RELIEF FROM GUILT🔗

Guilt is a very deep-rooted emotion in us. Unlike other emotions, guilt never gets a chance to be expressed. It is always suppressed. Guilt is nothing but measuring the actions of the past with the intelli-gence of the present! Guilt is violence that is directed against oneself. When the violence is turned outwards, it becomes anger. When it is turned inwards, it becomes guilt. Most of the guilt we carry is unconscious. That is why it is so difficult to free ourselves of guilt. If the guilt can be brought to the surface of our awareness even once, we can be relieved of it. Re-living an emotion with total awareness is a powerful way to relieve ourselves of it. When you go though an emotion consciously, you give it a chance to leave your inner space.

Step 1: Duration: 10 minutes Sit in a meditative mood with your eyes closed. Bring to mind the memory that is causing guilt in you. However painful it is, however safely you have locked it away in your unconscious mind, please bring it up. In the beginning, your mind will protest. Naturally, it does not want to remember. Just understand, if you can experience it again this one time, the memory will leave you forever. It is worth it. Bring up the memory. Relive the guilt that you experienced at the time. Open the wound completely. If anger comes, let it boil to the surface. If pain comes, allow it to hurt you. Don't escape from the memory. Don't resist anything. Relive the en-tire event, as it happened. Let your body tremble and shake with that memory. Let the tears flow. Do not console yourself. Relive it completely.

Step2: Slowly, open your eyes. Now, write down the event as it happened. Don't miss anything. Write in as detailed a way as you can. As you write, feel the guilt leaving you.

Step 3: When you finish writing, spend a few moments with yourself. Don't read what you have written. You don't need it. You have expressed the guilt, that is enough. You have released it from your memory. It is no longer yours! Your guilt has left you now. Relax. You are free.

Exclude all but one

Your mind is always moving in a hundred directions. It is impossible to withdraw your mind into the inner emptiness, the inner silence. When you focus intensely on someone or something, your whole mind is filled with that single thought. You gather all your scattered energies into one point. You integrate yourself. Now you are ready to take the leap into nothingness. Understand, from many thoughts to no-thought is impossible. From one thought to no-thought, it is only a single step!

Duration: Not applicable

This technique has three steps. Step 1: Sit in a relaxed way with your eyes closed. Bring to mind a person or object with whom you feel deeply connect-ed in love. Feel intensely the presence of this person or object. Do not just see them, feel them. If you are in love with someone, let your whole mind be filled with the memory of that person, your experiences with that person, let them fill your inner space. Become completely lost in them. Step 2: Now, feel the absence of all other persons and objects but this one. Exclude everything else. Just be completely absorbed with that one person or one object. Your inner space should be empty of every-thing else.

Step 3: Now, drop that one person or object also! Just do it consciously. Just be blank, totally empty. Suddenly, you will see you are centered on you. You will drop into your deeper Self, your consciousness, your very being. Disappear into your Self. If you are in love with an object or a person, try this technique. First feel the presence of that object or person and the absence of all other objects or persons. Then feel the absence of that object or person also, and you will become centered on your Self.

Mood signboard

We understand the world exactly according to our own mood. If we are feeling happy, the whole world seems to be a wonderful place and everybody is loving and caring. When we are low, we feel that people are unnecessarily being rude to us! It is almost impossible for us to perceive anything objectively, because our whole evaluation of the world is through the filter of our own emotional condition. This meditation is based on a technique used in Zen monasteries to train new initiates. It is a wonderful technique to keep this factor in mind, so we can be more objective in our interactions.

Duration: Not applicable

Whenever you are feeling exceptionally low and you feel you are on the verge of an outburst, do this. Visualize that you are carrying a big board hung from your neck, saying, ‘Beware! I am in a very bad mood and I may bite you! I have nothing against you personally, but right now I am angry and just want to throw out my negativity somehow!’ Just carry this imaginary board in front of you. Of course, no one else will know about it, but you will know – and that is enough. Every time you start to blame someone else or some situation for a problem you are facing, you can just picture this big board declaring that it is just your own mood you are expressing! You just wake up to this truth again and again. After that, how can you take your own anger seriously? In the same way, when you are in a high mood, you can carry a board saying that, so that you don’t get carried away and make any irrational decisions. Again and again, when you are confronted with the inner reasons rather than their outer expression, you learn how to remain a witness even in your most emotional moments. Naturally, you become more balanced and your mood swings die down.

