So what can we do?
There is only one way to overcome the ghost…to watch it. Do not fight, do not resist. Only try to watch it, quietly but ceaselessly. In other words, develop an unconcerned witness consciousness towards men, things and happenings without, but particularly towards yourself within. It means to carry on the calmness of the mind gained in your meditation to cover your whole day. You will distinctly feel it as an undercurrent of peace and detachment.
Of course, as soon as you succeed, the ghost-‘I’ will immediately try to hide itself in this witness-consciousness at the feeling ‘I am the witness’. This again is only a thought. But to be the witness without any I-consciousness is the pure mind at the threshold of Reality.
While following the transformation of your personal ‘I’ into the impersonal ‘witnessing’, you cut at the root of all your ‘personal’ shortcomings, vices and weaknesses, your passions and evil habits, because the root of all this unpleasant ‘you’ is just that personal ‘I’. Try to imagine yourself in the mood of the ‘unconcerned witness’ described above, and you will see that in that state it is impossible to think or act in a negative way, because in that mood you are, though only momentarily, beyond the personal ‘I’. Your sadhana is to keep yourself permanently in the state of ‘detached witnessing’ of all and everything, including the personal ‘I’ when and wherever it should try to raise its head.
In the silent Light of being witnessed it cannot survive. Such ‘witnessing’ will soon grow into pure Awareness, aware only of Itself.
In the words of Ramana Maharshi: “The Truth is that the Self is constant and un-intermittent Awareness.” (Talks, 454).
And in another context: “The essence of mind is only Awareness or Consciousness. When the ego, however, dominates it it functions as the reasoning, thinking or sensing faculty. The cosmic mind being not limited by the ego, has nothing separate from itself and therefore is only aware. This is what the Bible means by ‘I am that I AM’.” (Talks, 188).
-Lucy Cornelssen
Excerpt from Hunting The ‘I’, Meditation, pages 31-32
Sat Sangha Salon 