Witnessing: The Base of All Techniques_

Someone else was asking Bokuju, "Give me some technique of meditation."

Bokuju said, "I can give you a technique, but you will not be able to meditate - because you can practise a technique with a verbalizing mind."

Your fingers can move on a rosary, and you can go on thinking. If your fingers just move on the rosary with no thinking, it becomes a meditation. Then, really, no technique is needed. The whole life is a technique.

So Bokuju said, "It would be better if you be with me and watch me. Don't ask for a method. Just watch me - and you will come to know."

The poor fellow watched for seven days. He began to be more confused. After seven days he said, "When I came, I was less confused. Now I am more confused. I have watched you for seven days continuously - what is there to be watched?"

Bokuju said, "Then you have not watched. When I walk, have you seen? - I simply walk. When you bring tea in the morning for me, have you watched? - I simply take the tea and drink it: just drinking There is NO Bokuju - just drinking. No Bokuju - just drinking of the tea. Have you watched? If you have watched, then you must have felt that Bokuju is no more."

This is a very subtle point - because if the thinker is there, then there is ego; then you are a Bokuju or somebody else. But if only action is there with no verbalization, no thinking, there is no ego.

So Bokuju says, "Have you really watched? Then there was no Bokuju - just drinking of the tea, walking in the garden, digging a hole in the earth."

Buddha, because of this, has said, "There is no soul" - because you have not watched, you go on continuously thinking that you have a soul. You are not! If you are a witness, then you are not. The "I" forms itself through thoughts. So one thing more: accumulated thoughts, piled-up memories, create the feeling of ego - that you are.

Try this experiment: cut your whole past away from you - no memory. You don't know who your parents are; you don't know to whom you belong - to which country, to which religion, to which race.

You don't know where you were educated, whether you were educated or not. Just cut the whole past - and remember who you are. You cannot remember who you are. You are, obviously. You are, but who are you? In this moment, you cannot feel an "I". The ego is just accumulated past. The ego is your thought condensed, crystallized.

So Bokuju says, "If you have watched me, I was not. There was drinking of the tea, but no drinker. Walking was there in the garden, but no walker. Action was there, but no actor."

In witnessing, there is no sense of 'I'; in thinking there is. So if the so-called thinkers are so deeply rooted in their egos, it is not just a coincidence. Artists, thinkers, philosophers, literary persons, if they are so egoistic, it is not just a coincidence. The more thoughts you have, the greater the ego you have. In witnessing there is no ego, but this comes only if you can transcend language. Language is the barrier. Language is needed to communicate with others; it is not needed to communicate with oneself. It is a useful instrument - rather, the most useful instrument. Man could create a society, a world, only because of language - but because of language, man has forgotten himself.

Language is our world. If for a single moment man forgets his language, then what remains? Culture, society, Hinduism, Christianity, communism - what remains? Nothing remains. If only language is taken out of existence, the whole humanity with its culture, civilization, science, religion, philosophy, disappears. Language is a communication with others; it is the only communication. It is useful, but it is dangerous - and whenever some instrument is useful, it is in the same proportion dangerous a!so. The danger is this: that the more mind moves into language, the farther away it goes from the center. So one needs a subtle balance and a subtle mastery to be capable of moving into language, and also to be capable of leaving language, of going out of language. of moving out of language.

Witnessing means moving out of language, verbalization. mind. Witnessing means a state of no-mind, no-thinking. So try it! It is a long effort, and nothing is predictable - but try, and the effort will give you some moments when suddenly language disappears. And then a new dimension opens. You become aware of a different world - the world of simultaneity, the world of here and now, the world of no-mind, the world of reality.

Language must evaporate. So try to do ordinary acts, bodily movements, without language. Buddha used this technique to watch the breath. He would say to his bhikkhus, "Go on watching your breath. Don't do anything: just watch the breath coming in, the breath going out, the breath coming in, the breath going out." It is not to be said like this - it is to be felt. Mmm? The breath coming in, with no words. Feel the breath coming in, move with the breath, let your consciousness go deep with the breath. Then let it move out. Go on moving with your breath. Be alert!

