witnessWhat is a witness state? A simple trick to know yourself better. Stand outside yourself. Now you will wonder what is standing “outside yourself” mean?
Do you know your own nature? Maybe it is irritability or shyness, or just stubbornness or inability to perform? It could be anything given the circumstances. A peculiar trait of struggling to make a point or just exploding at the next person? Don’t you know yourself better than anyone else?
You know your wife’s irritating nature so well when she asks you the same question a million times. You know she will ask you whether you have closed the door while leaving tens of times. And now don’t you know your own nature too? After every question you behave so innocently and keep quiet. You make her believe that you haven’t heard or you are born deaf. You let her simmer for at least ten times then nod your head as if she spoke for the first time.
Your girlfriend is so much used to sending thousands of emoticons and you reply after a very long time with just a few silly ones. By then she has started reacting as if you’ll have broken up? She gets frantic and wants you to respond but you don’t. Don’t you know your teasing nature so well? You know her nature too! So you react in that slow manner.
When something spills, she suddenly is overcome by stupor. She lets the thing spread so much that it spoils the entire kitchen floor or the complete tablecloth is ruined. She does it so often and then she knows she will have to buy a new one and chuck the old one. She knows that’s the way to replace the old. Her nature makes her not react precisely the moment an emergency happens. Something overcomes her and she is unable to react at that moment.
Now you understand what I mean by knowing your nature so well. You have a very perfect idea how the whole thing will pan out and how you will behave. It has happened to you so often that you know yourself pretty well. Now let’s move on to the technique. It’s very simple.
Create another identity of yourself and stand outside of yourself. As if it’s a split personality. But remember this person is not allowed to interfere in what you are doing. It’s called a witness state. You will only stand outside yourself and watch your own idiosyncratic behavior. This method is employed by the spiritually perfect beings to understand the behavior of their own body, senses and mind.
Now let’s see how it works. Now your kid is creating a racket and shouting the house down. You know very well you will first pacify him and later you will loose your cool. Then your temper will reach the ceilings and you will blame your wife, in laws and every other person in the world. So now see how your anger unfolds.
Stand outside and watch the steps. See how the kid is getting crankier by the minute. Your patience has run out. You are on your way to an explosion. There you explode. Now it’s the turn of all the people present and absent to bear the brunt of your anger. There you go cursing every other person in the world even remotely associated with the kid.
You know how panic works its way up your mind. You also have clear idea how you will react to somethings. You are your best judge. Since you can understand all of the above, you also know how you can be your own witness. What happens when you are your own witness?
You train your body and senses to behave themselves better. First you have to learn to be just a witness who won’t interfere. Then you will understand- if someone says,”I am watching you,” what would happen. You will naturally not do those things. Your senses and body gets trained automatically not to do those tasks.
Under the watchful eyes of the teacher, no one does mischief. So under the watchful state of your own witness state, no harm will happen.
So learn to be your own witness. You will never fall into the trap of karmic loops ever again. It is the state of the divine unmanifest. But the way these yogis work is by detachment and that’s another story.

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