The Witnessing Perspective is Non-Doership (Ashtavakra Gita 1.8) - 8th October 2016

Verse number eight, Ashtavakra says: 'The thought "I am the doer" is the bite of a poisonous snake. The thought "I am the doer" is the bite of a poisonous snake. To know "I do nothing" is the wisdom of faith. Be happy.' So we talked about the two 'Ds' yesterday, where we said doership is one of the strongest legs of the ego, you see. And many times it's so funny that it happens even in satsang that someone could come to complete clarity in that moment about who they are, and they can see there is no separation actually, all of this is one being, and they are primarily even the witness of that state of beingness. And what happens out of their mouth soon after that? 'Okay, okay, now that this is clear, what do I do now?' Isn't it? Isn't it so?

Now that it is clear that there is no separation, there is only one, all of this is Consciousness, even upon the recognition, the habit of doership seems to be so strong that very often I hear this in satsang also: 'So okay, okay, clear now. Okay, now what do I do?' So the snake of the mind, the serpent, separation serpent comes very quickly with this. Okay, the sense of person is dissolving, but at least let's try to revitalize it, you see. Give it that—what do you call it?—that charge, resuscitate the person with that electric charge of doership. See? 'Okay, now that it's clear, what should I do now? Should I start sharing satsang or start writing a book about my experience of enlightenment?' You see, then doership comes again and starts to grab us.

So the sage says: 'The thought "I am the doer" is the bite of the poisonous snake. To know "I do nothing" is the wisdom of faith.' You see? And let me—wisdom is the wisdom of faith. So let's look at this a little more closely because this many times also creates confusion, you see. 'I do nothing,' when the sage says it, does not mean that we take the resolve to do nothing now, we're going to just sit in bed all day and do nothing. That is not what the sage is pointing to, you see. Because even to do nothing is a sense of doership, you see. 'I have decided to do nothing today, so I'm going to sit in bed all day.' But we are doing the sitting in bed, or at least pretending to do the sitting in bed. That is still doership.

So both ends of the spectrum—'I am doing something' or 'I am doing nothing'—are both the pendulum of doership. The neutrality means that we remain the impersonal being, the unattached being, which is watching this play of this movie in whatever way the body has to move, others' bodies have to move, the mouth has to move, you see. So in this neutrality of neither something nor nothing, you see, is true non-doership. Just to take this witnessing perspective is non-doership. And you see, like I see this hand is moving now, you see, I'm not saying 'left hand move, finger one, finger...' It's not like that. It's just happening, you see.

So to see this more and more, that I am actually just enjoying this movie and the moving is playing out by itself. And when I was younger and before I met Guruji, I did a lot of crazy experiments and I find that they were very useful. So if you feel some confusion about this, sit and experiment. Say that, 'Okay, I'm just going to witness and let's see if some action happens or not.' And I remember a time where I said that I'm just going to watch, and I saw email was being sent, all the natural functioning was happening, and truly my perspective was that just of the witnessing of this.