You Are the Awareness Itself, the Witnessing Itself (Silent Retreat) - 15th Oct. 2015

And the mind wants to keep it confusing like that. You ask most beings who are not in Satsang, you will find you'll sometimes be shocked at their indifference to this question because immediately the mind resists and says, 'What's the point? This is too abstract. What will I get?' This complete refusal to look at this, which is completely fine because they are not done playing. There is no need to forcibly make them look at what they mean by 'I'. It is enough that we look.

And what happens first when we look? We're easily distracted by appearances, the content. 'I think I am this.' Quickly, 'I think I am this.' No, but you are the witness of this thought. Who is the witness? 'I'm scared, I feel some fear.' No, you are witnessing that fear is arising. Who is the witness? 'But my family and my friends don't understand me.' And really, you're witnessing this, just another appearance. Who is the witness? So all this play of appearances comes with full force to distract you from this question.

Sometimes when you ask, you might find yourself just too sleepy. I have a friend, a colleague who's worked with me for a few years now, and sometimes we talk about Satsang and just when we're coming to the core, he becomes so sleepy his head is falling off. So all this Maya and this play, all of this can happen. So the world of appearances seems to become even more distracting than earlier, and the voice of this mind, the voice of the interpreter, seems to become even more aggressive and loud, trying to pull your attention away from the question into another appearance.

That's why the teacher asks: what is here besides the appearance? Who is witnessing these appearances? Is it not you that sees everything coming and going and it remains unchanged? This body, every cell has changed many times over, is changing every day, yet I remain as the witness of it. These thoughts, every minute a new thought, and I remain as the witness of it. Emotions, feelings, energy—changing, changing, changing—yet I remain as the witness of it. Even the states of waking, dream, and sleep, I am aware of. I witness them and they change. That which I do not witness does not exist. Who is this witness?

We keep the appearances aside just for a few moments. Find out who is witnessing all of this. Then we find that even to call it a witness actually is a bit much, because 'witness' implies there is an entity who is a witness. An entity means it has some attributes. But then we look: do we find any attributes to this witness? And this is the point of frustration for many of you. You say, 'I look for the witness and I don't find it.' What you actually mean is that I don't find the phenomenal attributes of the witness. You can't find it because it is not phenomenal.

Therefore, it is more accurate actually to say that there is no witness; it is just the witnessing itself. The great sages of the past were called the seers. Actually, there is no seer; it is the seeing itself. Are you okay with not being a noun, not being an entity? A more accurate description of 'I', of you, would be more like a verb. You are just this seeing. You're not an entity who is aware, an entity who is witnessing. You are the awareness itself, the witnessing itself.

And this the mind cannot accept, understand, or fathom. So don't struggle trying to convince the mind. Don't even force it as a belief on the mind. You do not need to believe it; you only need to see it. And you are seeing it right now. This is all that you are seeing. Only some of you are waiting for mental confirmation. You're not trusting your own seeing. You're waiting for the mind to confirm, 'Yes, this is what I see.' Because all of you, when I ask you the question 'Are you aware now?', you say 'Yes.' And I say, 'So what was seen to confirm this?' You say, 'This awareness is here, but I find no attributes of this, and yet I know it is here.' This is what we are talking about: this knowingness, this seeing, this awareness.

And you don't need to 'be' that. This quickly the mind comes with this task, says, 'Now that you see it, you must be it.' So instead I say: don't be it and show me. Stop being it for just an instant. The instruction to 'be it' is also personal actually, and no person can be it. Awareness can only be awareness. At best, when we say 'stay as the Self' or 'stay as awareness itself', it only means to not believe any appearance to be you, to not fall for this delusion again. This is all that it means when it is said: stay as the Self.