Buddha is reported to have said, "Don't miss even a single breath. If a single breath is missed physiologically, you will be dead; and if a single breath is missed in awareness, you will be missing the center, you will be dead inside." So Buddha said, "Breath is essential for the life of the body, and awareness of the breath is essential for the life of the inner center." Breathe, be aware. And if you are trying to be aware of your breathing, you cannot think, because the mind cannot do two things simultaneously - thinking and witnessing. The very phenomenon of witnessing is absolutely, diametrically opposite to thinking, so you cannot do both. Just as you cannot be both alive and dead, as you cannot be both asleep and awake, you cannot be both thinking and witnessing. Witness anything, and thinking will stop. Thinking comes in, and witnessing disappears. Witnessing is a passive awareness with no action inside. Awareness itself is not an action.

One day Mulla Nasrudin was very much worried, in deep brooding. Anyone could look at his face and feel that he was lost somewhere in thoughts, very tense, in anguish. His wife became alarmed.

She asked, "What are you doing, Nasrudin? What are you thinking? What is the problem? Why are you so worried?" The Mulla opened his eyes and said, "This is the ultimate problem. I am thinking about how one knows when one is dead. How does one know that one is dead? If I am to die, how will I recognize that I am dead? - because I have not known death. Recognition means you have known something before.

"I see you and recognize that you are A, or B or C, because I have known you. Death I have not known," said the Mulla. "And when it comes, how am I to recognize it? That is the problem, and I am very much worried. And when I am dead I cannot ask anyone else, so that door is also closed. I cannot refer to some scripture, no teacher can be of any help."

The wife laughed and said, "You are unnecessarily worrying. When death comes, one knows immediately. When death comes to you, you will know because you will become just cold, ice-cold." Mulla was relieved. A certain sign, the key, was in his hand.

After two or three months he was cutting wood in the forest. It was a winter morning and everything was cold. Suddenly he remembered, and he felt his hands - they were cold. He said, "Okay! Now death is coming, and I am so far from my house that I cannot even inform anyone. Now what am I to do? I forgot to ask my wife. She told me how one will feel, but what is one to do when death comes? Now no one is here, and everything is going just cold."

Then he remembered. He had seen many persons dead, so he thought, "It is good to lay down." That is all that he has seen dead persons do, so he lies down. Of course, he becomes more cold, he feels more cold - death is upon him. His donkey is just resting by his side under the tree. Two wolves, thinking that Mulla is dead, attack his donkey. Mulla opens his eyes and sees, and he thinks, "If you become dead to your past, totally dead, then you can only witness. What else can you do?"

Witnessing means becoming dead to your past, memory, thought, everything. Then in the present moment, what can you do? You can only witness. No judgement is possible. Judgement is possible only against past experiences. No evaluation is possible; evaluation is possible only against past evaluations. No thinking is possible; thinking is possible only if the past is there, brought into the present. So what can you do? You can witness.

Yama, God of Death

In the old Sanskrit literature, the Teacher is defined as the death, acharya mrityuh. The Teacher is defined as death! In the Katha Upanishad, Nachiketa is sent to Yama, the god of death, to be taught.

And when Yama, the death god, offers many, many allurements to Nachiketa - "Take this, take the kingdom, take so much wealth, so many horses, so many elephants, this and this," a long list of things - Nachiketa says, "I have come to learn what death is, because unless I know what death is I cannot know what life is." So a Teacher was known in the old days as a person who can become a death to the disciple - who can give death, who can help you to die so that you can be reborn.

Nicodemus asked Jesus, "How can I attain to the Kingdom of God?" Jesus said, "Unless you die first, nothing can be attained. Unless you are reborn, nothing can be attained."

And this being reborn is not an event, it is a continuous process. One has to be reborn every moment. It is not that you are reborn once and then it is okay and finished. Life is a continuous birth, and death is also continuous. You have to die once because you have not lived at all. If you live, then you will have to die every moment. Die every moment to the past whatsoever it has been, a heaven or a hell. Whatsoever - die to it, and be fresh and young and reborn into the moment.

Witness now! You can only witness now if you are fresh.

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