Look upon some object, then slowly withdraw your sight from it, then slowly withdraw your thought from it. Then.
- Three steps: (1) Look at an object — e.g. a flower — with a pure, non-thinking gaze until it forms a vivid inner image; use the SAME object each day so the same image recurs. (2) Slowly turn the eyes away; the outer object recedes but its image persists inside as thought. (3) Withdraw from that inner image too — become indifferent, as if you have moved away from it; it dissolves.
- The second withdrawal (from the inner image) is the difficult part; it becomes possible only if the first step was done correctly — a genuinely thought-free look that lets the image form cleanly.
- Temple images were designed for exactly this technique: look at the statue of Mahavir, Buddha, Rama, or Krishna until the image is imprinted; close the eyes; then wipe out the image. The images survive in temples but the technique — the key — has been lost.
- ‘Then.’ When both the outer object and the inner image are gone, you are left alone — in total aloneness, purity, innocence. That aloneness is the original source; realizing it is freedom.
- Q3 clarification from discourse 24 — the mechanism of ‘Then’: activity is gross and outward-directed, inactivity is subtle. When the body-bridge to the world is cut (a death-like state of complete non-engagement), energy has no outward channel and turns inward. Standing then at the heart center and looking out at the body, you see you are the observer, not the observed; the body is merely clothing. The recognition that follows — ‘I cannot die’ — is the deathless witness, encountered through the total absence of objects, inner and outer. Sustained, it becomes vivid enough that you step outside the body and see it lying before you — a second birth (dwij).