[A sannyasin, leaving, asks: How do I find when I am the witness?]

 

 

It is something self-evident: when you are, you know it; no extemal proof is needed. If the question arises that means that you are not, otherwise the question does not arise at all. It is like having a headache: nobody asks, ”How am I to know whether I have a headache or not?” If you have one, you know, there is no question of how.

 

But a few indications will be helpful… Whatsoever can be observed is not you; you are always the observer. If you witness witnessing, then you are not witnessing; that has become an observed thing. It is already a thought, an experience, something separate from you. You cannot witness the witness, remember. You will have the total feel of it, but you cannot witness it, you cannot see it.

 

Who will see it? It is the seer, it can never be reduced to the seen. It is the observer, the eternal observer. Its very nature is observation; it cannot be reduced to the observed. So whatsoever you can see, whatsoever you can observe, whatsoever you can witness, it is not you. You always go on moving behind and behind and behind. Then one day suddenly you find that there is nothing to witness, nothing to observe… eternal silence, no content. That is the moment you will have the feel – I say feel. You will have such a tremendous feel of it that it becomes self-evident. No other proof is needed, no other validation is needed; it validates itself.

 

– Osho, “The Rainbow Bridge, #12”