Watching

Watch yourself. As you go about your day, watch what you do. Be the doer but be the observer, too.

Gradually, the observer will become more prominent until the weight has shifted from the unconscious self to pure consciousness. Watching will put you in touch with presence.

Watch your thoughts. They are not you, although you have identified yourself with them for so long.

They are little impulses of energy, pictures on a screen, mental sounds and words, but they are not your consciousness. They float or flash within your consciousness but you are the container not the contained. You are the observer, not the observed.

Watch your feelings. They are deeper than thoughts but they are still the object when you are the subject. Watch them come and go. Watch them rise and fall, go up, down, left and right.

They are e-motions, energy in motion, but they are not you. They are intense, experientially overwhelming sometimes, but you are the awareness that transcends them. You can enjoy and use them and, through them, know yourself, but you are not their slave.

Watch your habits and learned reactions. Watch your susceptibility to the influence of others, plus the insecurity and self-doubt on which it is based.

Watch the part of you that gets irritable and can be pushed and pulled around by circumstance. See the part of you that seems separate from existence.

Watch more and more, and bring yourself back to watching every time you remember to.

Use opportunities when you have to wait for whatever reason to become more of the watcher and turn 'wasted' time into the most profound spiritual growth.

Watch yourself in everything you do because the one who is watching is the real you.