FEEL -- MY THOUGHT, I-NESS, INTERNAL ORGANS -- ME

A very simple and a very beautiful technique. Feel: MY THOUGHT, I-NESS, INTERNAL ORGANS -- ME. The first thing is not to think but to feel. These are two different dimensions. And we have become so intellect-oriented that even when we say that we are feeling, really we are not feeling, we are thinking. Feeling has completely stopped; it has become a dead organ in you. Even when you say, `I love,' it is not a feeling, it is again a thought.

And what is the difference between feeling and thought? If you feel, you will feel yourself centered near the heart. If I say, `I love you,' this very feeling of love will flow from my heart, the center will be near the heart. If it is just a thought, it will come from my head. When you love someone, try to feel whether it is coming from the head, or whether it is coming from the heart.

Whenever you deeply feel, you are headless. In that moment there is no head; there cannot be. The heart becomes your whole being -- as if the head has disappeared. In feeling, the center of being is the heart. While you are thinking, the center of being is the head. But thinking proved very useful for survival, so we have stopped everything else. All other dimensions of our being have been stopped and closed. We are just heads, and the body is just a situation for the head to exist. We go on thinking; even about feelings we go on thinking. So try to feel. You will have to work on it, because that capacity, that quality, has remained retarded. You must do something to re-open that possibility.

You look at a flower and immediately you say it is beautiful. Ponder over the fact, linger over the fact. Don't give a hurried judgement. Wait -- and then see whether it is just from the head that you have said it is beautiful, or whether you have felt it. Is it just a routine thing, because you know a rose is beautiful, supposed to be beautiful? People say it is beautiful, and you have also said many times that it is beautiful.

The moment you see the rose, the mind supplies you; the mind says it is beautiful. Finished. Now there is no contact with the rose. There is no need; you have said. Now you can move to something else. Without any communion with the rose... the mind didn't allow you even a glimpse of the rose. The mind came in between, and the heart couldn't come in touch with the rose. Only the heart can say whether it is beautiful or not, because beauty is a feeling, it is not a concept.

You cannot say from the head that it is beautiful. How can you say? Beauty is not mathematics, it is not measurable. And beauty is not really just in the rose, because to someone else it may not be beautiful at all; and someone else may just pass without looking at it; and to someone else it may even be ugly. The beauty doesn't exist simply in the rose; the beauty exists in a meeting of the heart with the rose. When the heart meets with the rose, beauty flowers. When the heart comes in deep contact with anything it is a great phenomenon.

If you come in deep contact with any person, the person becomes beautiful. The deeper the contact, the more beauty is revealed. But beauty is a phenomenon that happens to the heart, not to the mind. It is not a calculation, and there is no criterion by which to judge it. It is a feeling.

So if I say, `This rose is not beautiful,' you cannot argue about it. There is no need to argue. You will say, `That is your feeling. And the rose is beautiful -- this is my feeling.' There is no question of argument. Heads can argue. Hearts cannot argue. It is finished, it is a full stop. If I say, `This is my feeling,' then there is no question of argument.

With the head, argument can continue and we can come to a conclusion. With the heart, the conclusion has already happened. With the heart, there is no procedure towards the conclusion; the conclusion is immediate, instantaneous. With the head, it is a process -- you argue, you discuss, you analyze, and then you come to a conclusion about whether this is so or not. With the heart, it is an immediate phenomenon -- the conclusion comes first. Look at it: with the head, conclusion comes in the end. With the heart, conclusion comes first, and then you can proceed to find the process -- but that is the work of the head.

So when such techniques have to be practised, the first difficulty will be that you don't know what feeling is. Try to develop it. When you touch something, close your eyes; don't think, feel. For example, if I take your hand in my hand and I say to you, `Close your eyes and feel what is happening,' immediately you will say, `Your hand is in my hand.' But this is not a feeling, this is a thinking.

Then I again say to you, `Feel. Don't think.' Then you say, `You are expressing your love.' That too is again thinking. If I insist again, `Just feel, don't use your head. What are you feeling right now?' only then will you be able to feel and say, `The warmth.' Because love is a conclusion. `Your hand is in my hand' -- this is a head-oriented thought.