Whatever the situation, if you feel an emotion riding high, just wait 24 hours before responding to it. If someone misbehaves with you, don't react on the spot. Just bring in your awareness immediately, before your mind takes off on the same track. Now or then, choose any situation, and break this uncondi-tioning. Promise yourself that you will have plenty of time to react after 24 hours. You will be surprised, after 24 hours you can hardly keep the anger with you. Our conditioning goes so deep that we don't even realize that this is how we behave. You will feel an opening to that person or situation and all the anger will dissipate. This gap of 24 hours gives you the awareness to see the whole thing in a broader perspective. As you work with this technique, you won't need 24 hours to make this shift. The time will keep on reducing, till gradually you will be able to bring up the same awareness even as you are facing the situation.

Open or closed?

We all have times when we are feeling closed, isolated, alienated from everyone else. At other times, we feel open and flowing. We welcome differences and change. We are conflict-free. We fall into meditation easily. When we are feeling closed, we cannot relate to anyone. We don't even feel like meditating. Nothing wrong! The important thing is just to be aware that you are going through this.

Duration: Not applicable

In any situation where you experience some inner conflict, just ask yourself, Am I open or closed right now? Chances are, you will find that you are closed! Most of the time, it is not the external situation that is causing the conflict. It is your level of receptivity and openness to the situation. This technique is not for judging yourself, it is only for becoming more aware of your own state. As you work with it, you will become more and more conscious of the subtle fluctuations of mood you go through all the time. You become conscious of your mental patterns. Just being aware can help you make the transition from being closed to being open, at least most of the time! Once you understand this constant flux inside yourself, you will be able to see and understand that it happens in others also. Then you will know when exactly another person can be approached for a discussion; when he will be open to you and when he won't! The problem is, we always see others from the outside, never from the inside. Once you see the same pattern playing in others as well, you begin to notice the mood, not the person. You get out of the blame-game. With this simple awareness, you will find yourself becoming less judgmental and more compassionate in your relationships.

Do you know, your mind always moves in circles? We always think that the movement of the mind is linear, but in truth it is circular. The mind always moves in a fixed pattern, following a circular track of memories, and associations and expectations. That is why you experience the same mood swings again and again and again. The same thoughts come up, the same desires, fears and anxieties, the same highs and lows – and again and again you get caught in them. Just one time, if you can clearly witness your mental patterns, you can directly see how your mind is playing with you. Just this simple awareness can liberate you from your mind!

Duration: not applicable

Keep a diary and note down your feelings, your emotions, at different times of the day – morning, afternoon, evening, night. Do this for about a month. Then take a look at your diary. Watch the patterns that your mood follows. Understand your mood cycle. The next time you feel a low mood, remind yourself of the pattern in your emotional cycle. Remind yourself that this present mood is just one part of that cycle and enjoy it. It is, that’s all. But it is not forever, it will pass. In the same way, if you are feeling really happy, watch. Watch the emotion, witness yourself through it. Just as you witness the lows, witness the highs also. Don't get in-volved in either, as both are passing. When you practice this technique for a few weeks, you will see that no matter what emotion comes up at each moment, you are able to handle it without getting disturbed,..

You always complain that the mind wanders during meditation. This is a technique that makes a meditation of your wandering! When your mind wanders, don't try to drag it back, don't suppress the thoughts, don't get angry or feel frustrated. Simply remember that the mind is wandering, and you are not the mind. You struggle with the mind because you think it is you. Simply relax from this idea and witness the wandering. You will see that without your support and energy, the mind cannot wander very far! When you relax from the mind, it slowly falls into the center. When you relax from what you are not, what you are will naturally be revealed.

