WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS, AT THIS VERY POINT, EXPERIENCE

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS, AT THIS VERY POINT, EXPERIENCE. What? What experience? In this technique, firstly you have to develop attention. You have to develop a sort of attentive attitude, only then will this technique become possible, so then wherever your attention alights you can experience -- you can experience yourself. Just by looking at a flower you can experience yourself. Then looking at a flower is not looking at the flower only, but at the looker also -- but only if you know the secret of attention.

You also look at a flower, and you may think you are looking at the flower, but you have started thinking about the flower, and the flower is missed. You are no more there, you have gone somewhere else, you have moved away. By attention is meant that when you are looking at a flower, you are looking at a flower and not doing anything else -- as if the mind has stopped, as if now there is no thinking and only a simple experience of the flower there. You are here, the flower is there, and between you two there is no thought.

Suddenly -- if this is possible -- suddenly, from the flower your attention will come back, bounce back to yourself. It will become a circle. You will look at the flower and the look will come back; the flower will reflect it, rebounce it. If there are no thoughts, this happens. Then you are not looking at the flower only, you are looking at the looker also. Then the looker and the flower have become two objects and you have become a witness of both.

But first attention has to be trained, because you have no attention at all. Your attention is just flickering, moving from this to that, from that to something further. Not for a single moment are you attentive. Even if I am talking here, you never hear all my words. You hear one word, then your attention goes somewhere else; then you come back, you hear another, then your attention goes somewhere else. You hear a few words, and you fill the gaps, and then you think you have heard me.

And whatsoever you carry with yourself, it is your own business, it is your own creation. Just a few words you have heard from me, and then you have filled the gaps, and whatsoever you fill in the gaps changes everything. I say a word, and you have started thinking about it. You cannot remain silent. If you can remain silent while hearing, you will become attentive.

Attention means a silent alertness with no thoughts interfering. Develop it. You can develop it only by doing it; there is no other way. Do it more and you will develop it. Doing anything, being anywhere, try to develop it.

You are travelling in a car, or in a train. What are you doing there? Try to develop attention; don't waste time. For half an hour you will be in a train: develop attention. Just be there. Don't think. Look at someone, look at the train or look outside, but be the look, don't think anything. Stop thinking. Be there and look. Your look will become direct, penetrating, and from everywhere your look will be reflected back and you will become aware of the looker.

You are not aware of yourself because there is a wall. When you look at a flower, first your thoughts change your look; they give their own color. Then that look goes to the flower. It comes back, but then again your thoughts give it a different color. And when it comes back it never finds you there. You have moved somewhere else, you are not there.

Every look comes back; everything is reflected, responsed, but you are not there to receive it. So be there to receive it. The whole day you can try it on many things, and by and by you will develop attentiveness. With that attentiveness do this:

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

Then look anywhere, but simply look. The attention has alighted -- and you will experience yourself. But the first requirement is to have the capacity to be attentive. And you can practise it. There is no need for it to take some extra time.

Whatsoever you are doing -- eating, taking a bath, standing under a shower -- just be attentive. But what is the problem? The problem is that we do everything with the mind, and we are planning continuously for the future. You may be travelling in a train, but your mind may be arranging other journeys; programming, planning. Stop this.

One Zen monk, Bokuju, has said, `This is the only meditation I know. While I eat, I eat. While I walk, I walk. And while I feel sleepy, I sleep. Whatsoever happens, happens. I never interfere.'

That's all there is -- don't interfere. And whatsoever happens, allow it to happen; you be simply there. That will give you attentiveness. And when you have attention, this technique is just in your hand.

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

You will experience the experiencer; you will fall back to yourself. From everywhere you will be rebounded; from everywhere you will be reflected. The whole existence will become a mirror; you will be reflected everywhere. The whole existence will mirror you, and only then can you know yourself, never before.

Unless the whole existence becomes a mirror for you, unless every part of existence reveals you, unless every relationship opens you.... You are such an infinite phenomenon -- ordinary mirrors won't do. You are such a vast existence within, that unless the whole existence becomes a mirror you will not be able to get a glimpse. When the whole universe becomes a mirror, only then will you be mirrored. In you exists the divine.

And the technique to make existence a mirror is this: create attention, becomes more alert, and then wherever your attention alights -- wherever, on any object you alight -- suddenly experience yourself. This is possible, but right now impossible, because you don't fulfill the basic requirement.

You can look at a flower, but that is not attention. You are just running near the flower, around and around. You have seen the flower while running; you have not been there for a single moment. Then the whole life becomes meditative.

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

Just remember yourself.

There is a deep reason because of which this technique can be helpful. You can throw a ball and hit the wall -- the ball will come back. When you look at a flower or at a face, a certain energy is being thrown -- your look is energy. And you are not aware that when you look, you are investing some energy, you are throwing some energy. A certain quantity of your energy, of your life energy, is being thrown. That's why you feel exhausted after looking in the street the whole day: people passing, advertisements, the crowd, the shops. Looking at everything you feel exhausted and then you want to close your eyes to relax. What has happened? Why are you feeling so exhausted? You have been throwing energy.

Buddha and Mahavir both insisted that their monks should not look too much; they must concentrate on the ground. Buddha says that you can only look up to four feet ahead. Don't look anywhere. Just look on the path where you are moving. To look four feet ahead is enough, because when you have moved four feet, again you will be looking four feet ahead. Don't look more than that, because you are not to waste energy unnecessarily.

When you look, you are throwing a certain amount of energy. Wait, be silent, allow that energy to come back. And you will be surprised. If you can allow the energy to come back, you will never feel exhausted. Do it. Tomorrow morning, try it. Be silent, look at a thing. Be silent, don't think about it, and wait patiently for a single moment -- the energy will come back; in fact, you may be revitalized.

People continuously ask me... I go on reading continuously so they ask me, `Why are your eyes still okay? You must have needed space long ago.'

You can read, but if you are reading silently with no thought, the energy comes back. It is never wasted. You never feel tired. My whole life I have been reading twelve hours a day, sometimes even eighteen hours a day, but I have never felt any tiredness. In my eyes I have never felt anything, never any tiredness. Without thought the energy comes back; there is no barrier. And if you are there you reabsorb it, and this reabsorption is rejuvenating. Rather than your eyes being tired they feel more relaxed, more vital, filled with more energy.