Vigyan Bhairav Tantra – Meditation Technique 30
EYES CLOSED, SEE YOUR INNER BEING IN DETAIL. THUS SEE YOUR TRUE NATURE.
EYES CLOSED… Close your eyes. But this closing is not enough. Total closing means to close your eyes and stop their movements; otherwise the eyes will continue to see something which is of the outside. Even with closed eyes you will see things — images of things. Actual things are not there, but images, ideas, collected memories — they will start flowing. They are also from outside, so your eyes are still not totally closed. Totally closed eyes means nothing to see.
Understand the difference. You can close your eyes; that is easy, everyone closes them every moment. In the night you close your eyes, but that will not reveal the inner nature to you. Close your eyes so that nothing remains to be seen — no outside object, no inside image of any outside object, just a blank darkness as if you have suddenly gone blind. Not blind only to reality, but to the dream reality also.
One has to practise it. A long period will be needed; it cannot be done suddenly. You will need a long training. Close your eyes. Anytime you feel that it is easy and you have time, close your eyes and then inwardly stop all movements of the eyes. Do not allow any movement. Feel! Do not allow any movement. Stop all movements of the eyes. Feel as if they have become stones, and then remain in that “stoney” state of the eyes. Do not do anything; just remain there. Suddenly, someday, you will become aware that you are looking inside yourself.
You can go just outside this building, move around the building and have a look, but that is looking at the building from the outside. Then you can enter into the room and you can stand in this room and have a look. That is looking at the building from the inside. When you are taking a round outside, you see the walls, but only one side; (The walls are the same, but) then you are seeing the outside of the walls. When you come in, the walls are the same, but now you will see the inside of the walls.
You have seen your body only from the outside. You have seen your body in a mirror or you have seen your hands from the outside. You do not know what the inside of your body is. You have never entered into your own self; you have never been at the center of your body and being, to look around at what is there from the inside.
This technique is very helpful for having a look from the inside, and that transforms your total consciousness, your total existence — because if you can have a look from the inside, you immediately become different from the world. This false identity that “I am the body” is only because we have been looking at our bodies from the outside. If you can have a look from the inside, the looker becomes different. And then you can move your consciousness in your body, from your toe to your head; you can now have a round inside the body. And once you become capable of having a look from the inside and moving there, then it is not difficult to go outside at all.
Once you know how to move, once you know that you are separate from the body, you are freed from a great bondage. Now you have no gravitational pull; now you have no limitation. Now you are absolute freedom. You can go out of the body; you can go and come. And then your body becomes just an abode.
Close your eyes, see your inner being in detail and move from limb to limb inside. Just go to your toe. Forget the whole body: move to the toe. Stay there and have a look. Then move through the legs, come on upwards, go to every limb. Then many things happen. MANY things happen!
Then your body becomes such a sensitive vehicle, you cannot even imagine it. Then if you touch someone, you can move into your hand totally and that touch will become transforming. That is what is meant by a master’s touch: he can move to any limb totally, and then he is concentrated there. If you can move to any part of your body totally, that part becomes alive — so much alive that you cannot imagine what happens to that part. Then you can move to the eyes totally. If you can move to your eyes totally and then look into someone’s eyes, you will penetrate him; you will go to his very depths.
Now psychoanalysts are trying to go to the depths through psychoanalysis. Then they take one year, two years, three years… This is a sheer wastage of time. And life is so short that if three years are taken to analyze a person’s mind, it is nonsense. And then too you cannot rely on whether the analysis is complete or not. You are groping in the dark. The Eastern approach has been through the eyes. No need of analyzing the person for such a long time. The work can be done by just entering through his eyes totally, touching his depths, knowing many things about him of which even he is not aware.
The master has many things to do. One of the basic things is this: to analyze you, to go deep into you, to move into your darker realms which are unknown to you. And if he says to you that something is hidden in you, you will not believe it. How can you believe it? You are not aware of it. You know only one part of the mind — a very small fragment which is just the upper part, just the first layer. Behind it there are hidden nine layers which are not known to you, but through your eyes a penetration is possible.