Duration: 21 minutes

Close your eyes. Sit in a very relaxed way. There is no need to control the mind. If your mind is going somewhere outside, dwelling on things other than you, it is called external wandering. The moment you remember you, you will remember your name, or some idea about yourself. This is internal wandering. Watch the external and internal wandering of the mind. Any idea that comes about you, inside you, is also a wandering, an internal wandering. Witness these wanderings, relax even from them. When you relax from the wandering, you slowly fall into the space where there is no wandering. Remain in this space for as long as you can.

It is the nature of your senses to always flow outwards. You can never use your senses to experience your inner space. But we always pour all our energy into our senses. Wherever our senses lead us, we fol-low. That is why we never really experience ourselves from the inside. Thought always follows the senses. When you stop the senses, auto-matically thoughts also slow down and stop. When the mind is still, naturally you fall into your center. Actually, your inner space is not so difficult to contact. It is, after all, your inner space! It is just that we neither had the technique, nor the patience, nor the inspiration to try, that's all. That is why, the moment you have the knowledge about the truth, half of the work is done. The remaining half is just relaxing and experiencing it. This is an anytime meditation. Initially you may not be able to do this meditation for five minutes at a time. You can reduce the time to one or two minutes, but try to do it five times a day, always on an empty stomach. When practicing this technique, wear loose clothing; let nothing touch your body.

Duration: 5 minutes a day or 1-2 minutes, five times a day

Sit upright with your spine relaxed. Keep your body steady and unmoving. Close your eyes and mouth tight. Lock your tongue firmly. Now close your ears with your hands. Stop all sensations coming in through the eyes, ears, mouth and sense of touch. When your mind can no longer receive fresh information through your sense, naturally it will start replaying whatever is already inside. The thoughts that you already have inside will start bubbling up to the surface coming up, such as what happened yesterday, what happened the day before, what needs to be done tomorrow. All these thoughts will start running through your mind. Do not bother about them. They will not have life for more than three kshanas, the time gap between one thought and the next. I repeat, they will have life only for a maximum of three kshanas. Unless new information goes through your senses and the processing happens, the processing system cannot continue for more than three kshanas. You may be thinking, ‘No, no, I can sit and think and visualize forev-er.’ No! In that case, you must be allowing input through the senses. You must block the sense organs, it is especially important to lock the tongue. Within three kshanas, three or four thoughts may come. The fifth thought cannot happen. It is important to allow the breathing to be natural during this process. Just sit for a few minutes and allow the process to happen. Suddenly, you will see there is a space where there are no thoughts. Even if you experience that thoughtless rest for two or three seconds, it will give you so much energy that you will feel you had eight to ten hours of sleep! It is a very strong and powerful method. Try this practice five times per day. Within five to six days, if not sooner, you will catch the glimpse.

Beyond all knowing

Your inner space is always crowded with the known! Whatever we see, hear, read, listen to, understand – we continuously throw all the information of the outer world into our inner space. Now, make a conscious decision to put all knowing aside. Free your inner space of everything that you know. Make space for that which is beyond all knowing! Duration: 10 minutes daily

Sit comfortably with your eyes closed. Watch your inner space in a relaxed way, as you would look at a flower. Have a clear, relaxed intention that you will keep your inner space free of all concepts and words, all the teachings put inside your head, all the information you are receiving from outside. You are going to keep everything out. If any thought appears, just watch it with the understanding it does not belong in your inner space. Either the thought came from some-one else, or it arose from another thought which entered your inner space earlier. If an emotion arises, understand that it is not you. Allow no word, no teaching, no concepts, no lies, no truths, no purity or impurity to touch you. Let your inner space be empty! When you see that everything which you thought is 'you' or 'yours' has actually come to you from outside, you stop struggling with your imagined identity. You experience a tremendous freedom from yourself. Freedom from yourself is the ultimate freedom, the ultimate peace. Just remain in that freedom, in that peace. Enjoy the silence, the emptiness that is your true nature.

