3. The Soul Is the Witness Who Observes the Mind
Sadhana Practice§
Suggestions for wandering: Begin by walking and observing the details of every aspect of nature that you see—the colors and shapes of the plants, trees, water and other objects. Then sit for a while and be the witness of your thoughts. Follow Markanduswami’s exercise and try to be aware of everything you think about. Don’t miss one topic of thought, identify them all.§
Quote from Gurudeva§
We can see that from the mystic’s point of view, he is the watcher. And as the mirror is in no way discolored by what it reflects, so is the mystic in his perfected state. Your perfected state, too, as the watcher is right there, deep within you. §
Supplementary Reading§
Before we actually begin serious sadhana, we must understand ourselves better, understand the three phases of the mind: instinctive, intellectual and superconscious. This takes time, meditation and study—study that must culminate in actual experience of the instinctive mind, the intellectual mind and the transcendent subsuperconscious state of the mind. Seeing the mind in its totality convinces the seeker that he is something else, he is the witness who observes the mind and cannot, therefore, be the mind itself. (Merging with Śiva, Chapter One)§
In this our third exercise in claiming our spiritual identity, we are taking the concept of not being the mind one step deeper by identifying as the witness who observes the mind. §
Markanduswami story about being the witness: There is a Saivite hermit, the venerable Markanduswami, living in a humble mud hut in Sri Lanka. He was very old when we met him in the 1970’s and was for many years a disciple of Paramaguru Yogaswami. In fact, his every utterance is a quote from his guru. One afternoon at his hut he described Yogaswami’s approach to dealing with thoughts during meditation. He said, “Yogaswami said, ‘Realize Self by self. You want to read this book, that book and all these books. The Book of Infinite Knowledge is here (pointing to his chest). You’d better open your own book.’ The prescription he gave me to open that book is this: ‘When you are in meditation, you watch the mind. Here and there the mind is hopping. One, two, three,.. a hundred. In a few seconds the mind goes to a hundred places. Let him be. You also watch very carefully. Here and there this mind is running. Let him go anywhere, but if he goes to a hundred places, you must follow him to a hundred places. You must not miss even a single one. Follow him and note, He is going here. Now he is going there.’ You must not miss even a single one. That is the prescription Satguru Yogaswami gave me to open this inner book. He said, ‘Watch very attentively and learn to pick up things coming from within. Those messages are very valuable. You can’t value them. Realize Self by self and open this inner book. Why don’t you open your own book? Why don’t you make use of it? What an easy path I am prescribing for you!’ ”§
Gurudeva has a related comment: We can see that from the mystic’s point of view, he is the watcher. And as the mirror is in no way discolored by what it reflects, so is the mystic in his perfected state. Your perfected state, too, as the watcher, is right there, deep within you. The next time you sit for meditation, follow my guru’s advice to us all and witness your thoughts. Be that stationary awareness, holding form in its own perfection. All you have to do is to watch your mind think. Then and only then are you experiencing your perfect state of inner being. The only difference between the jnani and the novice is that the jnani stays in there longer as the watcher, whereas the novice experiences this only momentarily from time to time.§
A simple exercise for cultivating being the witness is when walking in nature, to notice every detail that you can about what you see. Perhaps you have had the experience of walking with a young child and they point out to you qualities about what you are seeing that you hadn’t noticed. Young children have great powers of observation because their intellect is not overactive nor have they accumulated lots of unresolved past experiences. So we can try and be like them by noticing as many details as possible. Becoming a good witness of our natural surroundings is excellent preparation for becoming a good witness of our thoughts. §
Another exercise is what we call mountain top consciousness. In Gurudeva’s early ministry, the first Sunday of every month he would take his devotees to the top of Mt. Tamalpais for the purpose of helping them achieve a mountain top consciousness. Looking down on the cities below and the homes in them somehow helps you look more clearly at the patterns in your own life—witness more clearly what you are actually doing on a day-to-day basis. Often we can clearly see for the first time some negative patterns that we would be better off without. This, of course, is the first step toward changing those patterns.§
Of course, you don’t have to always go to the top of a mountain to clearly see the patterns in your thoughts. Once we have caught the idea, we can become quite skilled at seeing patterns and adjusting them no matter where we are. For example, if we find ourselves remembering specific events of the past on a regular basis, it shows it is an experience we have not resolved. Gurudeva suggests writing down such experiences and burning the paper and to continue doing this until we no longer think about the experience much at all. This shows it is resolved. §
Another common example of an unproductive thought pattern is to think about a major decision you need to make, but without making the decision. In other words, we think about it and jump to another topic without making a conclusion. I have found an effective way for handling this is to make an appointment with yourself, say at 10am tomorrow, when you will sit down and think about it until you reach a conclusion. Then if you find yourself thinking about it before then, put the thought off by saying I have an appointment and there is no need to think about it before then. §
Additional Resources§
Merging with Śiva, Chapter 30: The Nature of Thought§