The actual feeling is that a certain warmth is flowing from my hand to your hand, or from your hand to my hand. Our life energies are meeting and the point of meeting has become hot, it has become warm. This is the feeling, the sensation, the real. But we go on with the head continuously. That has become a habit; we are trained for it. So you will have to re-open your heart.

Try to live with feelings. Sometimes in the day when you are not doing any particular business -- because in business, in the beginning it will be difficult to live with feeling. There, head has proved very efficient, and you cannot depend on feeling. While you are at home playing with your children, the head is not needed, it is not a business -- but there too you are with the head. Playing with your children or just sitting with your wife, or not doing anything, relaxing in a chair, feel. Feel the texture of the chair.

Your hand is touching the chair: how are you feeling it? The air is blowing, the breeze is coming in. It touches you. How do you feel? Smells are coming from the kitchen. How do you feel? Just feel. Don't think about them. Don't start brooding that this smell shows that something is being prepared in the kitchen -- then you will start dreaming about it. No, just feel whatsoever is the fact. Remain with the fact; don't move in thinking. You are surrounded from everywhere. Everywhere so much is converging on you. The whole existence is coming to meet you from everywhere, from all your senses it is entering you, but you are in the head, and your senses have become dead; they don't feel.

A certain growth will be needed before you can do this, because this is an inner experiment. If you cannot feel the outer, it will be very difficult for you to feel the inner, because the inner is the subtle. If you cannot feel the gross, you cannot feel the subtle. If you cannot hear the sounds, then it will be difficult for you to hear the inner soundlessness -- it will be very difficult. It is so 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, I was working in a university, and 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 of the college 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.

You can fight for your thoughts, you can even become a martyr for your thoughts. Or, you can become a killer, a murderer for your thoughts. And thoughts are not yours. Consciousness is yours, but thoughts are not yours. And why will this help? -- because if you can see that thoughts are not yours, then nothing is yours because thought is the root of all. The house is mine and the property is mine and the family is mine -- these are the outer things. Deep down the thoughts are mine. Only if thoughts are mine can all these things, the superstructure, be mine.

If thoughts are not mine then nothing matters, because this too is a thought -- that you are my wife, or you are my husband. This too is a thought. And if basically thought itself is not mine, then how can the husband be mine? Or how can the wife be mine? Thoughts uprooted, the whole world is uprooted. Then you can live in the world and not live in it.

You can move to the Himalayas, you can leave the world, but if you think that your thoughts are yours, you have not moved a single inch. Sitting there in the Himalayas, you will be as much in the world as here because thoughts are the world. You carry your thoughts to the Himalayas. You leave the house -- but the real house is inner, and the real house is built by the bricks of thought. It is not the outer house.

So this is strange, but this happens every day: I see a person who has left the world but still he remains a Hindu. He becomes a sannyasin and still he remains a Hindu or remains a Jain. What does it mean? He renounces the world but he doesn't renounce the thoughts. He is still a Jain, he is still a Hindu -- the thought-world is carried still. And that thought-world is the real world.

If you can see that no thought is yours.... And you will see, because you will be the seer and thoughts will become the objects. When you silently look at the thoughts, thoughts will be the objects and you will be the looker. You will be the seer, the witness, and thoughts will be flowing before you.

And if you look deeply and feel deeply, you will see that there are no roots. Thoughts are floating like clouds in the sky; they have no roots in you. They come and go. You are just a victim, and you unnecessarily become identified with them. About every cloud that passes by your house you say, `This is my cloud.' Thoughts are like clouds: in the sky of your consciousness they go on passing and you go on clinging to each one. You say, `This is mine' -- and this is only a vagrant cloud that is passing. And it will pass.

Go back in your childhood. You had certain thoughts, and you used to cling to them and you used to say that they were your thoughts. Then the childhood disappeared, and with that childhood those clouds disappeared. Now you don't even remember. Then you were young: then other clouds which are attracted when you are young came to you and then your started clinging to them.

