Witnessing Has a Beauty – Osho

How do I come to know when I am really witnessing my body, feelings and thoughts, or when it is only my mind pretending to be a witness? 

The question is only intellectual; you have not even tried to pretend. When you are witnessing and you start feeling that it may be just the pretense of the mind, then it is certainly a pretense of the mind . . . because who is thinking about it as pretense of the mind? – Something behind the pretense.

You can never get confused about witnessing because behind witnessing there is nothing. You cannot witness witnessing. Anything that you can witness is part of the mind. So if you witness that it is a pretense, it is a pretense. Witness the pretense, don’t get identified with it.

Witnessing has a beauty: it cannot be reduced to an object; you cannot witness it. It is irreducible, it always slips back; it remains only witnessing. So whatever you feel – that means you are getting identified with the mind. You have not tried it – the question is simply intellectual. If you had tried it, the question would not have arisen.

I witness my hand: that means I am not the hand. I witness the mind: that means I am not the mind. You go on witnessing anything that comes to you – feelings, moods – you are not it. Finally, there is nothing to witness: this is it!

Only the witness is there but nothing to witness, just nothingness all around. You have come to the witness. Nobody has ever been deceived about it.

But never make intellectual questions; they won’t solve existential problems. This is something existential – you have to do it. It is like swimming. You cannot be taught swimming on a comfortable mattress in your room. You can be told how to throw your hands and your legs about, and you can do much exercise, but that is not swimming. You have to go in the water.

There was one famous logician in India. Because he was a logician, he said, “I cannot enter the water until I have learned swimming. That is absolutely clear. Without knowing swimming, how can I enter the water?”

His swimming teacher told him, “It is not a question of logic. If you want to learn swimming, you will have to enter water without knowing swimming because entering the water is the beginning. And that’s the only way to learn it. If you decide that you will enter the water only when you have learned swimming – which is very logical thinking – then it is impossible, you will never enter the water. So either be logical or be existential.”

And whatever I am telling you has nothing to do with logic. Try witnessing. And whatever you find, it is not the witness. The witness is always standing behind; otherwise, who is finding these things? – the pretense, the mind, anything.

When you cannot find anything, when all is silent, then there is only the witness. It is a very strange situation. When there is nothing to witness, you come to experience the witness in its purity. When there is something to witness, the witness is involved with some object.

It is like the mirror. If you want to know the purity of the mirror, then the mirror should be empty; nobody should be standing in front of the mirror. If somebody is standing in front of the mirror, then the mirror is polluted by the reflection.

Your witness is the ultimate mirror.

Anything that passes pollutes your witness. But if you go on struggling, remembering that whatever you see is not you – just a simple maxim: “the object of my knowing is not me” – soon the objects will disappear because you have broken the identity. And any moment, suddenly out of nowhere, you find yourself absolutely alone without any object. The seer is there, but there is nothing to be seen. Awareness is there, at its very peak, but there is nothing to be aware of. The witness is there, but there is nothing to be a witness of.

So, this should be the criterion of whether your witness is a reality or just a projection, just imagination or an authentic reality. […]

-Osho

From From Bondage to Freedom, Discourse #39, Q2

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.