Watching with the Third Eye

It is one of the contributions of the East to the world: the understanding that between these two eyes, there is a third eye inside which normally remains dormant. One has to work hard, bring his whole sexual energy upward, against gravitation, and when the energy reaches the third eye, it opens. Many methods have been tried to do that, because when it opens there is suddenly a flash of light, and things which have never been clear to you suddenly become clear. When I emphasize watching, witnessing…that is the finest method to bring the third eye into action, because that watching is inside. These two eyes cannot be used, they can only look outward. They have to be closed. And when you try to watch inside, that certainly means there is something like an eye which sees. Who sees your thoughts? Not these eyes. Who sees that anger is arising in you? That place of seeing is called, symbolically, the third eye.

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GOURISHANKAR MEDITATION

This technique consists of four stages of 15 minutes each. The first two stages prepare the meditator for the spontaneous Latihan of the third stage. if the breathing is done correctly in the first stage, the carbon dioxide formed in thebloodstream will make you feel as high as Gourishankar (Mt. Everest). NOTE: Those with a history of neurological disorders such as epilepsy should never use a strobe or flashing light for this meditation.

First stage: 15 minutes
Sit with closed eyes. Inhale deeply through the nose, filling the lungs. Hold the breath for as long as possible, then exhale gently through the mouth and keep the lungs empty for as long as possible. Continue this breathing cycle throughout the first stage.

Second stage: 15 minutes                           Return to normal breathing and with a gentle gaze look at a candle flame or a flashing blue light. Keep your body still.

Third stage: 15 minutes
With closed eyes, stand up and let your body be loose and receptive. The subtle energies will be felt to move the body outside your normal control. Allow this Latihan to happen. Don’t you do the moving: let moving happen, gently and gracefully.

Fourth stage: 15 minutes
Lie down with closed eyes, silent and still. The first three stages should be accompanied by a steady rhythmic beat, preferably combined with a soothing background music. The beat should be seven times the normal heartbeat and, if possible, the flashing light should be a synchronized strobe.

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MANDALA MEDITATION

This is another powerful, cathartic technique that creates a circle of energy that results in a natural centering. There are four stages of 15 minutes each.

First stage: 15 minutes
With open eyes run on the spot, starting slowly and gradually, getting faster and faster. Bring your knees up as high as possible. Breathing deeply and evenly will move the energy within. Forget the mind and forget the body. Keep going.

Second stage: 15 minutes
Sit with your eyes closed and mouth open and loose. Gently rotate your body from the waist, like a reed blowing in the wind. Feel the wind blowing you from side to side, back and forth, around and around. This will bring your awakened energies to the navel center.

Third stage: 15 minutes
Lie on your back, open your eyes and, with the head still, rotate them in a clockwise direction. Sweep them fully around in the sockets as if you are following the second hand of a vast clock, but as fast as possible. It is important that the mouth remains open and the jaw relaxed, with the breath soft and even. This will bring your centered energies to the third eye.

Fourth stage: 15 minutes
Close your eyes and be still.

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Finding the Witness

This was the technique given to Pythagoras. Pythagoras went with this technique to Greece. And, really, he became the fountainhead, the source, of all mysticism in the West. He is the father of all mysticism in the West. This technique is one of the very deep methods. Try to understand it. Modern physiology, scientific research, says that between the two eyebrows is the gland which is the most mysterious part in the body. This gland, called the pineal gland, is the third eye of the Tibetans—Shivanetra: the eye of Shiva, of tantra. Between the two eyes there is a third eye existing, but ordinarily it is non- functioning. You have to do something about it to open it. It is not blind. It is simply closed. This technique is to open the third eye. Close your eyes, then focus both of your eyes just in the middle of the two eyebrows. Focus just in the middle, with closed eyes, as if you are looking with
your two eyes. Give total attention to it.This is one of the simplest methods of being attentive. You cannot be attentive to any other part of the body so easily. This gland absorbs attention like anything. If you give attention to it, both your eyes become hypnotized with the third eye. They become fixed; they cannot move. If you are trying to be attentive to any other part of the body, it is difficult. This third eye catches attention, forces attention. It is magnetic for attention. So all the methods all over the world have used it. It is the simplest to train attention because not only are you
trying to be attentive: the gland itself helps you; it is magnetic. Your attention is
brought to it forcibly. It is absorbed. It is said in the old tantra scriptures that attention is food for the third eye. It is hungry; it has been hungry for lives and lives. If you pay attention to it, it becomes alive. It becomes alive! The food is given to it. And once you know that attention is food, once you feel that your attention is magnetically drawn, attracted, pulled by the gland itself, attention is not a difficult thing then. One has only to know the right point. So just close your eyes, let your two eyes move just in the middle, and feel the point. When you are near the point, suddenly your eyes will become fixed. When it will be difficult to move them, then know you have caught the right point.If the attention is between the eyebrows, for the first time you will come to experience a strange phenomenon. For the first time you will feel thoughts running before you; you will become the witness. It is just like a film screen: thoughts are running and you are a witness. Once your attention is focused at the third eye center, you become immediately the witness of thoughts. Ordinarily you are not the witness: you are identified with thoughts. If anger is there, you become anger. If a thought moves, you are not the witness—you become one with the thought, identified, and you move with it. You become the thought; you take the form of the thought. When sex is there you become sex; when anger is there you become anger; when greed is there you become greed. Any thought moving becomes identified with you. You do not have any gap between you and the thought. But focused at the third eye, suddenly you become a witness. Through the third eye, you become the witness. Through the third eye, you can see thoughts running like clouds in the sky or people moving on the street. Try to be a witness. Whatsoever is happening, try to be a witness. You are ill, the body is aching and painful, you have misery and suffering, whatsoever: be a witness to it. Whatsoever is happening, do not identify yourself with it. Be a witness—an observer. Then if witnessing becomes possible, you will be focused in the third eye..Secondly, vice versa is also the case. If you are focused in the third eye, you will become a witness. These two things are part of one. So the first thing: by being centered in the third eye there will be the arising of the witnessing self. Now you can encounter your thoughts. This will be the first thing. And the second thing will be that now you can feel the subtle, delicate vibration of.breathing. Now you can feel the form of breathing, the very essence of
breathing..First try to understand what is meant by ‘the form’, by ‘the essence of. breathing’. While you are breathing, you are not only breathing air. Science says. you are breathing only air—just oxygen, hydrogen, and other gases in their. combined form of air. They say you are breathing “air!” But Tantra says that air. is just the vehicle, not the real thing. You are breathing prana—vitality. Air is just the medium; prana is the content. You are breathing prana, not only air. By being focused in the third eye, suddenly you can observe the very essence of breath—not breath, but the very essence of breath, prana. And if you can observe the essence of breath, prana, you are on the point from which the jump, the breakthrough happens.

