Check Your Thoughts

Check Your Thoughts

Meditating on the question "Who am I?" for as little as 5 minutes a can help you look beyond your ego's definition of you and discover what lies beneath.

Settle into your Body - With your eyes closed, seated in a comfortable position, and hands folded in your lap, lengthen your body as if your head is being suspended by a cord from the ceiling.  Scan your body, notice where your stiff and try to soften.  Most areas of stiffness are shoulders, face, thighs, belly, arms and hands.  Take 5 deep inhalations and exhalations.

Focus on your Breath - Focus on the rise and fall of your breath.  Let it be natural and relaxed as it brings you into the present moment.  Feel the coolness of the breath as you inhale and the warmth as you exhale.  Notice where you feel the breath in your body.  Do you feel it in the chest and shoulders? In the diaphragm or belly?

Quiet the Mind - Feeling the flow of breath, inhale with the thought "I am."  Feel the energy of the words mingling with your breath and flowing into your inner body.  Then with the exhale, feel the space that these words leave in your consciousness.  Repeat the pure mantra "I am" without attaching any other thoughts to it.  Stay in that moment for as long as possible allowing yourself to become more and more relaxed.

Practice Inquiry - As you relax and your mind quiets, begin to drop in questions, "Who am I, without words? Without thoughts? Without memories or emotions?  Pay attention to your response to these questions.  If words or emotions arise, let them.  Identify them - "thoughts," "sadness," or "confusion" - and return to the questions.  You're not really looking for an answers, look to experience the bare awareness h=that is your sense of being, or pure existence.

Rest in Awareness - The sense of pure awareness is there and as you practice this mediation, it will eventually reveal itself.  Continue your inquiry, and see if you can gently rest for a second or two in the wordless awareness that immediately follows the questions.  The opening into awareness may last only for a few seconds.  If your thoughts become too loud, start over: Return to the breath and the mantra "I am."  Then ask the questions again, pay attention to what arises.  Stay within the process for as few as 5 or as many as 30 minutes.  Then open your eyes and return to your day.

Take Care!
Keep it R.E.A.L.