Question the answer!🔗

Strictly speaking, this is not a meditation, but a very interesting game that can be played between two people. This little game shows us how our responses to life are always conditioned, and we rarely act out of spontaneity and awareness. It gives us a chance to really catch our mental patterns at work, and try to break free of them.

Both participants take turns at asking each other simple questions like, What is your name? or Isn't it hot today?, or something like that. The way to reply is to make any statement that is NOT the logical answer to that question! For instance, if the questioner asks, What is your name?, the person who answers can say something like, The flowers in the garden are so pretty!, or The day after tomorrow is Tuesday! You can say anything except answer the question. When you start playing, you will realize how difficult this is! It is almost impossible to maintain our awareness level higher than our logic. Again and again, we keep making the standard response. When we can sustain our awareness in every moment, we can move beyond logic. This game is a good way to break the mind, and to sharpen awareness as well.

TECHNIQUE & INSTRUCTIONS

If you have practiced the 'Wait 24 hours' technique, this will be easier for you. Whenever a sudden emotion rises, just note it silently three times. It could be fear, or anger or desire. Just be completely conscious when it arises, and note: desire, desire, desire. That's all. Don't try to change the emotion. Don't try to escape from it. Just witness it consciously. This simple act can throw such a beam of awareness on the emotion, it will be impossible for the emotion to sustain itself before it. Understand, any emotion can overwhelm you only when you are unconscious, unaware. The moment you take note of it without getting involved, you stand apart from it. Just naming it creates a distance between the emotion and you. You clearly experience that your emotion is not you. Without your unconscious support, the emotion loses its charge.

TECHNIQUE & INSTRUCTIONS

When you feel you want to criticize some person, try this. Before criticizing, discover a positive alternative for whatever criticism you wish to give the person. If you are not able to find a positive alternative, wait. It is useless to give a non-constructive feedback to someone. Get the positive alternative and then present the problem as well as the suggested solution to the person. Then your criticism will be useful and constructive.

ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE

Normally we try to find a reason for our emotions, we try to understand our moods rationally. When you try to solve something as transient as your mood, you are giving a reality and significance to it that it doesn't really have. Understand, most of your problems are just meaningless inner chatter! All you need to do is just switch them off. You will be surprised to see how easy it is to switch off the mind! Switching off the mind doesn't mean becoming insensitive to the situation, it just means giving your natural Intelligence some breathing space, so that the right response can arise. Once you learn the art of switching off your mind, you can never be overwhelmed by any external situation.

Next time you experience an emotional outburst, don't focus on the reason. Just tell yourself quietly and very firmly, Switch it off. Don't try to reason with yourself or find excuses for your behavior. No point getting angry without yourself because you are angry, or feeling bad because you are depressed! You will be shocked – once you decide to switch it off, the mood just disappears for a few minutes! Straightaway you will fall into a gap, a serene silence. Instantly you are out of the mood and back in your center. Now you will ask, what if the emotion comes up again after a while? If it comes up, just repeat the instruction, that's all! Each time you taste this silence, when you see that you can call up this silence at will, you will lose the respect you have for the games of your mind! You will just feel like laughing at your own moods. When you learn the art of switching off, you can remain centered in the middle of the most heated argument or the worst mood swing. Nothing can overpower you for long.