VBT – Meditation 82.2

VBT – Meditation 82.2

Very Subtle

You are just 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 most subtle sound there 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. And you will hear it, all the nuances of it – very subtle, but you will be able to hear it.

Grow in sensitivity. When you touch, when you hear, when you eat, when you take a bath, allow your senses to be open. And don’t think – feel.

You are standing under the shower: feel the coolness of the water falling on you. Don’t think about it. Don’t immediately say, ‘It is very cool. It is cold. It is good.’ Don’t say anything. Don’t verbalize, because the moment you verbalize, you miss feeling. The moment words come in, the mind has started to function. Don’t verbalize. Feel the coolness and don’t say that it is cool. There is no need to say anything. But our minds are just mad; we go on saying something or other.

I remember, there was a lady professor who would always be saying something or other. It was impossible for her to be silent in any situation. One day I was standing on the verandah and the sun was setting. It was tremendously beautiful.

And she was just standing by my side, so I told her, ‘Look!’ She was saying something or other, so I said, ‘Look! Such a beautiful sunset.’ So, very reluctantly she conceded. She said, ‘Yes, but don’t you think there should be a little more purple just on the left?’ It was not a painting; it was a real sunset!

We go on saying things, not even aware of what we are saying. Stop verbalizing; only then can you deepen your feelings. If feelings are deepened, then this technique can work miracles for you.

FEEL: MY THOUGHT, Close your eyes and feel the thought. A continuous flow of thoughts is there, a continuum, a flux; a river of thoughts is flowing. Feel these thoughts, feel their presence. And the more you feel, the more will be revealed to you – layers upon layers. Not only thoughts that are just on the surface; behind them there are more thoughts, and behind them there are still more thoughts – layers upon layers.

And the technique says: FEEL: MY THOUGHT. And we go on saying, ‘These are my thoughts.’ But feel – are they really yours? Can you say ‘my’? The more you feel, the less will it be possible for you to say that they are yours. They are all borrowed, they are all from the outside. They have come to you but they are not yours. No thought is yours – just dust gathered. Even if you cannot recognize the source from where this thought has come to you, no thought is yours. If you try hard, you can find – from where this thought has come to you.

Only the inner silence is yours. No one has given it to you. You were born with it, and you will die with it. Thoughts have been given to you; you have been conditioned to them. If you are a Hindu, you have a different type, a different set of thoughts; if you are a Mohammedan, of course, a different set of thoughts; if you are a communist, again a different set of thoughts. They have been given to you, or you may have taken them voluntarily, but no thought is yours.

If you feel the presence of thoughts, the crowd, you can feel this also – that they are not yours. The crowd has come to you, it has gathered around you, but it doesn’t belong to you. And if this can be felt – that no thought is mine – only then you can throw the mind. If they are yours, you will defend them. And the very feeling that ‘this thought is mine’ is the attachment. Then I give it roots in myself.

Then I become the soil and the thought can remain rooted in me. If anything that I can see is not mine is uprooted, then I am not attached to it. The feeling of ‘mine’ creates attachment.