Meditation for Beginners

Thinking, you are separated from existence. Thinking is not a relation, it is not a bridge, it is not a communication – it is a barrier. Non-thinking you are related, bridged; you are in communion. When you are talking to someone, you are not related. The very talk becomes a barrier. The more you talk, the further away you move. If you are with someone in silence, you are related. If the silence is really deep and there are no thoughts in your mind and both the minds are totally silent, you are one.

Just sit under a tree. The breeze is blowing and the leaves of the tree are rustling. The wind touches you, it moves around you, it passes. But don’t allow it just to pass you; allow it to move within you and pass through you. Just close your eyes, and as it is passing through the tree and there is a rustling of the leaves, feel that you are also like a tree, open, and the wind is blowing through you – not by your side but right through you.

Close your eyes and visualize your backbone. Let the backbone be straight, erect. Visualize it, see it, and just in the middle of it visualize a nerve, delicate as the lotus thread, running in the center of your spinal column...

In the spine, just in the center, there is a silver cord – a very delicate nerve. It is not really a nerve in the physiological sense. If you operate to find it; it will not be there. But in deep meditation it is seen. Through that thread you are related to the body, and through that thread also you are related to your soul.

You may not be sleeping well in the night. Very few people are sleeping well, so when you have not slept well in the night you are a little tired.... If that is the case, then do something with your sleep. It should be made deeper. Time is not much of a question – you can sleep for eight hours, and if it is not deep you will feel hungry for sleep, starved – depth is the question. 

If you meditate on open unclouded sky, suddenly you will feel that the mind is disappearing, the mind is dropping away. There will be gaps. Suddenly you will become aware that it is as if the clear sky has entered in you also. There will be intervals. For a time being, thoughts will cease – as if the traffic has ceased and there is no one moving. In the beginning it will be only for moments, but even those moments are transforming. By and by the mind will slow down, bigger gaps will appear. For minutes together there will be no thought, no cloud.

We eat very unconsciously, automatically, robotlike. If the taste is not lived, you are just stuffing. Go slow, and be aware of the taste. Do not just go on swallowing things. Taste them unhurriedly and become the taste. When you feel sweetness, become that sweetness. And then it can be felt all over the body – not just in the mouth, not just on the tongue, it can be felt all over the body spreading in ripples.

With mouth slightly open,
keep mind in the middle of the tongue.
Or, as breath comes silently in,
feel the sound “HH.”

This technique is concerned with focusing on the tongue, in the middle of the tongue. With mouth slightly open – as if you are going to speak. Not closed, but slightly open as if you are going to speak; not like when you are speaking, but like when you are just going to speak.

Then keep the mind in the middle of the tongue.

This technique is based on inner sensitivity. First grow in sensitivity. Just close your doors, make the room dark, and light a small candle. Sit near the candle with a very loving attitude – rather, with a prayerful attitude.... Take a bath, throw cold water on your eyes, then sit in a very prayerful mood before the candle. Look at it and forget everything else. Just look at the small candle – the flame and the candle. Go on looking at it. After five minutes you will feel that many things are changing in the candle. They are not changing in the candle, remember; your eyes are changing.

Look into the blue sky and go on looking.

Do not think about it; do not say it is beautiful. Do not say, "How lovely!" Do not appreciate the color; do not start thinking. If you start thinking, you have stopped. Now your eyes are not moving into the blue, the infinite blue. Just move, just look – do not think. Do not create words; they will become barriers. Not even 'blue sky' should be said. Do not verbalize.

You are sitting in the garden, the traffic is passing by and there are many noises and many sounds. You just close your eyes and try to find the subtlest sound there is around you. A crow is cawing: just concentrate yourself on that crow’s noise. The whole traffic noise is going on. The sound is such, it is so subtle, that you cannot be aware of it unless you focus your awareness towards it. But if you focus your awareness, the whole traffic noise will go far away and the noise of the crow will become the center.