Question: What is the difference between awareness and
witnessing?
There is much difference between awareness and witnessing.
Witnessing is still an act; you are doing it; the ego is there. So the
phenomenon of witnessing is divided between the subject and the object.
Witnessing is a relationship between subject and object.
Awareness is absolutely devoid of any subjectivity or
objectivity. There is no one who is witnessing in awareness; there is no one
who is being witnessed. Awareness is a total act, integrated; the subject and
the object are not related in it; they are dissolved. So awareness doesn't mean
that anyone is aware; nor does it mean that anything is being attended to.
Awareness is total – total subjectivity and total
objectivity as a single phenomenon – while in witnessing a duality exists between
subject and object. Awareness is nondoing; witnessing implies a doer. But
through witnessing awareness is possible, because witnessing means that it is a
conscious act; it is an act, but conscious. You can do something and be
unconscious – our ordinary activity is unconscious activity – but if you become
conscious in it, it becomes witnessing.
So from ordinary unconscious activity to awareness there is
a gap that can be filled by witnessing.
Witnessing is a technique, a method toward awareness.
It is not awareness but, compared to ordinary activity,
unconscious activity, it is a higher step. Something has changed: activity has
become conscious, unconsciousness has been replaced by consciousness. But
something more still has to be changed. That is, the activity has to be
replaced by inactivity. That will be the second step.
It is difficult to jump from ordinary, unconscious action
into awareness. It is possible but arduous, so a step in between is helpful. If
one begins by witnessing conscious activity, then the jump becomes easier – the
jump into awareness without any conscious object, without any conscious
subject, without any conscious activity at all.
This doesn't mean that awareness isn't consciousness; it is
pure consciousness, but no one is conscious about it.
There is a further difference between consciousness and
awareness.
Consciousness is a quality of your mind, but it is not your
total mind. Your mind can be both conscious and unconscious; but when you
transcend your mind, there is no unconsciousness and no corresponding
consciousness. There is awareness.
Awareness means that the total mind has become aware. Now
the old mind is not there but there is the quality of being conscious.
Awareness has become the totality; the mind itself is now part of the
awareness. We cannot say that the mind is aware; we can only meaningfully say
that the mind is conscious.
Awareness means transcendence of the mind, so it is not the
mind that is aware. It is only through transcendence of the mind, through going
beyond mind, that awareness becomes possible.
Consciousness is a quality of the mind, awareness is the
transcendence; it is going beyond the mind. Mind, as such, is the medium of
duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always conscious
of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. So consciousness is
part and parcel of the mind, and mind, as such, is the source of all duality,
of all divisions – whether they are between subject and object, activity or
inactivity, consciousness or unconsciousness. Every type of duality is mental.
Awareness is nondual, so awareness means the state of no mind.
Then what is the relationship between consciousness and
witnessing? Witnessing is a state, and consciousness is a means toward
witnessing. If you begin to be conscious, you achieve witnessing. If you begin
to be conscious of your acts, conscious of your day-to-day happenings,
conscious of everything that surrounds you, then you begin to witness.
Witnessing comes as a consequence of consciousness. You
cannot practice witnessing; you can only practice consciousness. Witnessing
comes as a consequence, as a shadow, as a result, as a byproduct. The more you
become conscious, the more you go into witnessing, the more you come to be a
witness.
So consciousness is a method to achieve witnessing.
And the second step is that witnessing will become a method
to achieve awareness.
So these are the three steps: consciousness, witnessing,
awareness.
But where we exist is the lowest rank: that is, in
unconscious activity. Unconscious activity is the state of our minds.
Through consciousness you can achieve witnessing, and
through witnessing you can achieve awareness, and through awareness you can
achieve "no achievement." Through awareness you can achieve all that
is already achieved. After awareness there is nothing; awareness is the end. Awareness is the end of spiritual progress.
In awareness you lose the witness and only witnessing
remains: you lose the doer, you lose the subjectivity, you lose the egocentric
consciousness. Then consciousness remains, without the ego. The circumference
remains without the center.
This circumference without the center is awareness.
Consciousness without any center, without any source, without any motivation,
without any source from which it comes – a "no source" consciousness
– is awareness.
So you move from the unaware existence that is matter,
prakriti (nature), towards awareness. You may call it the divine, the godly, or
whatever you choose to call it. Between matter and the divine, the difference
is always of consciousness.
Image: Awareness by H. Koppdelaney at Foter.com
