Post-Satsang Feedback and Introduction
Namaste everyone. In our last Satsang, we had the pre-verbal awareness talk and the exercise. Not only throughout the session, but even after the session, we received quite a few messages where people had done the exercise or went deeper into it and they saw immediate results.
So I thought we could continue this and go a bit deeper into what we talked about in the first one. I hope everyone who was not in that Satsang listened to the talk, the podcast, because today we’ll be building up a bit more on the last Satsang’s talk and exercise that we did.
Three Quotes on Going Beyond Words
So I’ll start first with three quotes by three teachers whom we all love.
The first quote is by Ramana, and he says: “There is a state when words cease and silence prevails.”
The second quote is by Nisargadatta, and it says: “You try to derive the meaning of yourself out of words. That is not you, give it up.”
And the third quote is by J. Krishnamurti, and he says: “Please do not merely hear the words. Words are like the breeze. You cannot exert all your mind and energy on words. You have to go beyond the words. Words are merely symbols, means of communication.”
Accessing the Pre-Verbal State
Now, the core idea which runs through all three quotes and pre-verbal awareness is knowing that there is a state which is prior to words. That state, that beingness, that awareness, whatever we call it—how do you access it?
It’s easy to read all these quotes. It is beyond words, it’s wordless, and it sounds very mystical, but how do you sit down to experience that? As I said in my search, I practiced—or I experimented, which would be the correct word—with a lot of different techniques. Some of the techniques were completely new, which I made up because I’m a very creative person and I always liked finding solutions. In my mind, you know, it was like: How do I do this? How do I feel that particular state?
That’s where there were two or three things I stumbled upon. One is the pre-verbal awareness technique. Another one was where you actually talk to your anxiety and your parts and hear them out. Then there were a couple of others. Today I will also talk about the relationship between the exercise that we do—the pre-verbal awareness—and where we can use the other practice where we can talk to our internal energies or unresolved thoughts or emotions which show up, you know, as different forms, maybe as a hurt child or something else.
First, we’ll go into the pre-verbal awareness, and then I’ll move to the next one.
The Pre-Verbal Awareness Exercise
With pre-verbal awareness, you will be able to at least get a glimpse initially of a state where there are no words, there’s no language. Word is language. And how do we go about it?
I’ll go over a bit of what we did last time. You imagine yourself to be a prehistoric being 50,000 years back. There was no language, right? No words. There were no words like anxiety, fear, death, enlightenment, awakening, observer, witness, parabrahma, or consciousness. There were no words, absolutely no language.
Now, if you were in that state right now, you had no access to language, and a sensation of fear, anxiety, grief, or whatever you call it arose in you, you would have no option but to experience it totally because you cannot define it. There is no word. You’ve let go of the word. There’s no language.
It was a very interesting puzzle for me when I started this, you know, like how would I express myself? Whenever I wanted to express it mentally, I would stop myself and say: I don’t have access to language. So of course I can’t express it, but I do feel it totally now.
When I repeatedly did this exercise again and again, I was able to see the gap between a state or beingness and the subsequent words, language, definitions, and labels which come after that. One surprising insight from that was that the subsequent narratives and labels were like 1,000 times magnified compared to what the actual emotional state I was in.
How Language magnifies Triggers
I’ll give you an example. Say you’re driving down or walking down the road and suddenly it starts raining or it’s very windy. You feel cold, there’s a sensation, and then you start saying, “Oh, my life… the day is horrible.” That leads to another thought: “My life is awful. What am I doing here? What is the meaning of life?” All that starts with the sensation of feeling cold.
Now, say you don’t have language; you will have to feel that cold, but there’s no forward momentum to that trigger, to that sensation, to that feeling, to that emotion. It stops there. Language creates that narrative, and then language makes us spiral down from one thought to another. The sages always talked about this thoughtless state, or this beingness prior to words.
When we are able to look at our triggers and states and refuse to use language at that moment and say, “I will not define it, no label,” the mind will come up with the label immediately or it will say, “I’m observing it.” Even that is language, you see, or “I’m witnessing it” is language. What if I give up all this witnessing and observation or trying to transmute it and make it good? That leads you to the pre-verbal state because you’ve given up conceptualizing that state in any language.
Differentiating Words and Images
Of course, when you have a trigger or a feeling, there are two things which will arise in you, and as you go deeper into it, you will be able to differentiate. First is a word, and second is also images.
Certain times you will think about a person who maybe causes you fear, anxiety, or stress. That’s an image. Then immediately words will follow: “I’m feeling anxious, this is very stressful, I don’t want to think about it,” or whatever. Now when you go deeper into it, you’ll see images are very transient, and they don’t kind of create narratives. Narratives are always created by words and language.
