STEP I
BODY AWARENESS
ONE OF THE MAJOR GOALS of any system of selfdevelopment or spiritual growth is the acquisition of sensitivity or self-awareness. There is only one way of acquiring this awareness - and this is to become aware. Sitting comfortably in a straight-backed chair, or lying flat on one's back in bed, one merely attempts to observe what is happening, as it were, “under the skin.” You simply watch your body, its sensations and feeling here and now. This only - and nothing more. Do not try to relax or to breathe in any unusual or special way, or to try to control the thoughts that float through the mind. All these processes and methods will be dealt with later. For the time being, merely become conscious of any sensation that arises anywhere in the body.
Sitting comfortably in a straight-backed chair, or lying flat on one's back in bed, one merely attempts to ob- serve what is happening, as it were, “under the skin.” You simply watch your body, its sensations and feeling here and now. This only — and nothing more. Do not try to relax or to breathe in any unusual or special way, or to try to control the thoughts that float through the mind. All these processes and methods will be dealt with later. For the time being, merely become conscious of any sensation that arises anywhere in the body.
I suggest you wriggle around for a moment or two to find that one position which seems most comfortable. Having found it, stay in it, and do not move from it in any way. There should be absolutely no voluntary muscular movement for the rest of the practice session. Not even a wriggle of a toe, or a wiggle of a finger. The session should last not more than ten minutes at first, but gradually by the end of a month should be extended to half an hour. For many people this will seem an eternity in which every instinct will cry aloud for a wiggle of some kind to ease the tension. This should be resisted. Other students will find the ten minutes to pass, as it were, in a flash.
It is important to develop your powers of concentration while practicing these awareness exercises. If your mind wanders, gently bring it back. Your power of concentration will improve each day. As you sit or lie quietly, you may become conscious of an itching of the scalp. Leave it alone. Do not do any- thing about it. Do not scratch. Just watch. In a moment or two, it may die down and disappear, or else your attention will be distracted by a tingling somewhere else. Presently, you may become conscious of the back settling down into the bed or chair. Just watch this process. Try only to become exquisitely aware of the accompanying body sensations without in the least trying to ignore them or change them.
Make no judgements about what you observe. Merely notice. Do not criticize nor reject any of these sensations. They may be comfortable or uncomfortable, pleasurable or otherwise, but they are your own. Accept them just as they are. They are you!
Sensations in different portions of the body will come and go, without apparent rhyme or reason. Watch them. It is often a good idea to verbalize audibly just what you do feel. It is a procedure I often use in my office, where I encourage the patient, lying on the couch, to express audibly enough for me to hear his description of exactly what he is presently feeling, and where.
The outcome of this is that a profound relaxation of nervous tension develops merely on the basis of watching. You do nothing else but observe the rise and fall of sensation without attempting in the least to modify whatever phenomena may occur. But day in and day out practice will heighten enormously this function that is called self-recollection, mindfulness, self-awareness, and many other names. Without this self-awareness, very little can be accomplished on the Path. All other exercises and complex procedures actually begin from this heightening of self-awareness.
Start it now. No special time need be set apart for this exercise. You may pursue it wherever you happen to be, at any time, in any place. Certainly, in bed when retiring at night, or when arising in the morning; these are excel- lent periods of time to practice this art of self-recollection.
While performing one's daily ablutions — bathing, washing, shaving, evacuating, applying makeup, dressing, etc. — one can sharpen one's perception of what one is doing to become conscious of the most minute and hitherto insignificant sensations.
This art can be extended enormously in a variety of different directions as familiarity with practice makes one aware of more of what is going on inside. For example, if Carl Jung's definition of psycho-therapy is that thereby one becomes conscious of what hitherto was unconscious, then the pursuit of this method will result in the heightened consciousness of a large number of inner sensations of which previously one was totally unaware. And to this extent, one's horizons of one's self will have become enlarged. The Path has been entered upon.
This exercise should be pursued for at least one month. Two practice periods should be set aside at the very least every day, no longer than ten minutes at a time. This altogether apart from the momentary cessation of activity at varying times during the day in which to observe what is going on inside.
NASLOVNA STRANA
