Witnessing the mind"Return to Mind Control Techniques" The processWitnessing the mind, with the accent on witnessing, is arguably the most essential spiritual practice. It involves consciousness becoming aware of the mind (and in later stages of itself), hence creating a clear and necessary 'space' between the two. After sufficient practice you will quickly realize the distinction between yourself and the mind. It begins with you realizing: “Hey, the mind is over there while I am here observing it all.” Then when you get more used to this form of witnessing the mind you won’t even have that thought-form, that interpretation anymore. You will just be aware, present, conscious; either witnessing the mind without labelling what you observe or withdrawing awareness and residing in your own stillness. These experiences are the first signs of transcending the mind. Or actually, at that point you are already transcending the mind. (For more info check out -Transcending the mind.-) When this practice becomes a part of your daily activity, or rather a habit to step out of your system and observe daily activity, is that you will raise your level of consciousness and every area of your life will benefit from it; it adds blissful value to every moment on every level of experience. The greatest quality of this practice is that it remains essentially the same exercise and preserves its value for those in the beginning stages and those in the final stages. It is the same exercise and it remains just as valuable. Once you become more advanced in spiritual development you will lose interest in many of the beginning exercises but witnessing the mind remains most essential and will even become a way of living. Depending on your level of understanding, I would advice beginners to start witnessing the mind when taking a time-out to meditate. It can make things easier. At first meditation is something you do from a few minutes to an hour, only to ‘return’ to everyday life after the meditation is finished. After some practice you will come to understand how meditation is actually something that you can and will do at any time in life; it’s a way of living, a state of being. Meditation will blend in with everything you do, emerging into every moment. At that point the practice becomes a way of living and you won’t be observing the mind’s activity that much anymore, because all mental changes/activities will cease in your immediate presence. The experience will only deepen as consciousness becomes more aware of itself, rather than of the mind. This practice is basically all you need to become enlightened. It is my opinion that all the rest of the exercises are merely ‘designed’ for complementary purposes.
The practiceWitnessing the mind is a simple, yet challenging exercise, especially in the beginning. While the principle is not difficult to understand or to apply, the challenge lies in maintaining the state of awareness and alertness as opposed to slipping back in identifying with the arising thought-forms.What you do is you either you choose to take the time to meditate with all the rituals that you may be used to that make you feel like you are going to meditate, or you will apply this practice at any time, which is eventually the purpose.
First you will try to hear your thoughts. Hear the words that are formed in your mind continuously. Become aware of the continuous repetition, or stream of thoughts. Can you hear the words forming in your mind? If so, you were just a witness to the most noticeable and gross expressions of the mind. Secondly you try to become a witness to all the images and visualizations that occupy your mind field. Don’t let these thought-forms drag you down into being unconscious of them; don’t get involved in their contents; don’t dwell on them as in day-dreaming; just remain the witness…unattached, non-judgemental; purely observing. At first this will be the greatest challenge because many thought-forms will arise in the mind and you will get lost in their contents. Remaining in this unattached state of awareness is the trickiest part. You should only be a witness, not a judge of what comes to mind. As soon as you judge what you witness, a thought-form is dragging you down. Only look at the thought-forms as if they are individual clouds passing by. Just look at them as they pass. This is what Witnessing the Mind is about. Practice witnessing the mind's process on a daily basis, not only in meditation, but in active life as well. Let this practice become a dynamic process. Be aware of what goes on in the mind when you are doing your daily things; when you are talking to people; when you are worrying about some future-event or regretting some past-event. That way your regular meditation will become Mindfulness Meditation. You will become more conscious of what goes around in your mind in all the periods of the day. When you are getting the hang of this, try to realize the fundamental difference between you, the observer and the things that are observed by you. Become not only aware of the mental activity, but also of the one that is witnessing the mind field. Let consciousness become conscious of itself more and more. What happens then is that the mind will quiet down as you reside purely in your Self. Once you are capable of getting some tastes of this mindless state of consciousness, you can drop all meditation techniques and dedicate yourself to the No-Mind Meditation. All meditation technqiues are meant to bring you to this point of experiencing Consciousness itself until you realize that that is all there is.
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