So this is what, if you can do the exercise properly, you will be able to experience.
Guided Pre-Verbal Awareness Exercise
Last time we did the exercise, and I want to do this again for those who were not present last time and also for those who were not able to connect to that pre-verbal awareness. This exercise just takes a minute.
The core of the exercise, again, is that we want to trigger something in us which is uncomfortable, which is not pleasant, and then we want to see the narrative which comes along with that trigger, with that emotion, with that feeling.
So we’ll take a deep breath just to settle ourselves and bring to mind a person or a situation which causes distress, fear, or anxiety. You’ll see the moment you think the trigger—I call it the trigger—now notice what happens after you think about that particular thing, after the trigger. What do you feel? I’ll give you a minute. What language, what thoughts, what labels come up?
Now we will do the same trigger again, but this time imagine you’re a prehistoric being 50,000 years ago. You have no access to language. Language is gone, there are no words, no access to it.
When you think of the trigger now, if a word comes up, try to drop it and say to yourself: “I don’t have access to words, I can’t use any words.” Initially, it’s very difficult because words are interwoven with triggers and images. But if you do it four or five times, even 10 times, slowly you will be able to see a gap very quickly.
So if you fail, that’s fine. Go back to the trigger again and try to feel it completely. If any words come up, drop them because you can’t use language, and then drop back into the feeling again. I’ll give you a minute just to try this.
You might feel a heaviness when you do not think of a particular thing, or your heart might palpitate. Your throat might get stuck. Focus on the sensation. The sensation doesn’t tell you anything. It has no words. It’s just a sensation. The mind starts with the words.
Applying Pre-Verbal Awareness to Daily Life
This is a simple exercise you can keep doing anytime. Not only is this a very fascinating way, you know, to come to think of it—what I was very fascinated about is that I would go about my daily day, and I would see a beautiful rose. Then the mind would say, “It’s a beautiful rose.” Then I would catch myself and say, “Again, I’m using language. What if I was a prehistoric being with no language? How would I experience this rose now?” Because they also experienced the rose, of course, but there was no inner monologue or a dialogue which defined that particular experience in words and language.
So then, if I was that person and didn’t have access to language, I could just see it, I could feel it, I could absorb that beauty, but I have cut off the access to language, which then cuts off the inner narrative completely. Then you can apply this wherever you are.
This state of beingness that all these teachers have been trying to tell you to access becomes very easy to access. It’s there with the sensation or an object; there is no filter which the mind is creating through words and language to label it or distort it.
If you do this enough times, there is another insight you will automatically come across: words do not label a feeling; words help produce what you’re feeling. I repeat it again: the words actually do not label a feeling. You think you’re labeling a feeling, but it’s the word which most of the time creates that particular feeling through association, through memory. That itself was a big revelation for me and for many in the group who have done this exercise.
Combining Modalities to Resolve Triggers
Now, I wanted to take this a bit further today and talk about triggers, because the trigger keeps coming back. For some, this exercise might dissolve the trigger itself and the narrative after the trigger.
There is a trigger, and then the narrative, the labeling, the story, and the spiral after the trigger. Pre-verbal awareness takes care of what happens after the trigger, and it will also remove part of the trigger. But sometimes you will see the trigger does not get resolved. There is a nagging thing—a thought, a person, an idea, a stress—which will keep triggering a particular sensation. You can be with the sensation, but the trigger does not stop. Throughout the day, maybe you’re getting triggered 20 times or 40 times. If you’re very stressed, maybe every few minutes there’s a trigger.
In my experience, how I dealt with this was: if a trigger was happening again and again, it was calling attention to itself. That is when you use the other modality that I have talked about a lot in the past, where you give the fear a form or a name. This is actually working with language now, because some fears and triggers have to be reached through language.
If it is constantly happening again and again, it’s not resolved. Pre-verbal awareness is taking care of the later part, so this modality takes care of the trigger. You give the trigger or the anxiety a name, a shape, or a form. Can you get it to open up, talk to you, and express itself however it wants to tell you?
What I have seen and experienced is that the trigger itself starts losing its power because it’s expressed, it’s been given space, and it’s been acknowledged. Most of the time, we know our anxieties and fears, but we don’t want to open the can. We’re so scared; we don’t want to look at what’s inside the can. This process helps us open the can and look inside it.
Both are different modalities which take care of different parts of the cycle. If you have a thought or emotion which is not getting resolved even after being with it through pre-verbal awareness, try doing the second modality. With these two combined, if you do it properly, I think it will take away 80 to 90% of the power and hold any of this conditioning and these patterns have over you.