Now you are old: those thoughts are no more there, you don't even remember them. And they were so significant that you could have died for them, and now you don't even remember. Now you can laugh at the whole nonsense that you once thought that you could die for them, you could become a martyr for them. Now you are not ready to even give a single penny for them. They don't belong to you now. Now those clouds have gone but other clouds have come, and you are clinging to them.

Clouds go on changing but your clinging never changes. That's the problem. And it is not that only when you are no longer a child they will change; every moment they are changing. A minute ago you were filled with certain clouds; now you are filled with other clouds. When you came here, certain clouds were hovering on you; when you leave this room, other clouds will be hovering on you -- and you go on clinging to every cloud. If in the end you find nothing in your hand, it is natural because nothing can come of clouds -- and thoughts are just clouds.

This sutra says: FEEL. Be established in feeling first. Then MY THOUGHT. Look at that thought which you have always been calling MY -- MY THOUGHT. Established in feeling, looking at thought, the MY disappears. And MY is the trick because out of many MY'S, out of many ME'S, the I evolves -- this is MINE, this is MY. So many MINE'S; out of them the I evolves.

This technique starts from the very root. Thought is the root of all. If you can cut the feeling of MY at the very root, it will not appear again, it will not be seen anywhere again. But if you don't cut it down there, you can go on cutting everywhere and it is useless; it will go on appearing again and again.

I can cut it. I can say, `My wife? No, we are strangers, and marriage is just a social formality.' I cut myself away. I say, `No one is my wife' -- but this is very superficial. Then I say, `MY religion,' Then I say, `MY sect.' Then I say, `This is MY religious book. This is the Bible. This is the Koran. This is MY book.' Then the MY continues in some other field and you remain the same.

MY THOUGHT, and then I-NESS. First look at the traffic of thought, the process of thought, the river-like flow of thought, and find out whether any thought belongs to you or whether they are just passing clouds. And when you have come to feel that no thought is yours, to attach MY to any thought is an illusion, then the second thing; then you can move deeper. Then be aware of I-ness. Where is this I?

Raman used to give a technique to his disciples: they were just to enquire, `Who am I?' In Tibet they use a similar technique, but still better than Raman's. They don't ask, `Who am I?' They ask, `Where am I?' -- because the WHO can create a problem. When you enquire, `Who am I?' you take it for granted that you are; the only question is to know who you are. You have presupposed that you are. That is not contested. It is taken for granted that you are. Now the only question is WHO you are. Only the identity is to be known, the face is to be recognized, but it is there -- unrecognized it is there.

The Tibetan method is still deeper. They say to be silent and then search within for where you are. Go on in the inner space, move to every point and ask, `Where am I?' You will not find it anywhere. And the more you seek, the more it will not be there. And asking `Who am I?' or `Where am I?' a moment comes when you come to a point where you are, but no I -- a simple existence has happened to you. But it will happen only when thoughts are not yours. That is a deeper realm -- I-NESS.

We never feel it. We go on saying I. The word I is used continuously -- the most used word is I -- but you have no feeling. What do you mean by I? When you say I, what do you mean? What is connoted through this word? What is expressed? I can make a gesture. Then I can say, `I mean this.' I can show my body -- `I mean this.' But then it can be asked, `Do you mean your hand? Do you mean your leg? Do you mean your stomach?' Then I will have to deny, I will have to say no. Then the whole body will be denied. Then what do you mean when you say I? Do you mean your head? Deep down, whenever you say I, it is a very vague feeling, and the vague feeling is of your thoughts.

Established in feeling, cut from thoughts, face I-ness, and as you face it, you find that it exists not. It was only a useful word, a linguistic symbol -- necessary, but not real. Even a Buddha has to use it, even after his enlightenment. It is just a linguistic device. But when a Buddha says I, he never means I, because there is no one.

When you face this I-NESS it will disappear. Fear can grip you at this moment, you can be scared. And it happens to many who move in such techniques deeply that they become so afraid that they run out of it. So remember this: when you feel and face your I-NESS you will be in the same situation as you will be when you die -- the same. Because I is disappearing, and you feel death is occurring to you. You will have a sinking sensation, you will feel you are sinking down and down. And if you get afraid, you will come out again and you will cling to thoughts because those thoughts will be helpful. Those clouds will be there: you can cling to them, and then the fear will leave you.