Zen sitting

This meditation is drawn from Zen. The Zen word Zazen, meaning just sitting, is a tough meditation. The most difficult thing is to just sit, doing nothing! In most of the meditation techniques, we try to control the mind in some way. Here, we are going to allow your mind to play freely. Your mind is going to come up with all kinds of arguments, reasons, excuses against this technique. It will try to convince you that this is a sheer waste of time. If you keep on sitting, the mind will become sleepy, it will daydream, it may even start seeing things. The whole purpose of this meditation is to let the mind play all the tricks it wants. Because one day the mind is simply going to get tired of playing with you. One day the mind is going to realize that it can no longer control you with its games. Then the mind drops of its own accord.

Duration: 21 minutes

You can sit anywhere, but make sure that there is no disturbance. If there is too much movement, it might disturb or distract you. Watching nature is a good thing. Even indoors, you can watch the sky through the window. You could sit facing a plain white wall. Or you could simply face a corner of the room and watch that corner. Don't focus your attention on anything. Let your eyes be half-open and unfocussed, your attention diffused. Let your gaze rest softly in the distance. This will relax you. Let your breathing be relaxed and natural. Find a comfortable pos-ture in which you feel sure you can stay without moving for at least half an hour. When the body is unmoving, the mind also falls still. Keep your spine straight. Use support if required, but try to do with-out it. Rest one palm in the other, with the thumbs touching to form a circle. Remain alert and aware, be receptive without allowing your attention to focus on any particular thing. Be present in the moment, moment to moment. In the beginning it will be difficult to just sit, doing nothing. But in a few days you will start enjoying this tremendously. Layer by layer, you can actually begin to feel the mind drop. And finally, one day the moment will come when the mind drops altogether. You will glimpse the state of no-mind.

Unclutching is a self-purifying technique. For any technique to be self-purifying and liberating, the moment you become subtle, the technique should also become subtle by itself. Unclutching is one such technique. The technique that does not become subtle by itself stays in the gross level. If it is not able to kill itself, if the technique is not able to commit suicide, it will kill you! The beauty with the tech-nique of unclutching is that it will become subtler and subtler by itself as you become subtler. Finally, it will dissolve.

Let us see how unclutching is related to what happens every mo-ment in your body – breathing! As you saw, between the incoming breath and the outgoing breath is a neutral zone. Your identity exists in the incoming and outgoing breath spaces. But in the gap of the neutral zone your identity does not exist. You think that the breathing time is more than the neutral zone, because you have more thoughts when breathing. Because you give more emphasis to your identity, you think that the time of the incom-ing breath and outgoing breath is more than the time of neutral space. In reality it is not. It is just a psychological game.

The neutral zone is the natural space of unclutching. When there is no identity, naturally there can be no thoughts. If you can keep your awareness in the neutral zone, unclutching becomes effortless.

Duration: 20 minutes

Step1: 5 minutes

Close your eyes. Sit straight. For the first few moments, inhale and exhale, as deeply as possible. Slowly start witnessing only the incoming breath. Do not bother about the outgoing breath or the neutral space. Just witness the incoming breath first. Be the witness. Be aware of the incoming breath.

Step2: 5 minutes Now slowly start witnessing only the outgoing breath. Forget about the incoming breath or the neutral space. Just witness and be aware of only the outgoing breath.

Step3: 5 minutes Now slowly, very slowly, be aware of both the neutral spaces - when your incoming breath turns into the outgoing breath, and when your outgoing breath turns into the incoming breath. Be aware. Witness both the neutral spaces alone. Intensely be aware of both the neutral spaces.

Step4: 5 minutes Now, be aware of the incoming breath, neutral space, outgoing breath, and neutral space. Be unclutched. Whatever thought comes in your mind, do not connect it to anything. Don't even think that you are thinking. Even that idea comes because you connect your thoughts. Everything is just completely indepen-dent. So do not connect them and create one more thought that you are thinking. Let the independent thought bubbles rise and fall. Let the indepen-dent thoughts come and go. Do not connect them and think you are thinking. Be unclutched. If thoughts come, let them come. If they go, let them go. Your idea that you are thinking is a lie. Relax from your mind. Let go. Be liberated.