Controlled stopping🔗

ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE

This is also a Stop! technique. But the difference here is, you will not be stopping suddenly, stopping in the middle of the action or the impulse. Here you will practise a slow, controlled stopping of impulses or desires. Stopping an impulse is a beautiful way to catch yourself off-guard. As of now, all your responses are conditioned. Whatever you call an ‘impulsive’ action usually arises out of layers of unconscious conditioning. The conditioning has gone so deep that you are aware only of the effects, not the cause. So it appears to be an automatic response. When you stop an impulse suddenly, in a single moment, layers and layers of conditioning can fall away, exposing you to yourself. You never like to be caught off-guard, because you are afraid to fall into this space! A single moment of spontaneous awareness can be more effective than all your planned responses. All your planning, your preparedness, is just one more impulse - one more impulse for your survival. You always think you will survive only if you are cunning and constantly on guard. Now suspend that cunningness. Be innocent and trusting. For a change, stop leading life. Allow life to lead you! When there is nothing you can plan for, nothing you can be sure of, nothing outside that you can hold on to, naturally your awareness falls into your center.

When a desire arises, consider the desire well. Be deliberate. Face the desire in its full force. Do not act on it. At the same time, do not suppress it. Be aware that you are feeling this impulse, this desire. Then, suddenly, drop it. Just drop it.

Suppose you see a beautiful woman and desire arises in you. Examine your desire. Be attentive to what is happening to you at that moment. Be aware of how your body is feeling feverish, trembling. Be aware that your pulse is racing, that you cannot think clearly. Notice how the desire seems to have taken control over you. Do not judge yourself or the desire; don't tell yourself, this is a bad desire. Don't have any opinion, simply witness it. Then suddenly, drop the desire. It is possible! You can simply drop it.

Be very clear: you are not suppressing the desire! Do not suppress the desire. Suppression is the root cause of most of our psychological problems. Don't think, How can I quit? It is only when you fight with an impulse, suppress an impulse, that it becomes stronger. When you have considered something fully, it becomes easy to quit. The moment you say, I quit, you become separate, you become the watcher. You are watching your body filled with desire, your mind filled with desire – but they are not you. At that moment, you become aware that none of these is you. Once again, you are thrown back upon your Being.

This meditation is excellent to rid yourself of addictions. We have all heard about chain smokers, alcoholics, womanizers, who one day simply quit their addictions and never returned to them. They didn't try to quit – they simply quit, that's all! With this meditation, not only the action, but the urge itself will drop. You don't have to struggle with your addiction because the desire itself will be no more.

‘I am not the doer’

ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE

Doing without the idea of doership is the basis of karma yoga or the path of selfless action. On this path, you are asked to perform appropriate actions with the idea ‘I am not the doer’. This technique is given by Lord Krishna to his disciple Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.

In the spiritual text called Ashtavakra Gita, the sage Ashtavakra also gave this technique to his disciple, the king Janaka. Ashtavakra says, You who have been bitten by the great black serpent of egoism, ‘I am the doer’, Drink the nectar of the faith, ‘I am not the doer’ and be happy.

But the way this technique works is not as you imagine! Please understand that simply thinking that ‘I am not the doer’, or even having the faith that ‘I am not the doer’, will not liberate you directly. This technique by itself will not liberate you. It will just make you tired! No one can remember continuously, without a break, that ‘I am not the doer’. Try it, you will see! After trying and trying and becoming exhausted, when finally you understand that you just cannot remember this all the time, you will be completely frustrated - and you will just drop the mind! The moment you drop the mind, the Truth that you are not the doer will simply become reality! That is the technique suggested here.