Remember, this fear is very good, a very hopeful sign. It shows that now you are going deep -- and death is the deepest point. If you can go into death you will become deathless, because one who goes into death cannot die. Then death is also just around; never in the center, just on the periphery. When I-NESS disappears you are just like death. The old is no more and the new has come into being.

This consciousness which will come out is absolutely new, uncontaminated, young, virgin. The old is no more -- and the old has not even touched it. That I-NESS disappears, and you are in your pristine virginity, in your absolute freshness. The deepest layer of being has been touched.

So think of it in this way: thoughts, then below them I-NESS, and thirdly:

FEEL:

MY THOUGHT,

I-NESS,

INTERNAL ORGANS

-- ME.

When thoughts have disappeared or you are not clinging to them -- if they are passing it is none of your business, you are aloof and detached and unidentified, and the I-NESS has disappeared -- then you can look at the internal organs. These internal organs.... This is one of the deepest things. We know the outer organs. With hands I touch you, with eyes I see you -- these are the outer organs.

The internal organs are those through which I feel my own being. The outer are for others. I know about you through the outer. How do I know about me? Even that I am -- how do I know about it? Who gives me the sensation of my own being? There are internal organs. When thoughts have stopped and when I-NESS is no more, only then, in that purity, in that clarity, can you see the internal organs.

Consciousness, intelligence -- they are internal organs. Through them I am aware of my own being, of my own existence. That's why if you close your eyes, you can forget your body completely, but your own feeling that you are, remains. And it is conceivable that when a person dies.... It is a fact. When a person dies, for us he is dead, but it takes a little time for him to recognize the fact that he is dead because the internal feeling of being, remains the same.

In Tibet they have special exercises for dying and they say one must be ready to die. One of the exercises is this: whenever someone is dying, the master or the priest or someone who knows the bardo exercises will go on saying to him, `Remember, be alert, you are leaving the body.' Because even when you have left the body it will take time to recognize that you are dead because the internal feeling remains the same; there is no change.

The body is only to touch and feel others. Through it you have never touched yourself, through it you have never known yourself. You know yourself through some other organs which are internal. But this is the misery -- that we are not aware of those internal organs and our image in our own eyes is created by others. Whatsoever others say about me is my knowledge about myself. If they say I am beautiful or if they say I am ugly, I believe in it. Whatsoever my senses say to me through others, reflected through others, is my belief of myself.

If you can recognize the internal organs you are freed from society completely. That is what is meant when it is said in old scriptures that a sannyasin is not part of the society, because now he knows himself through his own internal organs. Now his knowledge about himself is not based upon others, it is not a reflected thing. Now he doesn't need any mirror to know himself. He has found the inner mirror, and he knows through the inner mirror. And the inner reality can be known only when you have come to the inner organs.

INTERNAL ORGANS. You can then look through those internal organs. And then -- the ME. It is difficult to express it in words, that's why ME is used. Any word will be wrong -- ME is also wrong -- but the I has disappeared. So remember, this ME doesn't have anything to do with I. When thoughts are uprooted, when I-NESS has disappeared, when internal organs are known, the ME appears. Then for the first time my real being is revealed -- that real being is called ME.

The outer world is no more, thoughts are no more, the feeling of ego is no more, and I have come to recognize my own internal organs of knowing, consciousness, intelligence -- or whatsoever you call it -- awareness, alertness. Then, in the light of this internal organ, ME is revealed.

This ME doesn't belong to you. This ME is your innermost center, unknown to you. This ME is not an ego. This ME is not against any YOU. This ME is cosmic. This Me has no boundaries. In this ME everything is implied. This ME is not the wave. This ME is the ocean.

FEEL: MY THOUGHT, I-NESS, INTERNAL ORGANS. Then there is a gap, and suddenly the ME is revealed. When this ME is revealed, then one comes to know, `Aham Brahmasmi. I am the God.' This knowing is not any claim of the ego; the ego is no more there. You can mutate yourself through this technique, but first get established in feeling.