Monday 25 March 2013

Mirror gazing


The unconscious is not really unconscious; rather, it is less conscious. So the difference between the conscious and the unconscious is a difference only of degree. They are not polar opposites; they are related, joined.

Because of our false system of logic we divide everything into polar opposites. Logic says either yes or no, either light or darkness; as far as logic goes there is nothing in between. But life is neither white nor black; rather, it is a great expanse of gray.

So when I say "conscious" and "unconscious," I do not mean that the two are in opposition to each other. For Freud, conscious is conscious and unconscious is unconscious -- it is the difference between black and white, between yes and no, between life and death. But when I say "unconscious" I mean "less conscious"; when I say "conscious" I mean "less unconscious"; they overlap each other.

How can we encounter the unconscious? As far as Freud is concerned the encounter is impossible. If you had asked Freud how to encounter the unconscious he would have said, "It is nonsense; you cannot encounter it. And if you encounter it, it is conscious, because encountering is a conscious phenomenon." But if you ask me how to encounter the unconscious I will say, "There are ways to encounter it." For me, the first thing to be noted is that unconscious simply means "less conscious." So if you grow more conscious, you can encounter it.

Secondly, conscious and unconscious are not fixed boundaries. They change every moment -- just like the pupil of your eye. If there is more light, the pupil is narrowed; if there is less light, it widens. It constantly creates an equilibrium with the light outside. And your consciousness is constantly changing in the same way. Really, to understand the phenomenon of consciousness by the analogy of the eye is very relevant, because consciousness is the inner eye, the eye of the soul. So, just like your eye, your consciousness is constantly expanding or shrinking.

For example, if you are angry you become more unconscious. Unconsciousness is now more widespread, and only a very small part of you remains conscious. Sometimes even that part is not there and you have become completely unconscious. On the other hand, in a sudden accident -- if you are on the road and suddenly you feel that an accident is going to occur; you are on the verge of death -- you become completely conscious, and there is no unconsciousness at all. Suddenly the whole mind is conscious. So this change is continuously taking place.

When I say conscious and unconscious, I do not mean that there are any fixed boundaries between the two. There are none; it is a fluctuating phenomenon. It depends on you whether you are less conscious or more conscious. You can create consciousness: you can train and discipline yourself for more consciousness or for less consciousness.

If you train yourself for less consciousness you will never be able to encounter the unconscious. Really, you will become incapable of encountering it. When someone takes drugs or an intoxicant, he is training his mind to be totally unconscious. When you go to sleep, or if you are hypnotized or you hypnotize yourself, you lose consciousness. There are many ways, and many of the ways that help you to be more unconscious are even known as religious practices. Anything that creates boredom creates unconsciousness.

There are many methods to help you to encounter the unconscious. I will suggest a simple exercise that will help you to encounter it.

At night, before you go to bed, close the doors of your room and put a big mirror in front of you. The room must be completely dark. Then put a small flame by the side of the mirror in such a way that the flame is not directly reflected in the mirror. Just your face should be reflected in the mirror, not the flame.

Stare constantly into your own eyes in the mirror. Do not blink. This is a forty-minute experiment, and within two or three days you will be able to keep your eyes from blinking for the whole forty minutes. Even if tears come, let them come, but still do not blink and go on staring into the eyes.

Within two or three days you will become aware of a very strange phenomenon: your face will begin to take on new shapes. You may even be scared. The face in the mirror will begin to change; sometimes a very different face will be there -- one which you have not known as yours. But all the faces that come to you belong to you. Now the subconscious mind is beginning to explode: these faces, these masks, are yours. And sometimes you may even see a face that belonged to you in a past life.

After one week of constant practice -- staring for forty minutes every night -- your face will be a constant flux. Many faces will be coming and going constantly. After three weeks you will not be able to remember which one is your face. You will not be able to remember your own face, because you have seen so many different faces coming and going.

If you continue, then one day, after three weeks or so, the strangest thing will happen: suddenly there will be no face in the mirror! The mirror will be vacant. You are staring into emptiness; there will be no face there at all.

This is the moment! Close your eyes and encounter the unconscious. When there is no face in the mirror, just close the eyes. This is the most significant moment: close the eyes, look inside, and you will face the unconscious. You will be naked, completely naked -- as you are; all deceptions will fall.

This is your reality, but society has created so many layers in order that you will not be aware of it. And once you know yourself in your nakedness, your total nakedness, you will begin to be a different person. Then you cannot deceive yourself; now you know what you are.

Unless you know what you are you can never be transformed. Only this naked reality can be transformed. And, really, just the will to transform it will effect the transformation.

As you are, you cannot transform yourself. You can change one false face to another false face -- a thief can become a monk, a criminal can become a saint -- but these are not really transformations. Transformation means becoming that which you really are.

The moment you face the unconscious, encounter the unconscious, you are face to face with your reality, with your authentic being. The false societal being is not there: your name is not there, your form is not there, your face is not there. Only the naked reality of your nature is there, and with this naked reality transformation is possible.

This mirror-gazing technique is a very powerful method -- very powerful -- to know one's own abyss and to know one's own naked reality. And once you have known it, you have become the master of it. 

When doing tratak you are to stare continuously, without blinking, for thirty to forty minutes. Your whole consciousness must come to the eyes; you must become the eyes. Forget everything; forget the rest of your body, just be the eyes and continually stare without blinking.

When the whole of your consciousness is centered in the eyes you will come to a peak of tension, a climax of tension. Your eyes are the most delicate part of you, that is why they can become more tense than any other part. And with tension in the eyes, the whole mind will be tense; the eyes are just doors to the mind. When you become the eyes and the eyes reach a peak of tension, the mind, too, reaches a climax of tension. When you fall down from that climax you fall effortlessly into the abyss of relaxation. Tratak creates one of the most tense peaks possible in the consciousness. From that peak the opposite will happen spontaneously, relaxation will happen spontaneously.

Tratak (Fixed Gazing)

When you are doing tratak, thinking will stop automatically. By and by your consciousness will become more centered in the eyes. You will just be aware; there will be no thinking. Eyes cannot think. When the whole consciousness is centered in the eyes, the mind has no energy left for thinking. There is no mind -- only the eyes exist -- so there is no thinking.

The moments when your eyes want to blink are the moments to watch out for. The mind is trying to get energy back to think; it is trying to divert consciousness away from the eyes and back to the mind. That is why constant staring, fixed staring, is needed. Even a single movement of the eyes gives energy to the mind, so do not move the eyes at all. Your gaze must remain absolutely fixed.

When you are staring with no movement of the eyes, the mind is also fixed; the mind moves with the eyes. Eyes are the doors: doors that belong to the inside mind and also to the outside world. If the eyes are totally fixed, the mind stops; it cannot move.

This technique begins from the eyes, because to begin from the mind is difficult. It is hard to control the mind but eyes are outer things, you can control them. So keep your gaze absolutely fixed, staring without blinking. When your eyes are still, your mind will become still.

Source: Osho - Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy


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