BEFORE DESIRE AND BEFORE KNOWING, HOW CAN I SAY I AM? CONSIDER. DISSOLVE IN THE BEAUTY. BEFORE DESIRE AND BEFORE KNOWING, HOW CAN I SAY I AM?

A desire arises: with the desire, the feeling that I AM arises. A thought arises: with the thought, the feeling that I AM arises. Look for it in your own experience. Before desire and before knowing, there is no ego.

Sit silently. Look within. A thought arises: you get identified with the thought. A desire arises: you get identified with the desire. In the identification you become the ego. Then think: there is no desire and there is no knowledge and no thought -- you cannot get identified with anything. The ego cannot arise.

Buddha used this technique and he said to his disciples not do anything else but just one thing: when a thought arises, not it down. Buddha used to say that when a thought arises, note down that a thought is arising. Just inside, note it: now a thought is arising, now a thought has arises, now a thought is disappearing. Just remember that now the thought is arising, now the thought has arisen, now the thought is disappearing, so that you don't get identified with it.

It is very beautiful and very simple. A desire arises. You are walking on the road; a beautiful car passes by. You look at it -- and you have not even looked and the desire to possess it arises. Do it. In the beginning just verbalize; just say slowly, `I have seen a car. It is beautiful. Now a desire has arisen to possess it.' Just verbalize.

In the beginning it is good; if you can say it loudly, it is very good. Say loudly, `I am just noting that a car has passed, the mind has said it is beautiful, and now desire has arisen and I must possess this car.' Verbalize everything, speak loudly to yourself and immediately you will feel that you are different from it. Note it.

When you have become efficient in noting, there is no need to say it loudly. Just inside, note that a desire has arisen. A beautiful woman passes; the desire has come in. Just note it -- as if you are not concerned, you are just noting the fact that is happening -- and then suddenly you will be out of it.

Buddha says, `Note down whatsoever happens. Just go on noting, and when it disappears, again note that now that desire has disappeared, and you will feel a distance from the desire, from the thought.'

This technique says:

BEFORE DESIRE AND BEFORE KNOWING,

HOW CAN I SAY I AM?

And if there is no desire and if there is no thought, how can you say I AM? How can I say I AM? Then everything is silent, not a ripple is there. And without any ripple how can I create this illusion of I? If some ripple is there I can get attached to it and through it I can feel I AM. When there is no ripple in the consciousness, there is no I.

So before desire, remember; when the desire comes in, remember; when the desire goes out, go on remembering. When a thought arises, remember. Look at it. Just note that a thought has arisen. Sooner or later it will go because everything is momentary, and there will be a gap. Between two thoughts there is a gap, between two desires there is a gap, and in the gap there is no I.

Note a thought in the mind and then you will feel that there is an interval. Howsoever small, there is an interval. Then another thought comes; then again there is an interval. In those intervals there is no I -- and those intervals are your real being. Thoughts are moving in the sky. In those intervals you can look between two clouds, and the sky is revealed.

CONSIDER.

DISSOLVE IN THE BEAUTY.

And if you can consider that a desire has arisen and a desire has gone and you have remained in the gap and the desire has not disturbed you.... It came, it went. It was there, and it is now not there, and you have remained unperturbed, you have remained as you were before it. There has been no change in you. It came and it passed like a shadow. It has not touched you; you remain unscarred.

Consider this movement of desire and movement of thought but no movement in you. CONSIDER AND DISSOLVE IN THE BEAUTY. And that interval is beautiful. Dissolve in that interval. Fall in the gap and be the gap. It is the deepest experience of beauty. And not only of beauty, but of good and of truth also. In the gap you are.

The whole emphasis has to go from the filled spaces to the unfilled spaces. You are reading a book. There are words, there are sentences, but between the words there are gaps, between the sentences there are gaps. In those gaps you are. The whiteness of the paper you are, and the black dots are just clouds of thought and desire moving on you. Change the emphasis, change the gestalt. Don't look at the black dots. Look at the white.

In your inner being, look at the gaps. Be indifferent to the filled spaces, the occupied spaces. Be interested in the gaps, the intervals. Through those intervals you can dissolve into the ultimate beauty.