Choiceless Awareness Guided Practice Technique For More Time

In this podcast, we look at the value of time and how to use meditation to help decrease anxiety and stress that you may hold towards time (or the lack thereof!) There are lots of factors causing this, the first could be your own desires and wishes. Another factor is your awareness. What does meditation have to do with all of this? Meditation is that process where you come out of this perceived time, out of this distortion of chronological time, so that you can once again take charge.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Dhyansi and you are listening to Dhyansi Meditation Podcast.

This meditation session was given on 17th December 2018 in Basel,

Switzerland.

In this session,

I talk about how to come out of the bondage of time with meditation.

A very warm welcome to all of you in this last meditation session for this year.

For this last session of this year,

I have an imagination for you.

Something that we will start with as an imagination before I introduce you to the theme today and the meditation.

How you're going to do this imagination is,

You will close your eyes and you'll follow the time that I'm going to tell you and you're going to imagine that you are in that time.

So we're going to do a bit of a time travel.

Whenever I say a particular time,

You're going to imagine that you are in that time.

Please don't open your eyes and just try your best to play with this imagination,

To go in the time and feel and live and breathe as if you are in the time.

Are you ready?

Then let's close our eyes and imagine it's 31st of December 2018.

Right now,

It's 11 o'clock on 31st of December 2018.

It's 11.

59.

You are in that moment.

11.

59,

31st of December 2018 in the evening.

Now it's 12 o'clock,

1st of January 2019.

The whole year has passed and it's 31st of December 2019.

Again,

11.

59 pm,

31st of December 2019.

And now it's 12,

1st of January 2020.

The whole year has passed.

31st of December 2020.

11.

59 pm,

31st of December 2020.

1st of January 2021.

1st of January 2025.

1st of January 2030.

1st of January 2050.

1st of January 2100.

1st of January 3000.

1st of January 5000.

1st of January 10,

000.

And now come back to 17th of December 2018.

7 pm,

10 minutes.

Right here.

Right now.

Slowly and gently open your eyes.

What went through your mind when we travelled in the future?

Anybody?

Yes?

Yes.

Nobody died during the process?

Thanks.

Anybody else?

Yes.

In the end first,

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

It puts oneself into perspective.

One thing is,

Life goes on,

This world goes on,

We are here,

We will at some point of time not be here.

That's the truth of life,

That's the truth of time.

And that perspective puts our miseries,

Our problems,

Our anxieties,

Everything into its place.

And we see how big or small they are as compared to what's happening in this world at the moment.

I was happy because I realized how pragmatic this creature may be.

Another one.

It was interesting,

This 31st December this year it was clear,

I had a situation and in my mind it was going on and I was feeling and for all the years in the future I was more like,

It was metaphoric,

It was not that clear,

But it was more peaceful and.

.

.

So for you it was clear the 31st December and when we moved and took bigger jumps it became fuzzy and.

.

.

Our mind,

Yeah,

Our mind tries to grasp everything in its own reach and 31st December 2018,

19,

20,

It still can go that far and tries to grasp that.

The moment we take bigger leaps of 50 years,

100 years suddenly because we never conceived of these times,

Mind goes flat,

Mind goes blank.

It doesn't know how to process that.

Why we did this small experiment is to understand what is time and what is our relation to time.

All these numbers 2018,

19,

50,

3000,

5000,

This chronological time is nothing but a measurement of what's happening in existence.

The earth is revolving around the sun,

One revolution is one year,

3000 years from now is 3000 revolutions that earth has taken around the sun,

A day is this rotation around its own axis of earth.

It's simply a measurement,

It's simply a number,

It's chronological time.

This chronological time is not the problem,

But our relation to time which our mind creates is where starts all the stress,

All the anxiety,

All its miseries.

You can call this as psychological time.

This relation of time of ourselves with the dimension of time,

You can call this psychological time and this psychological time is different for each individual.

My one hour is not the same as your one hour or somebody else's one hour because the perception,

The experience of that hour is a function of how your mind is projecting that hour for you.

There are lots of factors in,

But if you pick up some of the major ones,

The first factor could be your own contents of the mind,

Your own desires,

Your own wishes,

Your own likings,

Your own dislikings.

