Intone a word ending in “AH”

     Any word that ends in ”AH” – intone it silently. Emphasis should be given to the ending ”AH.” Why? Because the moment this sound ”AH” is intoned, your breath goes out. You may not have observed it, but now you can observe: whenever your breath goes out you are more silent, and whenever your breath comes in you are more tense- because the outgoing breath is death and the incoming breath is life. Tension is part of life, not of death. Relaxation is part of death; death means total relaxation. Life cannot be totally relaxed; it is impossible.

     This AH is meaningful because when you say AH it completely empties you. The whole breath has moved out; nothing remains within. You are totally empty – empty and dead. For a single moment, for a very small interval, life has moved out of you. You are dead – empty. This emptiness, if realized, if you can become aware of it, will change you completely. You will be a different man. Then you will know well that this life is not your life and this death is also not your death. Then you will know something which is beyond the incoming and outgoing breath – the witnessing soul. And this witnessing can happen easily when you are empty of breath, because life has subsided and with it all tensions have subsided.

     Use it as a mantra. Whenever you feel tired, whenever you feel tense, use any word which ends in ”AH.” ”Allah” will do – any word that brings your total breath out so that you exhale completely and you are emptied of breath. The moment you are emptied of breath you are emptied of life also. And all your problems belong to life: no problem belongs to death. Your anxiety, your anguish, your anger, your sadness, they all belong to life.

     And when the breath goes out, ”HH,” everything is emptied. Effortlessly in this moment, there is no need to make any effort. The SPONTANEITY: just be aware, be spontaneous, be sensitive, and realize this moment of death. In this moment you are just near the door, just near the door!- very, very near to the ultimate. The immediate has moved out, the superfluous has moved out. In this moment you are not the wave: you are the ocean – just near, just near! If you can become aware you will forget that you are a wave. Again the wave will come, but now you can never be identified with it, you will remain the ocean. Once you have known that you are the ocean, you can never again be the wave. Life is waves… death is the ocean.