A message from today’s meditation:
“I’m simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I’m saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.
It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering, not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process.
It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.
Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.
That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.”
― Osho
I love this beautiful description by Osho, and while it makes intellectual sense to look at his message and understand how it’s helpful, what does it take to be the witness in that moment when something wakes up inside of me screaming in rage or in pain?
We have senses inside and out. Our 5 outer senses give us feedback about what’s happening in the world around us, and then we have a complex mixture of feelings, thoughts and emotions that tell us about what’s happening in the world within us.
When my outer senses pick up a bad smell from the world around me it’s so easy to go, “Oh! I smell something bad!” But when it’s an inner sense I’m experiencing I turn it into, “Oh no! I AM something bad!”
Of course our inner world feels very personal which is why it’s so easy to believe that the things I think and feel are who I am – but could it be different? Could I learn something from my sense of smell that so easily says, “I smell something bad” and find a healthier approach to thoughts and emotions that don’t fall into the trap of believing “I AM bad because of what I’m thinking and feeling?”
Could I be the witness to my inner senses as easily as I witness my outer senses?
Take a moment to follow this process, and you’ll experience the inner spaciousness that you are able to create. Take each one of these phrases one at a time, close your eyes as you repeat each line a few times over. I’ll use anger as an example, you may use the same or insert a different emotion if it works better for you:
- “I am angry!”
Remind yourself of what it felt like the last time you experienced this emotion, how it felt in your body and how you saw the world and the people around you.
- “I feel angry!”
Notice that there is just the smallest step backwards. There is the possibility of being witness to an experience in stead of being consumed by the experience.
- “I can see that a part of me feels angry.”
Who am I being when I can take a step back and look at the angry part of me? How does my life change when I spend more time being this observer? How is the quality of my life different when I can see this angry part and learn to understand it rather than being consumed by it?
Having answers to these questions is not the point, but make it a habit to start asking the questions. Start living the questions and there’ll come a time when you realize that you have begun LIVING the answers to these questions!
Today’s meditation helps with really practical steps towards being the witness.
– pierre –
Today’s LIVE meditation is: Come to your senses.