If you're in a movie theater where you're enjoying the movie and everything is amazing and you're happy and you're enjoying that moment,

How fast the time goes.

The same time goes very fast for you.

And when you're sitting in office in a boring meeting,

How slow the time goes.

The same amount of time has a different perception,

Has a different experience simply because your mind is coming in the way.

Your mind is creating the perception of time,

Is creating the perceived time.

Second thing is your awareness.

What your mind tries to do all throughout your life is to put everything from your awareness to an autopilot.

A child,

A three year or four year old child or a five year old child for that child,

An hour is so long.

He's still discovering the world.

Everything is new for his or her awareness.

Everything is fresh and that hour has so much time,

So much to grasp.

One evening for a child is almost like an eternity.

If you remember your own childhood,

How much time you had when you were a child.

And now the day,

The month,

The years go by so fast.

Why do they go by so fast?

Because you've put everything on autopilot.

The awareness has become less and less.

You've pushed everything from the awareness of the moment to an autopilot in the moment.

You've let your mind run while you're somewhere unaware,

Letting the moment pass.

Hence your feeling of time,

Your sense of time is something that is completely distorted,

Is not there.

Therefore everything passes by very fast or very slow.

What does meditation to do with all this?

Meditation is a space,

Is that process where you come out of this perceived time,

Where you come out of this distortion of chronological time and changing that into perceived time.

Two things are important for meditation.

One choice lessness and second awareness.

For today's session,

Please remember these two words,

Choicelessness and awareness.

What is choicelessness?

Choicelessness is you let everything be,

Let the flow of life be,

Let everything around you happen.

Don't try to change.

Don't try to impose your own desire,

Your own wish,

Your own will,

Your own contents of the mind on what's happening.

Remain choiceless,

Remain in the moment,

Remain without touching the moment with your own ways.

Second awareness.

Awareness is when you're more silent,

When you're more settled,

When you're more centered,

You simply are aware of the moment.

The moment is there,

It passes by,

You're choiceless and you're aware.

That's what meditation is.

When you subject yourself into this process for some more moments than just one single moment,

It sorts out this perceived sense of time.

It puts time back into its own place and it doesn't become a reason for your anxiety,

For your stress,

For everything that it can create,

The horror that it can create for you.

In today's meditation,

We're going to try to sit in this choiceless awareness called as meditation.

Few steps how we are going to begin and settle into the moment.

We're going to draw our energy from all our senses and put them at our navel.

What does this mean?

What are the five senses?

Seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Tasting and touching.

These are the five senses and we will go one by one.

I'll guide you through the process in the meditation and we'll draw our energy from these senses and center them at our navel.

We'll imagine that there is a center where we're drawing the energy from all these different five senses from all different directions and putting them at our navel so that these senses are not disturbing us.

If there is a noise outside,

Let it be.

Don't give it energy,

Don't interact with it.

If you see something,

Don't interact with it.

Just come back to this center,

Draw the energy from all five different senses to your navel center.

When you do that,

You are situated in this choiceless awareness.

You are there in that moment.

And naturally,

Once you stay longer there,

You will see that the sense of this center also starts dissolving.

And you let that sense of the center where you are making an effort to draw your energy and putting them on your navel center,

It also starts to dissolve and go away.

And what is left is you in silence,

In choiceless awareness.

It's very simple.

We will go through the meditation together and if there is anything that is bothering you during meditation,

Just let it go,

Follow the instructions,

Don't try to understand it too much.

And we will discuss this after the meditation if needed.

Is it clear?

Are the people in the center all settled?

Let's close our eyes.

Take a nice deep breath.

Inhale from the nose.

And exhale from the nose.

Keep your back straight,

Shoulders down.

And allow your body to find a comfortable posture for yourself.

Now become aware of what you see behind your closed eyes.

And slowly withdraw the energy in the seeing and take it to your navel center,

The center at your navel.

Allow the eyes to rest,

To become still.

And for the next minutes,

Your energies are drawn away from seeing.

And at your center,

At your navel center.

We draw all the energy from seeing.

Then let it rest.

