Look at an object as if for the first time

See as if for the first time a beauteous person or an ordinary object.

This meditation does not require a partner, it can be done alone. You won't need privacy. It will not be obvious that you are meditating. Do the technique anywhere suitable.

Some basic things first; then you can do this technique. We look at things always with old eyes. You come to your home; you look at it without looking at it. You know it -- there is no need to look at it. You have entered it again and again for years together. You go to the door, you enter the door; you may unlock the door. But there is no need to look.

This whole process goes on robot-like, mechanically, unconsciously. If something goes wrong, only if your key is not fitting into the lock, then you look at the lock. If the key fits, you never look at the lock. Because of mechanical habits, repeatedly doing the same thing again and again, you lose the capacity to look; you lose the freshness to look. Really, you lose the function of your eyes -- remember this. You become basically blind, because eyes are not needed.

Remember the last time you looked at your wife. The last time you looked at your wife or at your husband may have been years ago. For how many years have you not looked? You just pass, giving a casual glimpse, but not a look. Go again and look at your wife or at your husband as if you were looking for the first time. Why? Because if you are looking for the first time, your eyes will be filled with a freshness. They will become alive.

You are passing through a street, and a beautiful woman passes. Your eyes become alive -- lighted. A sudden flame comes to them. This woman may be a wife to someone. He will not look at her; he may become as blind as you have become seeing your wife. Why? For the first time eyes are needed, the second time not so much, and the third time they are not needed. After a few repetitions you become blind. We live blindly.

Be aware. When you meet your children, are you looking at them? You are not looking at them. This habit kills the eyes; the eyes become bored -- repeatedly there is the old again and again. And nothing is old really, it is just that your habit makes you feel that it is so. Your wife is not the same as she was yesterday, she cannot be; otherwise she is a miracle. Nothing can be the same the next moment. Life is flux, everything is flowing, nothing is the same.

The same sunrise will not happen again. In a sense also, the sun is not the same. Every day it is new; basic changes have occurred. And the sky will not be the same again; this morning is not going to come again. Every morning has its own individuality, and the sky and the colors, they will not gather in the same pattern again. But you go on moving as if everything is just the same.

They say nothing is new under the sky. Really, nothing is old under the sky. Only the eyes become old, accustomed to things; then nothing is new. For children everything is new: that is why everything gives them excitement. Even a colored stone on a beach, and they become so excited. You will not be excited even seeing God himself coming to your house. You will not be so excited! You will say, "I know him, I have read about him." Children are so excited because their eyes are new and fresh, And everything is a new world, a new dimension.

Look at children's eyes -- at the freshness, the radiant aliveness, the vitality. They look mirror-like, silent, but penetrating. Only such eyes can reach within.

So this technique says, see as if for the first time a beauteous person or an ordinary object . Anything will do. Look at your shoes. You have been using them for years, but look as if for the first time and see the difference: the quality of your consciousness suddenly changes.

I wonder whether you have seen Van Gogh's painting of his shoe. It is one of the rarest things. There is just an old shoe -- tired, sad, as if just on the verge of death. It is just an old shoe, but look at it, feel it, and you will feel what a long, boring life this shoe must have passed through. It is so sad, just praying to be taken away from life, tired completely, every nerve broken, just an old man, an old shoe. It is one of the most original paintings. But how could Van Gogh see it?