Close your eyes;
SEE YOUR INNER BEING IN DETAIL.
The first, outer part of the technique is to look at your body inwardly — from your inner center. Stand there and have a look. You will be separated from the body because the looker is never the looked at. The observer is different from the object.
If you can see your body totally from the inside, then you can never fall into the illusion that you are the body. Then you will remain different — totally different: inside it but not it, in the body but not the body. This is the first part. Then you can move; then you are free to move. Once freed from the body, freed from the identity, you are free to move. Now you can move into your mind — deep down. Those nine layers which are within and unconscious can now be entered into.
This is the inner cave of the mind. If you enter this cave of the mind, you will become separate from the mind also. Then you will see that the mind is also an object which you can look at, and that which is entering the mind is, again, separate and different. This entering into the mind is what is meant by: SEE YOUR INNER BEING IN DETAIL. Body and mind both should be entered and looked at from within. Then you are simply a witness, and this witness cannot be penetrated.
That is why it is your innermost core: that is you. That which can be penetrated, that which can be seen, is not you. When you have come to that which cannot be penetrated, that in which you cannot move, which cannot be observed, then only have you come to the real self. You cannot witness the witnessing source, remember — that is absurd.
If someone says that “I have witnessed my witness,” that is absurd. Why is it absurd? Because if you have witnessed your witnessing self, then the witnessing self is not the witnessing self. That who has witnessed it is the witness. That who you can see, you are not; that which you can observe, you are not; that which you can become aware of, you are not.
But a point comes beyond the mind where simply you are. Now you cannot divide your single existence into two: object and subject. Simple subjectivity is there, just witnessing. This is very, very difficult to comprehend through intellect because all the categories of the intellect are broken there.
Because of this logical difficulty, Charwak — the expounder of one of the most logical philosophical systems in the world — says that you cannot know the self; there is no self-knowledge. And because there is no self-knowledge, how can you say that there is a elf? Whatsoever you know is not the self. The knower is the self, not the known, so you cannot say logically that “I have known my self.” That is absurd, illogical. How can you know your self? Then who will be the knower and who will be the known? Knowledge means a dichotomy, a division between object and subject, the knower and the known.
So Charwak says that all those who say they have known the self are talking nonsense. Self-knowledge is impossible because the self is irreducibly the knower. It cannot be converted into the known.
Then Charwak says that if you cannot know the self, how can you say that there is self? Those like Charwak, who do not believe in the presence of a self, are called ANATMAVADIN. They say no self is; they say there is no self — that which cannot be known is not. And they are right logically. If logic is all, they are right. But this is the mystery of life, that logic is only the beginning — not the end. A moment comes when logic ends, but you do not end. A moment comes when logic is finished, but you are still there. Life is illogical. That is why it is difficult to comprehend, to conceive of what is meant when it is said that only the witness remains.
For example, if there is a lamp in this room, you see many objects around you. When the lamp is turned off, there is darkness and nothing can be seen. When the lamp is put on, there is light and you can see everything in the room. But have you ever observed what is happening? If there are no objects, will you be able to see the lamp and its light? You will not be able to see its light, because to be seen the light must reflect something. It must strike an object. The rays must go to an object and then be reflected, then they will reach to your eyes. So first you see objects, then you infer that light is there. When you burn a lamp or a candle, you never see the light first. First you see the objects, and because of the objects you come to know about the light.
Scientists say that if there are no objects then light cannot be seen. Look at the sky: it looks blue but it is not blue, it is filled with cosmic rays. It looks blue because there are no objects. Those rays cannot reflect and come to your eyes. If you go into space and there are no objects, then there will be darkness. Of course, rays will be passing just by your side, but there will be darkness. To know the light some objects have to be there.
Charwak says that if you enter within and come to the point where only the witness has remained and there is nothing to be witnessed, how can you know about it? Some object must be there to be witnessed; only then can you know the witnessing. Logically, scientifically, it is right. But existentially it is not right.
