Shri Babaji explains the instruction to ‘just watch’ in the meditation technique Jangama Dhyana, practiced since ancient times in India.

You see, I kept telling, mind has two aspects, means it can think, means it can be creative.  And it can watch.  Watching through the eyes is different.  Eyes watching is different.  Sometimes you can put your eyes on me.  I would be thinking, “Oh, you are watching me,” but your mind might be watching something else in its imagination.  Like that, it can happen to anybody.  So, watching through the mind, it has this power.  So here, we don’t give any target that you have to watch this thing.  We don’t tell, “This mantra, or this God, or this form, this location,” nothing.  Just watch in between eyebrows. Means using the eyeballs, fixing the eyeballs, see that the mind also comes there.  Eyeballs can be very helpful when you fix it.  That is why in meditation instructions, we also tell, “Take care that your eyelids and eyeballs do not move.”  They must be steady, actually.  Apart from the body needs to be stationary, first thing you achieve that you are able to sit quietly in one position, body. 

Then next important is your eyelids and eyeballs.  Then as you concentrate, the breath has to go smoothly by practice.  It should not stop also.  You cannot starve yourself of oxygen; that is so important.  And you cannot be concentrating on the oxygen all the time so your focus and silencing the mind effort goes.  Like driving the car,  you cannot keep looking at the brake and then apply the brake, then you would have hit onto some tree or some other car coming on the road.  So, you have to be attentive on the road always, your concentration.  By practice, you are holding the steering and your legs are performing when you have to press the clutch, when you have to press the brakes, all these things.  By practice, automatically the bodies can do.  That is the help of the brain.  That is the amazing gift of the Divinity to us that we have this brain.  So many jobs this brain can perform.  But we need to be the master over the mind.  That is what is also important.  We are the thing as we were discussing. 

   And I think we left that topic, we needed to discuss how the brain works and we need to be the master.  If the brain becomes master, that is very bad.  If you can be the master, then you can utilize the brain wonderfully.  Like a soldier can be a very good subordinate soldier to the commander.  But if the soldier himself tries to become commander, he might misfire.  He might mistime his firing.  It is the commander who works out the strategy and gives command, then the soldier fires, “Now this is the right time.  Aim at and look there and keep firing now.”  So that is how; the servant. 

Like my usual example is that you are lying down and somebody knocks on the door, your servant goes and sees.  Then comes back and tells, “Sir, one of your friends came.  I told that you will not meet him and I sent him away.”  That is not the servant’s job.  Servant’s job is just to come and tell, “Sir, such and such person has come.  Person has come.  What should I do?”  Then you will decide whether you want to meet him or not meet him.  You may tell, “Tell him I am sleeping.”  And then he will go and tell.  Then that is a good servant.  But if he tries to become a master, he is a bad master.  That’s when the Guru tells, if He commands, if everybody listens, then things will go smoothly.  If everybody tries to become boss unto themselves, then they will create chaotic conditions.  Anywhere also; in the ashram also, in a temple also, in a hotel, in a wedding, anywhere in the world.  When everybody tries to become boss then they will spoil the show.  One person needs to command and understand what is happening. 

So, these conflicts can happen like this.  So, that is the important thing between mind and brain.  You need to achieve mastery over your mind so that you handle the brain.  Don’t allow the brain to handle your mind, you, means.  That means simply in good faith, if the mind registers everything and starts believing… You should be able to verify, understand.  Suppose somebody comes and tells you, “Oh, Zen, Babaji is a very bad man, he is very wrong, he is not like this, he tells like this.”  You know Babaji since twenty years.  Do you need somebody else to tell about me?  You have been watching me.  You know my character.  You know my culture.  You know my nature.  So, that is the servant; he is trying to brainwash.  So, this type of brainwashing, the brain keeps doing.  That’s why we call it brainwashing.  Brain doesn’t get washed, brain washes the mind, actually the mind-washing.  Then the mind believes.  Such important aspects these are. 

So, like this the mind has both aspects; it can think and it can watch.  So, here, the technique of meditation given is, you just watch using the eyeballs.  Successfully, when you achieve the watching in due course of time.  So, your effort must be the moment you sit for meditation, your effort must be just to watch through your mind, not only through the eyeballs; fixing the eyeballs and eyelids, apart from that, then start just watching.  That means, if any thoughts appear, don’t bother about them, don’t get engaged about them.  Just be a witness, just be quiet – then that thought will disappear.  If you get involved with that thought, that thought will stay back there, “Ah, I am here.”  It will remain there. 

So, it will trouble you.  You start analyzing.  You become stressed out.  You become annoyed or you become this, that, anything.  You lose your peace.  You lose your concentration.  And the meditation doesn’t progress at all.  Years after people keep wondering, “What is happening to me?  I am sitting every day.”  You are sitting every day, but are you watching every moment?  That is important.  Sitting is important.  After sitting, are you able just to watch?  That’s what I have told – the Master says, “After sitting, then closing the eyes, are you able to simply watch and not think?”  That’s why, “Don’t repeat anything” also we tell, “Don’t imagine anything.”  If any student understands this, then the amazing things will happen about the mind’s secret.  That’s why in this technique, no target is given, but you are asked to just watch.  Then the mind becomes quiet.  When that becomes quiet, next you will notice the consciousness of existence in that.  And in that, that is awesome.  Because you will notice, it is there and it is not there, yet the consciousness of existence is there, but you cannot catch hold of it.  You cannot show somebody, “Yes, I have found this consciousness of existence.  It is here in the laboratory.”  You cannot put that one, impossible.  Infinite thing, that is what it is.  But you go on. 

Then the actual meditation tapas starts.  What you go on just concentrated on that consciousness of existence.  That is the ‘I’ that many other teachers have taught.  “Who am I?’  Watch the ‘I.’”  That is what the ‘I’ is.  Then you go on observing; watching and observing both are same.  That’s what is observation power.  So, like that when you watch, then the mind will get absorbed into that One.  Then eventually Self-realization, if you pursue.  So, that is how this technique is such an important thing.  And not different from some other great teachers, great masters, who have given the technique “Just observe from where the ‘I’ is coming,” like that. 

From Mastery of the mind – Q&A, No. 268
31.43