ध्यान

When I say, "Drop the ego, drop the mind," I don't mean that you cannot use the mind any more. In fact, when you don't cling to the mind you can use it in a far better, far more efficient way, because the energy that was involved in clinging becomes available. And when you are not continuously in the mind, twenty-four hours a day in the mind, the mind also gets a little time to rest.

Meditation is rest, absolute rest, a full stop to all activity - physical, mental, emotional. When you are in such a deep rest that nothing stirs in you, when all action as such ceases, as if you are fast asleep yet awake, you come to know who you are. Suddenly the window opens. It cannot be opened by effort, because effort creates tension, and tension is the cause of our whole misery. Hence this is something very fundamental to be understood that meditation is not effort.

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.

We look at things always with old eyes. You come to your home; you look at it without looking at it. You know it – there is no need to look at it. You have entered it again and again for years together. You go to the door, you enter the door; you may unlock the door. But there is no need to look.

When people come to me and they ask, "How to meditate?" I tell them, "There is no need to ask how to meditate, just ask how to remain unoccupied. Meditation happens spontaneously. Just ask how to remain unoccupied, that's all. That's the whole trick of meditation - how to remain unoccupied. Then you cannot do anything. The meditation will flower.

Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop.

You can try it anywhere. You are taking your bath – suddenly order yourself to 'Stop!' and stop. Even if it is only for a single moment, you will feel a different phenomenon happening within you. You are thrown to the center and suddenly everything stops – not only the body. When the body stops totally, your mind stops also.