Now take your awareness to what you hear.

The noise is outside.

And withdraw your energies from hearing.

Allow it to rest.

Take it to your navel center.

Except for my voice,

Let everything pass.

Keep your energies at your navel,

Your attention at your navel.

Now take your awareness to your nose.

And become aware of what you smell right now.

And withdraw your energies from the sense of smell.

Allow it to rest.

And take these energies to your navel center.

In other words,

Remain aware of your navel center.

Take your awareness to your tongue.

And feel how does it taste in your mouth right now.

And then withdraw from the sense of taste and focus your energies to your navel center.

Allow your tongue to rest while you remain focused on your navel center.

Ex anime Those are the three shapes of the Take your awareness to your skin and notice how it feels there.

Is it hot?

Or cold?

Now withdraw your energy from there and focus it back at your navel.

With every breath,

Withdraw yourself from everywhere and just focus at your navel center.

Your body is still your mind is calm and you're focused at your navel center.

Remain focused at your navel center.

Now let the center dissolve.

With every breath,

Let it go.

With every exhalation,

Let everything go.

Don't touch anything.

Remain aware and choiceless.

Remain aware and silent.

Remain aware and silent.

Remain centered and silent.

With every exhalation,

Let go more and more.

No more movement.

No more movement.

Breathe in and out in this silence,

In this awareness.

Stay here.

Just like this.

Simply remain silent and aware.

Choiceless and aware.

Let this awareness grow.

Let this silence grow.

Let go in it.

Let go.

Stay silent.

Let go.

Let go.

Everything around you move,

You remain silent.

Sitting here,

Silent and aware.

Choiceless and aware.

And take your awareness back to your body,

To your breath.

Feel the sensations in your body,

In your inner space,

In your breath.

And very slowly and gently come back and open your eyes.

You may take this moment to stretch,

To move your body.

You may take this moment to reflect on what you just went through,

Or simply remain quiet.

Once there was a chaos in a Zen monastery,

All the monks,

They were scared.

They were running around,

Looking for the senior most monk.

They went up to the senior most monk,

And the senior monk,

He looked at other monks,

And they all were scared,

And they had one of their cheeks red.

And the senior monk asked,

Why is your cheek red?

One of the monks said,

Well,

The master of this monastery,

He has gone mad.

He is running around the monastery,

Asking everyone,

What time is it?

And when we tell him the time,

He is simply slapping us.

He has gone total nuts.

He is running around and just doing this to everybody.

Listening to this discussion,

The master arrived in this discussion.

He looked furious.

He looked like he is going to do something wrong again.

But this senior monk,

He was there for a very long time.

He knew that maybe this master is trying to teach something by his slapping.

So this master,

He reached to the senior monk,

He said,

What time is it?

And the senior monk,

He thought,

If I would tell him the time,

He will slap me as well.

So let me say something which is more meaningful,

Which is his teachings,

Which I have learnt.

He said,

The time is now.

And the master slapped him as well.

What time is it?

I leave you with this terrible,

With this riddle to figure out what does it mean,

Why the master even slapped the senior monk who said,

The time is now.

Because we are not going to slap anybody here.

I leave you with this riddle for you to think about,

For you to meditate upon,

Whenever you have time to meditate at your own place,

In your own world.

I would like to end today's session by thanking all of you,

Not just who are there in the session today,

But also those who have been regularly joining this group.

We are more than 300 people community now,

Who are joining regularly whenever they have time on these Mondays,

Which makes me want to continue this next year as well.

But what is important for all of us here is to also,

For you to tell me what you want out of these sessions.

If what you are getting in these sessions,

What we are doing every session,

Is it valuable?

Is it something that is not just some philosophy,

Not just some random event that happens on Monday,

But is that something that you can take as a taste in your life and make use of it?

If yes,

I keep on doing what I am doing,

I enjoy sitting with you in silence in meditation.

Even if it is sometimes painful for you guys,

I hear that as well.

But I am committed to make sure that we keep on doing it,

Because I know one day it will be easy,

One day it will be very very natural for you as well.

Wish you a lovely evening,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

See you in 2019,

On 7th of January.

Namaste.