natural phenomenon and it is there twenty-four hours a day.
You need not make any effort.

Buddha discovered a totally different angle:
just watch your breath –
the breath coming in, the breath going out.

There are four points to be watched.
Sitting silently just start seeing the breath,
feeling the breath.
The breath going in is the first point.
Then for a moment when the breath is in it stops –
a very small moment it is -- for a split second it stops;
that is the second point to watch.
Then the breath turns and goes out;
this is the third point to watch.
Then again when the breath is completely out,
for a split second it stops;
that is the fourth point to watch.
Then the breath starts coming in again...
this is the circle of breath.

If you can watch all these four points
you will be surprised,
amazed at the miracle of such a simple process –
because mind is not involved.

Watching is not a quality of the mind;
watching is the quality of the soul, of consciousness;
watching is not a mental process at all.
When you watch, the mind stops, ceases to be.

Yes, in the beginning many times you will forget and
the mind will come in and start playing its old games.
But whenever you remember that you had forgotten,
there is no need to feel repentant, guilty –
just go back to watching,
again and again go back to watching your breath.
Slowly slowly, less and less mind interferes.

And when you can watch your breath
for forty-eight minutes as a continuum,
you will become enlightened.
You will be surprised -- just forty-eight minutes –
because you will think that it is not very difficult...
just forty-eight minutes !
It it is very difficult.
Forty-eight seconds and
you will have fallen victim to the mind many times.

Try it with a watch in front of you;
in the beginning you cannot be watchful for sixty seconds.
In just sixty seconds,
that is one minute, you will fall asleep many times,
you will forget all about watching –
the watch and the watching will both be forgotten.
Some idea will take you far far away;
then suddenly you will realize...
you will look at the watch and
ten seconds have passed.
For ten seconds you were not watching.
But slowly slowly -- it is a knack;
it is not a practice,
it is a knack -- slowly slowly you imbibe it,
because those few moments
when you are watchful are of such exquisite beauty, of such
tremendous joy, of such incredible ecstasy,
that once you have tasted those few moments
you would like to come back again and again –
not for any other motive,
just for the sheer joy of being there,
present to the breath.

Remember, it is not the same process as is done in yoga.
In yoga the process is called PRANAYAM;
it is a totally different process,
in fact just the opposite of what Buddha calls vipassana.
In pranayam you take deep breaths,
you fill your chest with more and more air,
more and more oxygen;
then you empty your chest as totally as possible of all carbon dioxide.
It is a physical exercise -- good for the body
but it has nothing to do with vipassana.

In vipassana you are not to change the rhythm of your natural breath, you are not to take long, deep breaths,
you are not to exhale in any way differently than you ordinarily do.
Let it be absolutely normal and natural.

Your whole consciousness has to be on one point; watching.
And if you can watch your breath
then you can start watching other things too.
Walking you can watch that you are walking,
eating you can watch that you are eating,
and ultimately, finally, you can watch that you are sleeping.

The day you can watch that you are sleeping
you are transported into another world.
The body goes on sleeping and
inside a light goes on burning brightly.
Your watchfulness remains undisturbed,
then twenty-four hours a day there is an undercurrent of watching.
You go on doing things...
for the outside world nothing has changed,
but for you everything has changed.

A Zen master was carrying water from the well and
a devotee who had heard about him and
had traveled far to see him asked him,
"Where can I see so-and-so, the master of this monastery?"
He thought this man must be a servant,
carrying water from the well –
you cannot find a buddha carrying water from the well,
you cannot find a buddha cleaning the floor.
The master laughed and he said,
"I am the person you are seeking."
The devotee could not believe it.
He said, "I have heard much about you
but I cannot conceive you
carrying water from the well."

The master said,
"But that's what I used to do before I became enlightened.
Carrying water from the well, chopping wood –
- that's what I used to do before and that's what I continue to do.
I am very proficient in these two things:
carrying water from the well and chopping wood.
Come with me;
my next thing is going to be chopping wood - watch me!"

The man said, "But then what is the difference?
Before enlightenment you used to do these two things,
after enlightenment you are doing the same two things –
- then what is the difference?"

The master laughed, he said,
"The difference is inner: before, I was doing everything in sleep,
now I am doing everything consciously.
That's the difference: activities are the same,
but I am no longer the same.
The world is the same,
but I am not the same.
And because I am no longer the same,
for me the world is also no longer the same."
The transformation has to be inner.
This is real renunciation:
the old world is gone because the old being is gone.

* * * * *

Sitting silently,
just start watching your breath.

The easiest way to watch is from the entrance of the nose.

When the breath comes in,
feel the touch of the breath at the entrance of the nose - watch it there.

The touch will be easier to watch,
breath will be too subtle;
in the beginning just watch the touch.

The breath goes in, and you feel it going in: watch it.

And then follow it, go with it.

You will find there comes a point where it stops.

Just somewhere near your navel it stops
– for a tiny tiny moment, for a pal, it stops.

Then it moves outwards again;
then follow it – again feel the touch,
the breath going out of the nose.

