Self-Inquiry and Witnessing · It Happens, No Self Asserted
⁘ “Witnessing and observing. Self-inquiry and self-awareness. Not a matter of your five senses. Not a shift to a third person perspective — like a game or an out-of-body experience. What we seek to witness and observe is the workings of awareness itself. Your entire cognitive process in all of its aspects. But please, none of these "I am the witness", "I am the observer" self-assertions. Not for you to land with an ultimate subject self. Just peeling away.”
As we talk about witnessing and observing
in the context of self-inquiry, self-awareness,
let's be clear that this witnessing and observing
is not a matter of your five senses.
Suppose we may, in a moment of meditation
or a burst of simply zoning out,
shift to a third person perspective,
as if watching ourselves from above.
Like in a game, or as one might experience
in an out-of-body experience.
Is that observing?
Is that witnessing?
What we seek to witness, to observe,
is the workings of awareness itself.
Your entire cognitive process in all of its aspects.
But you need not convert yourself into,
"I am the witness", "I am the observer",
"I am the recognizer", "I am the acknowledger".
Do not get into these self-assertions.
They do not benefit you in the process of self-inquiry.
None of this is for you to
land with an ultimate subject self –
rather it is a process of peeling away.