“The mouth is really very very significant, because that is where the first activity landed; your lips started the first activity. Surrounding the area of the mouth is the beginning of all activity: you breathed in, you cried, you started groping for the mother’s breast. And your mouth remains always in a frantic activity.
“Whenever you sit down to meditate, whenever you want to be silent, the first thing is to shut the mouth completely. If you shut the mouth completely, your tongue will touch the roof of your mouth; both the lips will be completely closed and the tongue will touch the roof. Shut it completely – but that can be done only if you have followed whatsoever I have been saying to you, not before it.
“You can do it – shutting the mouth is not a very big effort. You can sit like a statue, with a completely shut mouth, but that will not stop activity. Deep inside the thinking will continue, and if thinking continues you can feel subtle vibrations in the lips. Others may not be able to observe it because they are very subtle, but if you are thinking then your lips quiver a little – a very subtle quivering.
“When you really relax, that quivering stops. You are not talking, you are not making any activity inside you. And then don’t think.
“What will you do? – thoughts are coming and going. Let them come and go; that’s not the problem. You don’t get involved; you remain aloof, detached. You simply watch them coming and going – they are not your concern. Shut the mouth and you remain silent. By and by, thoughts will cease automatically. They need your cooperation to be there. If you cooperate,they will be there; if you fight, then too they will be there – because both are cooperations: one for, the other against. Both are sorts of activity. Simply watch.
“But shutting the mouth is very helpful. So first, as I have been observing many people, I will suggest to you to first yawn. Open your mouth as wide as possible, tense your mouth as wide as possible and yawn completely; it even starts hurting. Two or three times do this. This will help the mouth to remain shut for a longer time. And then for two or three minutes, say gibberish, nonsense, loudly. Anything that comes to the mind, say it loudly and enjoy it. Then shut the mouth.
“It is easier to move from the opposite end. If you want to relax your hand, it is better to first make it as tense as possible. Clench the fist and let it be as tense as possible. Do just the opposite and then relax – and then you will attain a deeper relaxation of the nervous system. Make gestures, faces, movements of the face and distortions. Yawn, say two or three minutes of nonsense and then shut the mouth.
“This tension will give you a deeper possibility to relax the lips and mouth. Shut the mouth and then just be a watcher. Soon a silence will descend on you.
“Be passive…just as you sit by the side of a river and the river floats by, and you simply watch. There is no eagerness, no urgency, no emergency. Nobody is forcing you. Even if you miss, there is nothing missed. You simply watch, you just look. Even the word watch is not good, because the very word watch gives a feeling of being active. You simply look, not having anything to do. You simply sit by the bank of the river, you look, and the river flows by. Or, you look passively at the sky and the clouds float.
“This passiveness is very very essential; that is to be understood, because your obsession for activity can become eagerness, can become an active waiting. Then you miss the whole point; then the activity has entered from the back door again. Be a passive watcher.
“This passivity will automatically empty your mind. Ripples of activity, ripples of mind-energy, by and by will subside, and the whole surface of your consciousness will be without any waves, without any ripples. It becomes like a silent mirror.”
