What Is Witnessing?
The Universe is the Watcher; the Watcher is Us
I was reading some posts in a meditation group I’m part of on Facebook a couple of days ago, and something occurred to me that I hadn’t realized: The concept of the “Witness” or “Witnessing” may be something you’ve run across, or have actually worked with, if you’ve practiced Mindfulness Meditation or Zazen or various meditation techniques from India.
The Witness is one of the most magical experiences you can encounter while exploring your own awareness, but I hadn’t realized the misconstrual of the term that may also happen.
One of the problems that Enlightened people have is communication. That’s why Zen Masters just say, “Fuck it,” and hit some poor schlemp over the head. (I’m being facetious, but not entirely.)
There’s a world of “Non-Existence” which Enlightened people have become, and the Zen guys are entirely correct in saying, “Before Enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After Enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” This is so subtle, and, also, of such absolute depth that it makes me cry. I’m not being metaphorical!
There’s a Jewish mystical story I’m also reminded of, about the Lamed (short a, e like Ed) Vovniks. In Hebrew, each letter is also a number. L, lamed, is 30. V, vov, is 6. In Jewish mythology, there are always (at least) 36 Enlightened people in the world at any one time! It’s the minimum amount to uphold the world. No one ever even suspects who they are because they are so plain and ordinary. Chop wood and carry water.
So what does that have to do with Witnessing? What I hadn’t realized until I happened on a few comments about it in this group is that Witnessing may (perhaps in your practice, too) be used as a not entirely accurate technique, a form of always watching your thoughts, that is, being mindful, which, of course, seems like a perfectly sensible thing to do: The more aware I am, the calmer and more decent of a human being I become! That’s entirely true. And the world could certainly use more of it, as so many current events are making so obviously obvious.
A lot of meditation techniques from India, which are somewhat different from Buddhist “watching,” also have this particular attempt to acquire the Witness. I’ll explain: These techniques are, essentially, concentration techniques (vs. watching.) One concentrates on something visual, a mandala; a sound, “om” or, perhaps, a mantra, or maybe the name of a deity, over and over… You can even use concentration on a scent (which is pretty cool.)
But what’s the unifying principle around all of these techniques? They’re attempts to create a separation between one's “ego” and this Witness: I am not my thoughts, I am the Watcher, or … the object of my concentration becomes all, and suddenly I’m aware of this Witness.
Actually, Sufi Whirling Meditation is also attempting to do just the same thing… Whirling, whirling, and then the Observer wakes up!
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Egad! Have I wandered too off course? I was attempting to do a bit of logic, essentially, to point out that what we call “Witnessing” can become something heavy and serious, rather than the light-hearted and absolutely intense thing it actually is. “I am Witnessing! And I am more important than you because you just mindlessly eat cheeseburgers and watch the dumbest shows on Netflix!”
I’ve heard that Krishnamurti liked to read pulp detective novels. Osho reportedly liked the movie Patton. (Actually, I do, too.) Zen Masters (the real ones) are notorious troublemakers. Chuang Tsu once said, “Everyone here is so intelligent, except me.” Gurdjieff, of course, is in a class beyond almost anyone. His masterpiece is called “Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson.” Beelzebub, if you don’t know, is another name for the Devil. He wrote it while sitting at an outdoor cafe in Paris in the 1920s, and, seriously, if you try reading it, your mind will completely stop.
That is his purpose. I should know.
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So, if actual Witnessing is not a serious thing, what is it?
This is tricky. In my experience, the Universe is entirely alive, and It watches Us. The Watcher, the Witness, is that magical moment when you feel the Universe reflecting, seeing, You.
It’s a little technical how that happens. It has to do — in the real actuality, according to me — with the facticity that there is a real place, as in Physics, where Universes come from. (“What existed before the Big Bang?”) which Enlightened people try to describe by various terms indicating “non-being,” and also that the existence of this non-being state is within everything in this being Existence, i.e., our Universe, and that, also, (This is the cosmological conjecture known as the Holographic Universe,) everything, the whole state of all the local points: people, stars, trees, atoms, etc. is stored in a “holographic” edge of this Universe, i.e., what is often known as the “Akashic Records,” or, as William Blake more simply put it, “the Universe in a raindrop,” … and just one more succinct little tidbit: What the fuck is the whole Universe doing in a raindrop?
This has to do with General Relativity, with what Einstein called the Equivalency Principle, i.e., wherever you are, you appear to be at the Center of the Universe, and, conversely, (This is where I spring the big one on you) wherever you are, you are also in the Edge of the entire Universe … where the state of Everything is holographically stored.
When Kabir became Enlightened, he said, “The Ocean merged with the dewdrop.” I’m just stating the 21st-century version. Our world is Science, and, so, for Enlightenment to be real, it needs to be stated in the terms we “know” to be real.
Oh god! I’m sorry to have carried you away on such a whirly twirly roller coaster,
But I do have so much fun doing it.
I hope some of this made at least the slightest bit of sense. Apprehension of this Non-Being Space, which really is inside of everything, does change ones point of view. You end up making jokes about Beelzebub, and, like Chuang Tsu, forlornly stating that everyone else is intelligent, except you.
Thanks for reading! Take care. I hope this was, perhaps, of some help. Attempting to describe a part of ourselves which has no time, no space, no no … is one of the trickiest things to try and do. Enlightened people try and try and try, but it always gets messed up: You probably know the term “Non-Duality,” and you may also know the vast scholarship and schools of philosophy which it has engendered. What to do? My hope is that, in tying it to scientific knowledge, I can give it a certain bedrock that may be harder to misinterpret…
But the thing about the Future, of course, is its inherent unpredictability.
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