Silent Witness.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
You once said, something in a PBS special years ago that really struck me and I’m trying to remember how it went. I think, but could possibly be misremembering, that you were trying to demonstrate for us the concept from the Rig Veda that goes, “On the Tree of Life there are two birds, fast friends. One bird eats the fruit of the Tree; the other bird, not eating, watches.” I think in your case you did a very effective exercise to get us to become aware of the second bird. I think you said something like, “Are you listening to me? Are you listening to me? Are you listening to me? Good. Now I want to speak to the listener.” I can’t remember quite how you did it but at that moment the concept popped for me and suddenly I was aware of this other part of myself that wasn’t my public self, but was a self that nobody else could know. Can you remind me what you said to the audience to make this realization happen?
Response:
The two birds in the story represent the two values of our identity. The one eating the fruit is our conditioned ego personality that eats, drinks, feels and senses life around us and in the process of experiencing each sensation, it is affected and overshadowed by it to the extent that it only knows itself in terms of that experience.
The other bird is our higher Self, the silent witness that is awake and aware of itself and what is going without being affected by it. This is the inner observer or listener I was referencing in that little exercise. As I asked if you were listening I was first getting you to notice your conventional experiencing self. Then by asking who it is inside you that is listening, I was facilitating the cognitive shift out of the ego mode of functioning to the silent witness mode that has an uninvolved awareness of the ego. That recognition is profound when it happens for the first time and you discover that there is a pure, quiet Self inside you that is more authentic than the self you have constructed throughout your life. But that awareness has always been there as your silent, true self.
Meditation is a powerful tool to directly access this silent witness and make it the foundational presence in life.
Love,
Deepak
Silent Witness.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
When the experience of the higher Self deepens, does there come a point when even the silent witness disappears? In meditation, even when there are no thoughts (I presume this is the gap) there is still a subtle feeling of the silent witness. Does the silent witness have to disappear before the experience of the higher Self takes place, or is the silent witness the higher Self?
Response:
The silent witness is the higher Self. It describes the observer aspect to pure consciousness. It is the experience of self-awareness. If that silent witness value is not there when you experience the gap, it doesn’t mean that it has disappeared or that you have outgrown it, it just indicates that a different quality of that pure consciousness is being noticed at that time.
Love,
Deepak
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