Witnessing

Over the past few months, I had taken a break from creating blogs or vlogs. The reason for this absence is mahterial for another post. However, there was a felt need to explore mty stored files to get a sense of what had been previously written or discussed. As I read through some of the old, yet unpublished, posts, I realized that there is a ltot of good material there. So beginning today and for the next several days, the goal is to post some of these posts, many of which were written in 2017 when I first created this web page. I hope you enjoy them.

(Witnessing was originally written May 11, 2017 but never published until today and with just minor editing):

There is a stage in spirituality in which a seeker becomes aware of their own awareness.

What might be experienced is the watching of your own character: what s/he does, says, thinks, and feels. There is also the sense that there is no one in control of the character. The character goes on doing what the character does. But you are aware that you are aware of the character.

This is good because it starts to become clear to you because there is awareness of the character, you are not the character. However, at this stage you might still identify with the character.

This might come and go; sometimes you’re the character; sometimes you are observing the character. This activity is referred to as oscillation.

When this happens, place your attention on the observer or witness of the character, and not the character. Keep it there as long as you can. If you lose your focus, don’t worry. Just keep at it. See if you can trace your thoughts to its source. This is self-inquiry as Ramana Maharshi described it. See clearly that your thoughts come and go; that as objects of perception, they are not you.

One thing I will note is that at this stage, there might still be a sense of separation; but that is just an illusion. There is a sense of an observer or witness that observes thoughts. But notice something, when you really trace even the sense of the observer or witness to its source, notice that you cannot find it! You might witness thoughts arising. You might witness objects of perception. And you might even witness witnessing occurring. But you can never actually witness the witness. Try it! In fact, there is just witnessing. What you are is simultaneously the witness, the witnessed, and the witnessing. Or put another way, witnessing (the subject) witnesses (verb) witnessing (object). However, this is easily just reduced to the verb witnessing.

One phrase I really like goes like that describes spiritual seeking: What you are looking withis what you are looking for.

You are a verb. You are not an object that can be found. You are just thishappening at this moment. It’s as simple as that! You are Just THIS!