VBT – Week’s Meditation 35
Love Yourself And Watch
Overflowing Of Love simply means Love Yourself and Watch.
Love begins with you yourself, then it can go on spreading. It goes on spreading of its own accord; you need not do anything to spread it.
Love yourself… says Buddha. And then immediately he adds: … and watch. That is meditation, that is Buddha’s name for meditation. But the first requirement is to love yourself, and then watch. If you don’t love yourself and start watching, you may feel like committing suicide.
Many Buddhists feel like committing suicide because they don’t pay attention to the first part, they immediately jump to the second: watch yourself. In fact, I have never come across a single commentary on The Dhammapada, these sutras of the Buddha, which has paid any attention to the first part: Love yourself.
Socrates says: Know thyself, Buddha says: Love thyself. And Buddha is far truer, because unless you love yourself you will never know yourself – knowing comes only later on, love prepares the ground. Love is the possibility of knowing oneself. Love is the right way to know oneself.
“Love yourself and watch…today, tomorrow, always.”
Create loving energy around yourself. Love your body and love your mind. Love your whole mechanism, your whole organism. By love is meant: accept it as it is, don’t try to repress. We repress only when we hate something, we repress only when we are against something. Don’t repress, because if you repress how are you going to watch? We cannot look the enemy eye to eye; we can look only in the eyes of our beloved. If you are not a lover of yourself you will not be able to look into your own eyes, into your own face, into your own reality.
Watching is meditation, Buddha’s name for meditation. Watch is Buddha’s watchword. He says: Be aware, be alert, don’t be unconscious. Don’t behave in a sleepy way. Don’t go on functioning like a machine, like a robot. That’s how people are functioning.
Watch – just watch. Buddha does not say what has to be watched – everything! Walking, watch your walking. Eating, watch your eating. Taking a shower, watch the water, the cold water falling on you, the touch of the water, the coldness, the shiver that goes through your spine – watch everything, “today, tomorrow, always.”
A moment finally comes when you can watch even your sleep. That is the ultimate in watching. The body goes to sleep and there is still a watcher awake, silently watching the body fast asleep. That is the ultimate in watching. Right now just the opposite is the case: your body is awake but you are asleep. Then you will be awake and your body will be asleep. The body needs rest but your consciousness needs no sleep. Your consciousness is consciousness; it is alertness, that is its very nature.
As you become more watchful you start having wings – then the whole sky is yours. Man is a meeting of the earth and the sky, of body and soul.
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