Witnessing is Not Affected By What Comes and Goes - 18 April 2016

In the next instant, in this instant, anything can happen. Absolutely anything can happen. Not to start the week on a terrible note or something, but there could be a nuclear disaster in India and all of us could be wiped out without any sense of what happened. This moment it could happen. Or in this moment, the most glorious seeming experience can appear. One in heaven, which is unchanging. All that we have invested in the life of this person, seeming person, can be blown to bits any moment. Therefore, those who are wise, even phenomenally, without even before discovering the Self, they would say that there is no point getting attached to that which is appearing because they have seen that no matter what you do, there is no point in hanging on to these appearances. This is surrender. Easy. Just to be open to what is appearing on the seeming outside. Anything can be happening. Let's look together. Anything could be happening on the outside. All of you could go crazy this second and come to attack me also, say suppose. But will that change anything that is real here? Will the witness of all of this outside movement change in any way because of anything happening in this realm? It won't change.

So if anything happening on the outside cannot change or touch this witness, then who is so concerned about things being a certain way? 'I want my life'—and by that we usually mean the appearances which appear in my life—'to only be a certain way.' Who is this one? So we surrender the outer appearances and say that whatever be Thy will in this realm, and yet you remain untouched. It's completely unpredictable what can happen, and then we let go of it. Then we let go of ideas of what should happen. Then we start enjoying this play in this way. And I can tell you that it is a lot more fun to watch this movie without trailers or expectations of how it should be.

Right now, there are millions, billions of processes maybe that are happening in the body right now. What are the processes which go into place to make us smile right now or to make us cry right now? Many, many thousands, so many millions of things which are happening in this body right now, and we feel that it is 'my body.' You cannot even control one heartbeat of the body and we claim ownership of it. Anything can happen in this body and we can let it go. Let it go does not mean necessarily some recklessness or neglect; it is just a neutrality towards what is appearing. And in the same way that nothing happened to the witness when something appears on the outside, then in the same way you also realize that nothing happened to that which witnesses this body. No matter what is happening to the body, even the pain in the body does not touch the witnessing of it.

Then what else do we want to control? Thoughts. Many in India actually trying to get a pure mind. 'I want to have a pure mind.' And nobody here I have seen—at least I shouldn't say nobody has been able to do it—but nobody that I have seen has been able to do this thing. Only pure thoughts? No. The mind is attack and defense only. Us versus them. Only arrogance, only specialness. It is the job of the mind to inculcate these ideas. But is that who is aware of the mind, the witness of the mind, is that affected in any way by the purity or impurity of the mind right now? Any thought can come. Does something happen to the witness of it because the thought came? Is something taken away from the witness when the thought goes? It is just a coming and going, just like any other appearance.

Then what else do we have? Attached to some sensation or emotion. Step back from these and really look. If the emotion is joy or the emotion is grief, does something happen to the witness of them? The mind, of course, will come and say, 'But only these kind of emotions should come.' And yet in this play full of contrasts, we have both opposites that they will turn on. But the important point to notice is: how is that which witnesses these, how is that one touched? How is that one affected? And it is possible right now to be completely open to allow everything to come in all of these layers, seeming layers of existence that we spoke about.