LietuviškaiLT   EnglishEN  

Meditacijos centras Ojas
 





The Light of Consciousness*

©Photo from Ojas archive 
©Photo from Ojas archive 

<...> The basic foundation of meditation is to purify and experience the true nature of the body, the thoughts and the emotions. If even only this much happens your life will become very blissful. If even only this much happens your life becomes divine. If even only this much happens you will become connected with the beyond. But it will only be a meeting with the beyond, you have not yet merged with it. You have become connected with the beyond but have not yet become one with it. You are acquainted with the divine but you are not it. The foundation of purification will turn you towards the divine and focus your eyes on it, but it is the state of emptiness alone that will allow you to merge with the divine and become one with it.

In the beginning, at the periphery you come to know truth, at the center you become truth. So now I will talk about this second stage. I have called the first stage purification; I am calling this second stage emptiness. There are also three stages of this emptying: at the level of the body, the mind level and the emotional level.

Bodilessness is the opposite of identification with the body. You are identified with the body. You don’t feel “It is my body”; on the contrary, on some level you go on feeling that “I am the body.” If the feeling that you are the body disappears, then you will become bodiless. If your identification with the body is broken, bodilessness will happen.

<...>

This is why Krishna has said, “That which fire cannot burn, which an arrow cannot pierce, which a sword cannot cut, that is-ness, that being is within us. The integrated being which fire cannot burn and an arrow cannot penetrate is within us.”

The awareness of that being and the dropping of the identification with the body, the dropping of the feeling that you are the body, is bodilessness. But you will have to do something to drop the identification. You will have to learn how to drop it. And the more pure the body is, the more easy it will be to drop the identification with the body. The more the body is in a state of purity, the more quickly you can become aware that you are not the body. This is why body purity is the basis and bodilessness is its ultimate fruit.

©Photo from Ojas archive
 ©Photo from Ojas archive

How can you learn that you are not the body? You will have to experience it. If standing, sitting, sleeping and waking you try to remember, if there is a little right-mindfulness, if there is a little awareness of the functions of the body, you will have taken the first step towards creating emptiness.

When you are walking along a path, look deeply inside yourself and you will see that there is someone in there who is not walking. You are walking, your hands and feet are moving, but there is something within you which is not walking at all, which is just watching you walk.

When you have some pain in your hand or foot, when you have hurt your foot, then look inside with awareness – are you hurt, or is it that your body is hurt and you are getting identified with the pain? When there is some pain in the body become aware if the pain is happening to you or whether you are simply witnessing the pain, whether you are a witness to the pain.

When you feel hungry, look with awareness to see if you are hungry, or your body is hungry and you are simply witnessing this. And when there is happiness, also watch and feel where this happiness is actually happening.

With all that is happening in your life, while you are standing, sitting, walking, sleeping and waking, what needs to be remembered is to be aware to make a constant effort to see where things are actually happening. Are they actually happening to you or are you just a witness?

Your habit of identification is deep. You may even start to cry while you are watching a movie or a play, you may start to laugh. When the lights in the theater come on you secretly wipe away your tears so that nobody sees them. You cried, you became identified with the movie. You became identified with the hero, the character – something painful may have happened to him, and you identified with this pain and started to cry.

A mind which thinks that whatever is happening to the body is happening to you is in misery and pain. And there is only one cause for all your misery, and that is your identification with the body. And there is also only one cause for happiness, and that is that your identification with the body breaks and you become aware that you are not the body.

For that, right-remembrance is needed. Right-remembrance of the activities of the body, right-awareness, right-observation of the activities of the body are needed. It is a process: bodilessness will happen through right-observation of the body.

It is necessary to observe the body. When you go to bed at night, it is important to be aware that your body is going to bed, not you. And in the morning when you get out of bed, it is important to be aware that your body is getting out of bed, not you. It was not you that has slept, it was only your body that slept. When you eat, be aware that your body is eating, and when you wear clothes be aware that the clothes only cover the body, not you. Then when somebody hurts you, with this awareness you will be able to remember that the body is being hurt, not you. In this way, with constant reminders, at some point there will be an explosion and the identification will be broken.

<...> If you do this all the time, for twenty-four hours a day – walking, getting up, sitting down, talking and remaining aware that you are not the body – then the body will be just an emptiness.

* - excerpt from OSHO. The Path of Meditation.

 

Updated on 25-08-2015







Ojas Meditation Center

21d Pavasario Str.   |   LT-10309 Vilnius, Lithuania, EU   |     phone: +370-5-2153398   |   mobile phone: +370-61911551  
Resort: Mishkiniu vil. 8, Nemenchine eld., Vilnius r.   |     mobile phone: +370-68511533  

We answer phone calls on Mon-Fri 9AM-12AM, Sat 2PM-5PM, except during meditation courses

e-mail:   |   website: https://www.ojasmc.eu

© Ojas Meditation Center 2024. All rights reserved. Copyright information



News