Those who really move inside come to a point where there is no object left but just the consciousness of being. You are, but nothing is there to be seen — only the seer. ONLY the seer! There is simple subjectivity without any object around it. The moment you come to this point, you have entered your ultimate goal of being. You can call it the alpha — the beginning, or you can call it the omega – the end. It is both, alpha and omega. This is called “self-knowledge.”
Linguistically the word is wrong because linguistically nothing can be said about it. Language becomes meaningless when you enter the world of the one. Language is meaningful only when you are in the world of two. In the world of duality language is meaningful because language is created in, is part of the dualistic world. It becomes meaningless when you enter the one, the non-dual. That is why those who know have remained silent — or even if they say something they hurriedly add that whatsoever they are saying is just symbolic, and whatsoever they are saying is not exactly true: it is false.
Lao Tsu said that that which can be said cannot be true, and that which is true cannot be said. He remained silent; for most of his life he would not write anything. He said, “If I say something it will be untrue, because nothing can be said about the realm where only the One remains.”
EYES CLOSED, SEE YOUR INNER BEING IN DETAIL — body and mind both.
THUS SEE YOUR TRUE NATURE. See your body and mind, your structure. And remember, body and mind are not two things. Rather, you are both: body-mind — psychosomatic. Mind is the finer part of the body and body is the grosser part of the mind.
So if you can become aware of the structure of body-mind, if you can become conscious of the structure, you are freed from the structure, you are freed from the vehicle, you have become different. And this knowing that you are separate from the structure is your true nature. That is what you really are. This body will die, but that true nature never dies. This mind will die and change, and die again and again, but that true nature never dies. That true nature is eternal. That is why that true nature is neither your name nor your form. It is beyond both.
So how to do this technique? Total closing of the eyes is needed. If you try it, close your eyes and then stop the movements. Let your eyes become just like stones. No movements allowed. Suddenly, any day while practising this, suddenly it will happen that you will be able to look within. The eyes which were always looking outside will turn in and you will have a glimpse inside.
Then there is no difficulty. Once you have the glimpse inside, you know what to do and how to move. Only the first glimpse is difficult; after that you have the knack. Then it becomes just like a trick. Any moment you can close your eyes, make your eyes static, and you can enter the realm.
Buddha was dying. It was the last day of his life, and he asked his disciples if they wanted to ask any questions. They were weeping, crying, and they said, “You have told us so much. Now nothing is left to ask.” Buddha had a habit of asking thrice. He would never stop after asking once. He would ask again, and then he would ask still again whether you had any question to ask . Many times Buddha was asked, “Why do you ask a single thing three times?” He said, “Because man is so unaware, so unconscious, he may not have heard the first time and he may have missed the second time.”
Thrice he asked, and thrice his BHIKKHUS, monks, his disciples said, “Now we do not want to ask anything. You have said so much.” Then he closed his eyes and said, “If you do not have anything to ask, before death occurs to the body I will move from it. Before death enters the body I will move from it.”
He closed his eyes. His eyes became static and he started moving. It is said that there were four parts to his movement inwards. First he closed his eyes; secondly, his eyes became static, there were no movements. If you had then the instrument for recording R.E.M., the graph would not have come. The eyes became static — that was the second thing. Thirdly, he looked at his body; then fourthly, he looked at his mind.
This was the whole journey. Before death occurred he was back at his center, in his original source. That is why this death is not called death: we call it NIRVANA, and this is the difference. We call it nirvana — cessation — not death. Ordinarily, we die because death occurs to us. It never occurred to Buddha. Before death came, he had already returned to the source.
Death occurred only to the dead body — he was not there to be found. So in Buddhist tradition it is said that he never died. Death could not catch him. It followed as it follows him everyone, but he could not be trapped; he tricked Death out of it. He must have been laughing — standing beyond, and Death was there only with a dead body.
This technique is the same. Make four parts of it and move. And when you know one glimpse, the whole thing will become very easy and simple. Then any moment you can move in and come out, and go in and come out, just like coming out of your house and going in… coming out and going in.
