Witnessing Body Actions As If They Were Another’s (Ashtavakra Gita 3.10) - 27th October 2016

A great soul witnesses his body's actions as if they were another's. How can praise or blame disturb him? So, this is the essence of non-doership, and we've all come to see this, isn't it? We are saying that the hand is moving, the mouth is speaking some words, the hearing is happening. All this energetic sensation, these senses are reporting this world to us, and I am just the witness of these. There is no individual. I am seeing my being play with this light on itself, within itself, and I remain this witnessing. So, all of this play of light and sound doesn't touch our existence at all, and it is not even in the same realm as that which witnesses this existence.

So, the idea that there was somebody here individually who is speaking these words, who's hearing these words, the idea that we all chose to be here today, we're exerting some control over our life—see all these ideas, huh? Not accurate. Because we check really, we find that there is nobody here to do anything at all. So, he says a great soul witnesses his body's actions as if they were another's. It's very natural for all these things to start to happen. So, if the body itself seems like just an instrument now, then how can the actions of the body seem like they are being done by an individual, a separate 'me'?

And if it becomes clear that the body's actions are just movements appearing in this one consciousness, then what is there to take praise or blame? As long as the sense is there that 'I am the doer', the sage earlier said that it is poison. This idea of doership which keeps us in bondage. So, what happens? This is just an idea; it is a pretense. And you find that all of this movement is happening on its own. How can praise or blame disturb you now?

Sometimes with this idea, when it is taken on board by the identity itself, then in the play of consciousness, it starts to manifest as that one who is using Advaita excuses. Sometimes consciousness wants to play as if it is that one, that individual entity who has understood that it is not the doer, and then Advaita can become just an excuse for that behavior, for being a 'spiritual jerk'. Ultimately, there's still nobody there doing it. The play of consciousness itself, even that pretense is picked up. And in the play, upon hearing this, then consciousness maybe sometimes doesn't want to play that way.