Follow it, go with it outside – again you will come to a point,
the breath stops for a very tiny moment.

Then again the cycle starts.

Inhalation, gap,
exhalation, gap,
inhalation, gap.

That gap is the most mysterious phenomenon inside you.

When the breath comes in and stops and
there is no movement,
that is the point
where one can meet God.

Or when the breath goes out and stops and there is no movement.

Remember,
you are not to stop it;
it stops on its own.

If you stop it you will miss the whole point,
because the doer will come in and
witnessing will disappear.

You are not to do anything about it.

You are not to change the breath pattern,
you are neither to inhale nor to exhale.

It. is not like Pranayam of yoga,
where you start manipulating the breath;
it is not that.

You don’t touch the breach at all –
you allow its naturalness,
its natural flow.

When it goes out you follow it,
when it comes in you follow it.

And soon you will become aware
that there are two gaps.

In those two gaps is the door.

And in those two gaps you will understand,
you will see,
that breath itself is not life –
maybe a food for life, just like other foods,
but not life itself.

Because when the breathing stops
you are there,
perfectly there - you are perfectly conscious, utterly conscious.

And the breath has stopped,
breathing is no more there,
and you are there.

And once you continue this watching of the breath –
what Buddha calls Vipassana or Anapanasati Yog –
if you go on watching it,
watching it, watching it, slowly slowly
you will see the gap is
increasing and becoming bigger.

Finally it happens that for minutes
together the gap remains.

One breath goes in, and the gap ...
and for minutes the breath does not go out.

All has stopped.

The world has stopped, time has stopped, thinking has stopped.

Because when the breath stops,
thinking is not possible.

And when the breath stops,
for minutes together, thinking is absolutely impossible –
because the thought process needs continuous oxygen,
and your thought process
and your breathing are very deeply related.

When you are angry your breath has a different rhythm,
when you are sexually stimulated you have a different breath rhythm, when you are silent a different breath rhythm again.
When you are happy a different breath rhythm,
when you are sad a different rhythm again.
Your breathing goes on changing with the moods of the mind.
And vice versa is also true – when the breath changes,
the moods of the mind change.

And when breath stops, mind stops.

In that stopping of the mind
the whole world stops –
because the mind is the world.

And in that stopping you come to know for the first time
what is the breath inside the breath; life inside life.

That experience is liberating.

That experience makes you alert of God –
and God is not a person
but the experience of life itself.

* * * *

Buddha says meditation should become such a constant phenomenon; only then can it transform you.
And he evolved a new technique of meditation.

Then you need not do it; you have to do it only in the beginning.
Once you have learned the knack of it,
it remains with you; you need not do it.
Then whatsoever you are doing, it is there.
It becomes a backdrop to your life, a background to your life.
You are walking, but you walk meditatively.
You are eating, but you eat meditatively.
You are sleeping, but you sleep meditatively.
Remember, even the quality of sleep of a meditator
is totally different from the quality of the sleep of a nonmeditator.
Everything becomes different
because a new factor has entered
which changes the whole gestalt.

Vipassana simply means watching your breath,
looking at your breath.
It is not like YOGA PRANAYAMA:
it is not changing your breath to a certain rhythm –
- deep breathing, fast breathing.
No, it does not change your breathing at all;
it has nothing to do with the breathing.
Breathing has only to be used as a device to watch
because it is a constant phenomenon in you.
You can simply watch it,
and it is the most subtle phenomenon.

If you can watch your breath
then it will be easy for you to watch your thoughts.
One thing immensely great that Buddha contributed was
the discovery of the relationship between breath and thought.
He was the first man in the whole history of humanity
who made it absolutely clear that
breathing and thinking are deeply related.
Breathing is the bodily part of thinking and
thinking is the psychological part of breathing.

They are not separate,
they are two aspects of the same coin.
He is the first man who talks of bodymind as one unity.
He talks for the first time about man as a psychosomatic phenomenon.
He does not talk about body and mind,
he talks about bodymind.
They are not two,
hence no 'and' is needed to join them.
They are already one -- bodymind -- not even a hyphen is needed;
bodymind is one phenomenon.
And each body process has its counterpart in your psychology and vice versa.

You can watch it, you can try an experiment.
Just stop your breathing for a moment and you will be surprised:
the moment you stop your breathing, your thinking stops.
Or you can watch another thing:
whenever your thinking is going too fast your breathing changes.

For example, if you are full of sexual lust
and your thinking is getting too hot,
your breathing will be different: it will not be rhythmic,
it will lose its rhythm.
It will be more chaotic, it will be unrhythmic.

When you are angry your breathing changes
because your thinking has changed.
When you are loving your breathing changes
because your thinking has changed.
When you are peaceful, at ease, at home,
relaxed, your breathing is different.
When you are restless, worried, in turmoil, in anguish,
your breathing is different.

Just by watching your breath you can know
what kind of state is happening in your mind.
Meditators come across a point:
when the mind really completely ceases, breathing also ceases.
And then great fear arises -- don't be afraid.

