Vipassana – In Gita Verse 4.29 Still others, who are inclined to the process of breath restraint to remain in trance, practice by offering the movement of the outgoing breath into the incoming, and the incoming breath into the outgoing, and thus at last remain in trance, stopping all breathing. Others, curtailing the eating process, offer the outgoing breath into itself as a sacrifice.
In Bhagavad Gita when Krishna is using the word sacrifice only means that sacrifice your ego. Learn to sacrifice ego, grow in consciousness. In this verse talks regarding Vipassana. Breathing.
Whether it’s science, religion or spirituality everyone talks about breath. Even science says that when you are angry and if you focus on breathing your biochemistry changes. In the process you calm down. Religion and spirituality direct you through various processes of breathing and you will be able to turn from objective world to subjective world. Turn In.
Vipassana is such a simple thing that even a small child can do it. Vipassana can be done in three ways – you can choose which one suits you the best.
The first is: Awareness of your actions, your body, your mind, your heart. Walking, you should walk with awareness. Moving your hand, you should move with awareness, knowing perfectly that you are moving the hand. You can move it without any consciousness, like a mechanical thing. You are on a morning walk; you can go on walking without being aware of your feet. Be alert of the movements of your body. While eating, be alert of the movements that are needed for eating. While taking a shower, be alert of the coolness that is coming to you, the water falling on you and the tremendous joy of it…. Just be alert. It should not go on happening in an unconscious state.
And the same about your mind: whatever thought passes on the screen of your mind, just be a watcher. Whatever emotion passes on the screen of your heart, just remain a witness – don’t get involved, don’t get identified, don’t evaluate what is good, what is bad; that is not part of your meditation. Your meditation has to be choiceless awareness.
The second form is breathing, becoming aware of breathing. As the breath goes in, your belly starts rising up, and as the breath goes out, your belly starts settling down again. So the second method is to be aware of the belly, its rising and falling. Just the very awareness of the belly rising and falling … And the belly is very close to the life sources because the child is joined with the mother’s life through the navel. Behind the navel is his life’s source. So when the belly rises up, it is really the life energy, the spring of life that is rising up and falling down with each breath. That too is not difficult, and perhaps may be even easier, because it is a single technique.
In the first method you have to be aware of the body, you have to be aware of the mind, you have to be aware of your emotions, moods. So it has three steps. The second sort has a single step: just the belly, moving up and down. And the result is the same. As you become more aware of the belly, the mind becomes silent, the heart becomes silent, the moods disappear.
The third is to be aware of the breath at the entrance, when the breath goes in through your nostrils. Feel it at that extreme – the other polarity from the belly – feel it from the nose. The breath going in gives a certain coolness to your nostrils. Then the breath going out … breath going in, breath going out….
That too is possible. It is easier for men than for women. The woman is more aware of the belly. Most men don’t even breathe as deep as the belly. Their chest rises up and falls down, because a wrong kind of athletics prevails over the world. Certainly it gives a more beautiful form to the body if your chest is high and your belly is almost non-existent.
These are the three forms. Any one will do. And if you want to do two forms together, you can do two forms together; then the effort will become more intense. If you want to do all three forms together, you can do all three forms together. Then the process will be quicker. But it all depends on you, whatever feels easy.
Remember: easy is right.
As meditation becomes settled, mind silent, the ego will disappear. You will be there, but there will be no feeling of ‘I’. Then the doors are open. Just wait with a loving longing, with a welcome in the heart for that great moment, the greatest moment in anybody’s life – enlightenment.
It comes … it certainly comes. It has never been delayed for a single moment. Once you are in the right tuning, it suddenly explodes in you, transforms you. The old man is dead and the new man has arrived.
Krishna says that if you practice any of the Breathing process you will find that you can take all your actions without any attachments. Just see the result of science and all of us will realize that our anger which is nothing but from our attachments will calm down. So it’s a question of how and when we start practicing instead of collecting all the data regarding breath. This is moving from knowledge to knowing.
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