Who Is Looking Out Through Your Own Eyes? Guided Meditation from Satsang

start with a guided meditation and then we will do a talk. All right. Find yourself in a comfortable position. You can close your eyes if you want to, or sometimes it's easier if you open your eyes but you just keep them open just a little bit and you're kind of looking down at the floor.

Sometimes that helps. So whatever is more comfortable. So I will ring the bell three times and that will begin the guided meditation. Notice your breathing.

Notice your body rising and falling. Instead of trying to control your breathing, just notice how breathing just happens on its own. Then without any effort from you. May notice your chest rising and falling, your shoulders rising and falling, your abdomen expanding and contracting.

Notice where your sense of awareness is. Notice where you are looking from. See if you can find a sense of you that's looking out from your head. Maybe there's part of you that's looking out through your own eyes.

Just try to notice that. Notice that you're both the looking and what is looking and also what you're looking out at. You're both the thing that's looking right behind your eyes, and then you're also that kind of movement out. Then just let your awareness kind of be pulled out through your eyes, and then as it goes out, your eyes, turn, have it do a circle or a U-turn and look back at what is looking.

So look back at the thing that you're looking from. Good. Let's do it again. So notice your awareness.

Become aware of what's looking out your own eyes. Right? As if there's a sphere of awareness or density behind your eyes, and then that's looking out through the eyes. Almost feel the density behind, like a ball, and then your eyes, and then looking out.

And then once again, allow your awareness to be pulled out from that ball out through your eyes into the field in front of you. And then have it do a U-turn looking back at that sphere that was looking, the density. We'll do it one more time. Allow your awareness to focus on the space behind your eyes, what's looking out your own eyes.

You could say, what is looking out of my eyes? What is looking? And once again, moving, noticing how your eyes are right in front of it, and then it goes out of the body. And then letting the awareness and the energy move out from that sphere, out your eyes, out into the field in front of you.

And then just gently turning it back on itself like a U-turn and directing that energy back at the sphere with the question, you know, what is looking? What is looking out my eyes? And then just being aware of what happens when you do that. What I notice is that sphere, it's almost like a three-dimensional planet or orb.

be almost gray or black or something. It begins to kind of crumble and fragment and fall apart as if it's a building in an earthquake. And it's just breaking into pieces and powder and falling apart. And then you're just left with the looking itself, looking at the space, looking at the dust, the crumbling pieces.

And then, in that moment where the object of fixation has dissolved disintegrated, and you're left with just the looking, then wonder what is that? You see, what is the space that arises or was always there? How can we just be the looking without something that is looking? See?

How can we just be looking without that starting from a certain object? And then using that gap, the gap in the story of the separate self, using that as an invitation to connect with the space in the head, above the shoulders, beneath the top of the head. What does the space feel like? Does it feel light or dense?

Loose or tight? Heavy? Hot or cool? Friendly or an enemy?

So maybe stay with that question: Is the space that I've found when the looker disappears, is the space friendly or is the space hostile? Is it my friend or is it my enemy? And as you ask the question, fall backwards out of the space, the center of the head, and back into the back of the head where your neck connects to the head where your spine connects to the skull and sit with that. See if you can hold both sides of the question at the same time.

Is the space in my head my friend? Or is the space in my head my enemy? When I hold both poles of the paradox at the same time, what I notice is this initial impulse to choose. I want to pick one or the other.

I don't care which. I fear the lack of control and uncertainty that is brought up by the paradox and would prefer either side. And when I stay, then that initial gut reaction, so to speak, or the impulse, impulsivity is a better word, falls away. And then I'm left with this growing tension as if it's a dam that has too much water pushing against it and it's about to break.

Kind of tension building, building. And then, if I continue to stay and then maybe even relax a little bit, notice I'm kind of not breathing very deeply or holding it all too tightly. And then I relax a little bit, what I find is a sense of sadness and vulnerability and this subtle urge to cry and this deep. It's almost like this deep pain, like a wound, but also like a knowing that it is true, that I've considered or always viewed the space in my mind as an enemy, and that it was not the case that actually it was my friend and my enemy.

And just being able to hold both at the same time feels like such a relief and like I'm putting down a burden, a backpack I've carried for way too long. Good. And then as that releases, right, as that tension releases and freedom is born out of the tension and the sadness is the entry point into that freedom, that sadness has a downward movement energetically. Allow that downward movement to pull your awareness, your consciousness down out of the head, through the throat, past the heart, and then into the heart area, right into the heart center.

Good, and then let's just try to notice once again what it's like to be in the heart center. Notice your breathing, notice the expansion and contraction of your chest. Good. And let's try the same, we'll do something quite similar.

So imagine that you are the heart. You are your heart. Allow your awareness to focus, your perception, to focus around your heart. You could say something like, I am my emotions.

Try saying that three times. I am my emotions. I am my emotions. I am love.

I am anger. I am sadness. I am fear. Basically, what the heart is saying is: because I feel, I exist.

I exist. I know I exist because I feel so many emotions so deeply. So, what we're trying to do is find and connect and kind of embolden the sense of self that is directly attached or dependent on our emotional self. It's our emotional self.