Many meditators have reported to me,
"We became very much afraid, very much frightened,
because suddenly we became aware that the breathing has stopped."
Naturally, one thinks that when breathing stops death is close by.
It is only a question of moments -- you are dying.

Breathing stops in death;
breathing also stops in deep meditation.
Hence deep meditation and death have one thing similar:
in both the breathing stops.
Therefore, if a man knows meditation he has also known death.
That's why the meditator becomes free of the fear of death:
he knows breathing can stop and still he is.

Breathing is not life; life is a far bigger phenomenon.
Breathing is only a connection with the body.
The connection can be cut;
that does not mean that life has ended.
Life is still there;
life does not end just by the disappearance of breathing.

Buddha says: Watch your breathing; let it be normal,
as it is. Sitting silently, watch your breath.
The sitting posture will also be helpful;
the Buddha posture, the lotus posture, is very helpful.

When your spine is erect and you are sitting in a lotus posture,
your legs crossed,
your spine is aligned with the gravitational forces,
and the body is at its best relaxed state.
Let the spine be erect and the body be loose,
hanging on the spine -- not tense.
The body should be loose, relaxed, the spine erect,
so gravitation has the least pull on you.

Have you watched it?
If you want to go to sleep you have to lie down,
for the simple reason that
when you are lying down flat on the ground
you are in touch with the gravitational forces at the maximum,
because all over the body the gravitational pull works, it pulls you.

You immediately start falling asleep.
It is difficult to fall asleep standing.
The most difficult posture to fall asleep in is the lotus posture.
The body is so relaxed there is no need to fall asleep,
and the gravitational forces are at the minimum;
hence they cannot pull you downwards;
they can't make you heavy and dull and lethargic.
You are bright, you are full of life.
You are more intelligent in the lotus posture
than you can ever be in any other posture.
The body affects your mind.

Scientists now agree with this:
that it is only because a few of the monkeys somehow...
they have not been able to find the reason why and
how it happened, and monkeys are monkeys –
it may have just happened out of curiosity,
a few monkeys tried to stand on two legs and
these are the monkeys who became the original men;
they were the originators.
That was the greatest innovation;
nothing else has been greater than that.
A few monkeys standing erect
on their two legs created a great revolution;
the revolution happened in the growth of the mind.
The erect posture helped the mind to come out of sleep.
It became more intelligent, it became more alert,
it became more conscious.

Other animals who move on their four legs
have not been able to develop intelligence,
although many of them have a mind of almost
the same capacity as man.
For example,
the elephant has a mind of almost the same capacity as man,
but has not been able to develop it and
I don't think it is ever going to happen.
In circuses they try hard to teach the elephant to sit in a chair or
to stand even for a few seconds on two feet,
but the body is so heavy the elephant cannot manage
to be on two feet.
Hence the brain remains clouded;
the gravitational pull keeps it unconscious.

Hence this lotus posture is something valuable.
It is not just a body phenomenon;
it affects the mind, it changes the mind.
Sit in a lotus posture --
the whole point is that your spine should be erect and
should make a ninety-degree angle with the earth.
That is the point where you are capable of being the most intelligent,
the most alert, the least sleepy.
And then watch your breath, the natural breath.

You need not breathe deeply, you don't change your breathing; you simply watch it as it is.
But you will be surprised by one thing:
the moment you start watching, it changes –
because even the fact of watching is a change and
the breathing is no more the same.

Slight changes in your consciousness
immediately affect your breathing.
You will be able to see it;
whenever you watch you will see your breathing has become a little deeper.
If it becomes so of its own accord it is okay,
but you are not to do it by your will.
Watching your breath,
slowly slowly you will be surprised that as your breath
becomes calm and quiet your mind also
becomes calm and quiet.
And watching the breath will make you capable of watching the mind.
That is just the beginning,
the first part of meditation, the physical part.

And the second part is the psychological part.
Then you can watch more subtle things in your mind -- thoughts, desires, memories.
And as you go deeper into watchfulness,
a miracle starts happening:
as you become watchful less and less traffic happens in the mind,
more and more quiet, silence; more and more silent spaces,
more and more gaps and intervals.
Moments pass and you don't come across a single thought.
Slowly slowly, minutes pass, hours pass....

And there is a certain arithmetic in it:
if you can remain absolutely empty for forty-eight minutes,
that very day you will become enlightened,
that very moment you will become enlightened.
But it is not a question of your effort;
don't go on looking at the watch because each time you look,
a thought has come.

You have to again count from the very beginning;
you are back to zero.
There is no need for you to watch the time.
But this has been the experience in the East of all great meditators: that forty-eight minutes seems to be the ultimate point.

If this much of a gap is possible,
if for this much of a gap thinking stops and you remain alert,
with no thought crossing your mind,
you are capable of receiving God inside.
You have become the host and the guest immediately comes.
Buddha has given the purest way and the simplest and the subtlest -- but the most fundamental.
He has given the golden key, the master key
which can unlock all the mysteries of life and existence