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Touching as a Feather

Use both your palms, put them on your closed eyes, and allow the palms to touch the eyeballs—but just like a feather, with no pressure. If you press you miss the point, you miss the whole technique. Don’t press; just touch like a feather. You will have to adjust, because in the beginning you will be pressing. Put less and less pressure until you are just touching with no pressure at all—just your palms touch the eyeballs. Just a touch, just a meeting with no pressure, because if the pressure is there, then the technique will not function. So—like a feather. Why?—because a needle can do something which a sword cannot do. If you press, the quality has changed—you are aggressive. And the energy that is flowing through the eyes is very subtle: a small pressure and it starts fighting and a resistance is created. If you press, then the energy that is flowing through the eyes will start a resistance, a fight; a struggle will ensue. So don’t press; even a slight pressure is enough for the eye energy to judge. It is very subtle, it is very delicate. Don’t press—like a feather, just your palm is touching, as if not touching. Touching as if not touching, no pressure; just a touch, a slight feeling that the palm is touching the eyeball, that’s all. What will happen? When you simply touch without any pressure, the energy starts moving within. If you press, it starts fighting with the hand, with the palm, and moves out. Just a touch and the energy starts moving within. The door is closed; simply the door is closed and the energy falls back. The moment energy falls back, you will feel a lightness coming all over your face, your head. This energy moving back makes you light. And just between these two eyes is the third eye, the wisdom-eye, the prajna-chakshu. Just between the two eyes is the third eye. The energy falling back from the eyes hits the third eye. That’s why one feels light, levitating, as if there is no gravitation. And from the third eye the energy falls on the heart. It is a physical process: just drip, drip, it drops, and you will feel a very light feeling entering in your heart. The heartbeats will slow down, the breathing will slow down. Your whole body will feel relaxed. Even if you are not entering deep meditation, this will help you physically. Any time during the day, relax on a chair—or if you don’t have a chair, when just sitting in a train—close your eyes, feel a relaxed being in the whole of your body, and then put both your palms on your eyes. But don’t press—that’s the very significant thing. Just touch like a feather. When you touch and don’t press, your thoughts will stop immediately. In a relaxed mind thoughts cannot move; they get frozen. They need frenzy and fever, they need tension to move. They live through tension. When the eyes are silent, relaxed, and the energy is moving backwards, thoughts will stop. You will feel a certain quality of euphoria, and that will deepen daily. So do it many times in the day. Even for a single moment, touching will be good. Whenever your eyes feel exhausted, dry of energy, exploited—after reading, seeing a film, or watching TV—whenever you feel it, just close the eyes and touch. Immediately there will be the effect. But if you want to make it a meditation, then do it for at least forty minutes. And the whole thing is not to press. It is easy for a single moment to have a feather-like touch; it is difficult for forty minutes. Many times you will forget and you will start pressing. Don’t press. For forty minutes, just remain aware that your hands have no weight; they are just touching. Go on being aware that you are not pressing, only touching. This will become a deep awareness, just like breathing. As Buddha says to breathe with full awareness, the same will happen with touching, because you have to be constantly mindful that you are not pressing. Your hand should just be a feather, a weightless thing, simply touching. Your mind will be totally there, alert, near the eyes, and the energy will be flowing constantly. In the beginning it will be just dropping in drops. Within months you will feel it has become a river-like thing, and within a year you will feel it has become a flood.
And when you touch you will feel lightness. You can feel it right now. Immediately, the moment you touch, a lightness comes. And that lightness penetrates, opens into the heart. In the heart, only lightness can enter; nothing heavy can enter. Only very light things can happen to the heart. This lightness between the two eyes will start dropping into the heart, and the heart will open to receive it. As the falling energy becomes a stream and then a river and then a flood, you will be washed completely, washed away. You will not feel that you are. You will feel simply the cosmos is. Breathing in, breathing out, you will feel you have become the cosmos. The cosmos comes in and the cosmos goes out. The entity that you have always been, the ego, will not be there.