Give a time, and keep it.

So from today, make a small experiment. Every day, sit alone for some time. Do not try to attain anything. Do not try to prove anything. Close your eyes and only see. What is happening in the body? How is the breath moving? Which thought is coming in the mind? Which memory is rising? Which fear is standing before you? Change nothing. Only see. And if the thought runs a thousand times, return a thousand times to seeing.

If staying with what rises becomes distressing, stop. This is not therapy and not medical advice. If you are in trouble, find a person who can help you in the room you are in.

Slowly, one day, you will feel that behind thoughts there is a silence. Behind emotions there is a peace. And behind all your restlessness there is a witness who has never been restless. That witness is to be recognized. That is the beginning of your search.

And remember: knowing yourself is not some final destination, but the art of waking toward yourself in every moment. The more you wake, the newer life will appear. The same tree, the same sky, the same road, the same people. But the eye that sees will have changed. And when the seeing eye changes, the world too appears changed. Then, for the first time, you understand that the problem was not so much in life as in your unconsciousness. And the moment light comes into unconsciousness, many knots begin to open by themselves.

So do not run outside. Stop for a moment. Take a breath. Close your eyes and ask within: who am I?

But this time, do not give the answer from some book. Do not repeat a teacher's answer. Do not give the answer of your name. Remain silent. Let the question descend within. Because it may be that after the question has become utterly still, you catch, for the first time, a glimpse of the person you have known least in your whole life. And that person is no one else. It is you yourself.

Every day, sit for some time without any screen. Without music, without video, without any outer noise. In the beginning the mind will be restless. It will say, do something. Do not. Only sit. Watch the breath. Feel the body. Let thoughts keep coming. Do not follow them. One thought came: I have to do this work tomorrow. See it. Another came: why did that person do this to me? See it. A third came: if only I had this much money. See it. A fourth came: when will I succeed? See it. You do not have to solve anything. You only have to see.

And slowly you will find that thoughts too have their own movement. They come, remain a little while, and go. But you set out on a search with them. That is why they feel real. If you sit on the bank and watch, thoughts are like clouds. One came, another came, a third came, and the sky remained where it was. Your consciousness is that sky.