Okay, so now I want you to look out from the heart. Same as before, as if the heart is, there's a part, there's a density, it's like a fixation or a sensation, or your awareness is contracted around it. And then you're looking out through your chest and feeling the world from your heart. So, once again, let's have our awareness in the heart, and then it's moving out through the chest into the world.

And then, let's do the same thing. Let's, as it goes into the field, do a U-turn and direct the awareness from the heart right back at the heart and ask the question: What is feeling? What is feeling this emotion? What is feeling?

Or who is feeling? Either one. What is feeling? Good.

Let's try it again. Once again, allowing your awareness to contract around the area where your heart is. Connecting with the energy in the heart, the sense of identity in the heart, fixation. And then opening that up out to the field, and then going out and feeling outside of your body, outside of your heart, into the space in the field.

And then once you get outside of it, gently turning it right back around and sending that curiosity, that energy back at that which is feeling back at the heart. And then asking yourself, what is it? What is it that is feeling? And we'll do it one more time.

Noticing that space where your heart is. And then moving your awareness out of the body, out into the field in front of your chest. And then doing a U-turn back into your chest, back at the heart. the question, the curiosity: what is it that is feeling?

What feels emotion? Who feels emotion? Let me see. For me, as I do this practice, I notice something similar.

I notice the certainty of emotion, the density, and the fixations on because I feel I must exist. I've noticed those begin to almost shudder or shake and then begin to erode and then begin to fall away. And then once again, I'm just left with the feeling itself. Just before we were left with the looking, now I'm left with the feeling.

I'm left with just love, not coming from anywhere or going anywhere, but rather love looking at the space where I thought my emotional self was. It could be some sadness or some attachment or contraction. I notice some resistance and some sadness, and then now it's almost like this blanket of stillness has settled over my being from my head down into my chest. It kind of stops underneath the ribcage.

Good. And as that wave of relaxation, if you feel it moves over you, allow it to fall down through the chest into the abdomen and follow that. Let it pull your awareness down into the abdomen into the abdomen. And just notice the breathing in the abdomen.

Notice your belly expanding and contracting, rising and falling. Following your breath instead of trying to control it. Good. We'll do something similar.

So now we will notice the area that we call the lower dantian. It's often considered the seat of our own personal energy and power. And so that is usually behind the belly button in the middle of the body, about two fingers with below the belly button. It's like a shallow pool that's been water has carved out this shallow basin in a large piece of stone.

It's a common Taoist image. And so, once again, just like with the heart, we were thinking this: love and anger, or love and fear, right? There's these two poles of the paradox, just like spaciousness in the mind could be your friend or your enemy. In the gut, what we have is we have it's our seat of power.

So, power is kind of the positive, the positive story, or positive version, positive energy of it. And then we have the pain. The pain of the human body is kind of almost like a weakness associated with pain, right? Is the negative version.

And so, just like with the heart center and the gut center, you may have heard of the term pain body, that's where the pain body comes from. And so, that's one of the things that we're working on, letting go of our attachment to when we work in the lower abdomen or abdomen area. So, once again, focus on your lower dantian, like you have a sphere of awareness around that lower dantian, and just allow your attention to gather there. You may notice any sense of connection to it through a sense of being you or a sense of power, or also could be a sense of weakness, like a pit or emptiness.

Often in the abdomen, we talk about emptiness versus fullness. So, another way to think about it. Good, and we will do the same thing. So, just allowing your awareness to be in that spot and then opening up your sense so that you're sensing directly through the abdomen out into the world.

And as your awareness goes out of that sphere by the lower dantian out through your abdomen into the world, we're just going to do it again. We're going to turn it like a U-turn back at the source of the awareness towards the lower dantian. And then you can ask yourself, right? You're just looking at it with curiosity: what is powerful?

What is powerful? Likewise, you can say, What is weak? You can say, Who is weak, whichever is more helpful. Good.

And we will do it again. Allow your awareness and your attention to gather in a sphere around your lower dantian and your abdomen. And when you're ready, extending your awareness out of that sphere out through your abdomen or belly, out into the world, feeling the space in the world. And then gently giving it a U-turn back towards the origin of the energy of the awareness.

And you can once again ask the questions: What is powerful? What is weak? What is powerful? What is weak?

And we'll do it one more time, allowing your awareness to gather in your abdomen, your belly, around the lower dantian, and moving out, sensing out through the abdomen, out into the field, and then gently having it do a U-turn coming back towards the lower dantian. You're just asking what is powerful, what is weak for me? I notice almost like an armoring or a defense of like a walls around the sphere breaking apart and falling away as I leave it and come back with curiosity and questioning. It's not like there's nothing there anymore, but rather everything around it, which is already quite dense and encompassing, just all becomes almost like one thing.

All of the thick energy or field in the abdomen kind of all becomes one field. Find and notice a sense of groundedness, quietness, and stillness and rootedness. We'll just take a minute and just sit in the silence, and then I'll ring the bell in a minute or two. Okay, that will end the guided meditation great.