THE PARADOX OF WITNESSING
WITNESSING is the greatest spiritual key to enlightenment. The deeper your witness- ing becomes, the deeper the connection with your Loving Awareness becomes.
Witnessing involves the present moment, right now and right here. Whether you are at work, at home, shopping, or on vacation, you carry this moment with you, you carry the witness within. Whatever you are “doing,” it’s your mind that’s “doing” it, not you.
Your mind is your “doing,” and every “doing” is always external and bombarded by thousands and thousands of sensual distractions.
Watch with awareness the entirety of a situation. Whatever is happening, or whatever you are doing, just be alert, desireless, and in undistracted spaceless silence. Don’t become preoccupied with explanations and expectations. Nobody can predict out- comes, since ultimately outcomes are static and can’t exist. Don’t participate in your observations. Through witnessing, you will instantly go beyond dualistic polarities and be in a state of conscious witnessing. If you spread witnessing throughout your day, a new consciousness will arise, and the whole of existence will rejoice.
The witness is the meditative state of being, and witnessing is the process, expansion and transcendence of the mind.
The mind cannot be the witness because the mind can only think and dream. Also ‘mind’ is connected to past and future. The witness is the present moment of Now. The mind is finite illusion. The witness is infinite truth.
Meditate. Meditation is the search, invocation, invitation and calling to the witness within. Meditate and you will find the witness. Now. Don’t forget the witness, remind yourself to remember the witness. Don't become too much entangled with the mind, and its thinking, desiring and dreaming, otherwise your whole energy will be pouring into the denial, doubt and conflict, and that becomes a constant inner battle.
Whenever you are in conflict with yourself, remember that the mind is conflicting you. Stop. Remember the witness and forgive yourself for the mistake of forgetfulness. Be aware of guilt and the mind’s attempt to stop you from remembering the witness.
Don’t waste your energy and your precious life in constant war with yourself. Detach yourself from the mind by remembering to bring the witness out of your forgotten self.
Witness every act you do, every breath you take, every thought that passes through your mind, every emotion that surfaces out of your darkness, every reaction to things, every sensation of your distressed mind used and abused by the self-possessed, self- obsessed ego. Witness every desire, every dream projected into the future that takes active possession of you, every gesture your body unconsciously creates—walking, talking, eating. Witness every thought and the triggered emotions related to the past, from the memory stored as attachments and identification. Witness others who are inflicting pain on you, demanding, commanding, expecting, insulting, numbing, depriving and depressing your consciousness, your heart and your being. Move in your life continuously witnessing. Don’t ever stop, and if you do, remember to invite the witness and do nothing else. No need to contemplate why and who, where and how. Don’t al- low the mind to take possession of you through analyzing, inspecting, examining, investigating and resolving the missing link between you and your lost witness.
Watch passing phenomena in the world that comes and goes. Watch the coming and going internal phenomena and stay grounded in neutral, indifferent witnessing.
Don’t stop loving and being excited about experiences and the colourful richness of an ever-changing and eternally evolving life.
Every single present moment with infinite happening is the right opportunity to be in a witnessing state of consciousness. Be consciously attentive not to get attached to what you are witnessing. If you do, immediately forgive yourself, say thank you for the distraction, be grateful for the thing that prevented you from being your natural oneself in a state of witnessing. Simply move on and continue witnessing. Any diversions, restrictions and distractions are sometimes necessary for consciousness to clean, tune, smooth, and sharpen a delicate and at the same time, intricate tapestry.
The act of continuation, prolongation, preservation, and perpetuation of witnessing will be an accumulation of energy that opens the portal for meeting the witness within.
This conscious energy accumulation - the gateway to the real you - will remove the layers of ignorance, misunderstanding, internal cluelessness, moral stubbornness and arrogance overtaken by darkness. I forgot to include stupidity, foolishness, dumbness, idiocy, denseness, brainlessness, mindlessness, dopiness and doziness.
If the energy is not going to the mind, it will become less stable, less concrete, less locked in dreams and projections and more, and more transparent, more and more empty, with less and less thoughts obsessing, possessing, dominating, controlling, manipulating and maintaining the status quo. As thoughts start disappearing, clarity, silence and conscious spaciousness arises. The mind becomes a no-mind, a mirror reflecting and keeping nothing.
Witnessing is the beginning of meditation, the end of illusionary ego-mind, the end of suffering and separation. The attainment of unity with oneness, with non-dual whole- ness, with the supreme intelligence and unconditional Love, divine culmination and attainment of everlasting Awareness. Witnessing is a means to the ultimate amalgamation, the unity of all the disconnected, lost and forgotten parts of you.
Remember, witnessing is not the final goal, but a process towards it. The final transcendental step is to go beyond the witness who is witnessing nothing.
What, therefore is beyond the witness? The Loving Awareness as pure nothingness, just pure blissful presence.
A moment of meditation comes when both the witness and the witnessing disappear, and only pure consciousness remains. That moment is critical for the final transcendence. The consciousness witnessed everything that can be witnessed, it achieved a neutral state of being, and now the final step, the last point is to be conscious of consciousness. In that state of total neutrality, final attainment is not yet achieved unless the witness looks at itself. Consciousness is conscious of itself - it clearly sees itself, In that final meeting there is the melting, the reunification, the unity. Two become one - One awareness.
The subject and the object disappear, in the witnessing and to the witness. It is difficult to say who is the subject and who is the object, where the knower and the known melt and disappear into each other. If there is the slightest separation between the witness and the witnessed, the slightest gap between the knower and the known, well you are still to meditate, and yet to fully transcend the mind.
Remember, whatsoever is happening or not happening is good, whatever you are do- ing or not doing is good, whatever you are witnessing or not witnessing is ultimately good.
To trust in the process of witnessing and seeing it as the only goodness in life, as the only experience, is to be constantly present in the present moment, knowing that nothing has ever happened or can ever happen to the infinite being within.