From the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra: “Before desire and before knowing, how can I say I am? Consider. Dissolve in the beauty.”

This meditation points to the roots of our existence – that in order for us to know our divine nature, we must experience desires, thoughts, feelings, sensations – knowing everything, but also witnessing everything, allowing it to pass and discovering who is there beyond the experience.

To practise this meditation:

Here’s Osho’s commentary from ‘The Book of Secrets’:

“Sit silently. Look within. A thought arises: you get identified with the thought. A desire arises: you get identified with the desire. In the identification you become the ego. Then think: there is no desire and there is no knowledge and no thought — you cannot get identified with anything. The ego cannot arise.

Buddha used this technique and he said to his disciples not to do anything else but just one thing: when a thought arises, note it down. Buddha used to say that when a thought arises, note down that a thought is arising. Just inside, note it: now a thought is arising, now a thought has arisen, now a thought is disappearing. Just remember that now the thought is arising, now the thought has arisen, now the thought is disappearing, so that you don’t get identified with it.

It is very beautiful and very simple. A desire arises. You are walking on the road; a beautiful car passes by. You look at it – and you have not even looked and the desire to possess it arises. Do it. In the beginning just verbalise; just say slowly, `I have seen a car. It is beautiful. Now a desire has arisen to possess it.’ Just verbalise.

In the beginning it is good; if you can say it loudly, it is very good. Say loudly, `I am just noting that a car has passed, the mind has said it is beautiful, and now desire has arisen and I must possess this car.’ Verbalise everything, speak loudly to yourself and immediately you will feel that you are different from it. Note it.

When you have become efficient in noting, there is no need to say it loudly. Just inside, note that a desire has arisen. A beautiful woman passes; the desire has come in. Just note it – as if you are not concerned, you are just noting the fact that it is happening – and then suddenly you will be out of it.

Buddha says, `Note down whatsoever happens. Just go on noting, and when it disappears, again note that now that desire has disappeared, and you will feel a distance from the desire, from the thought.’

And if there is no desire and if there is no thought, how can you say I AM? How can I say I AM? Then everything is silent, not a ripple is there. And without any ripple how can I create this illusion of I? If some ripple is there I can get attached to it and through it I can feel I AM. When there is no ripple in the consciousness, there is no I.

Note a thought in the mind and then you will feel that there is an interval. Howsoever small, there is an interval. Then another thought comes; then again there is an interval. In those intervals there is no I – and those intervals are your real being. Thoughts are moving in the sky. In those intervals you can look between two clouds, and the sky is revealed.

And if you can consider that a desire has arisen and a desire has gone and you have remained in the gap and the desire has not disturbed you…. It came, it went. It was there, and it is now not there, and you have remained unperturbed, you have remained as you were before it. There has been no change in you. It came and it passed like a shadow. It has not touched you; you remain unscarred.

And that interval is beautiful. Dissolve in that interval. Fall in the gap and be the gap. It is the deepest experience of beauty. And not only of beauty, but of god and of truth also. In the gap you are.

In your inner being, look at the gaps. Be indifferent to the filled spaces, the occupied spaces. Be interested in the gaps, the intervals. Through those intervals you can dissolve into the ultimate beauty.”

Enjoyed this meditation? Want to try more like it? Check out Sarita’s online Vigyan Bhairav Tantra club, or by email, or or see her book, Divine Sexuality.

Picture of clouds copyright Rosendahl