The Fire of Witnessing

osho

The trouble arises when you start identifying yourself with the beautiful moments, then you are getting ready for trouble. Then soon the other thing is going to happen: you will be suffering, you will be desperate.
So the first thing to be understood is that both things are of the mind. That will give you a little distance from both the experiences. And secondly, don't bother about the suffering and the despair. Concentrate when you are feeling beautiful, when you are feeling that you have moved miles from where you were stuck. That is the moment to remember, "It is a mind game, and I am not going to participate. I am going to remain simply a witness."
Not identifying with the beautiful moment will automatically destroy the other part: the suffering, the despair. People always do vice-versa; and that is not possible in the nature of things, because the second part is the other side of the coin.
When you are feeling beautiful, you get identified; you feel, "It is me, this is my real self." Now you are preparing the ground - digging the ditch to fall into it. And when you are in despair and suffering, then how can you say, "I will be simply a witness"? You cannot be a witness.
Nobody wants despair or pain, all those negative feelings; everybody wants to get rid of them. But the way to get rid of them is to get rid of them through the beautiful spaces that you come across.
So whenever you are again feeling in a silent, peaceful, blissful state, remind yourself - don't fall asleep - remind yourself, "This is not me. I am just seeing something far away there on the screen. I am just consciousness, awareness. I am taking note of it, what is happening there."
Keep aloof. It will be a little difficult - one wants to jump into it, it is so beautiful - but if you can keep aloof from the beautiful moments, you have won a great victory, because the person who is capable of keeping himself just a witness of beautiful moments and does not get identified.... It will be child's play for him to witness depression when it comes.
Both the extremes, witnessed, start disappearing.
Witnessing is almost the finest fire you can find. Witness anything and that thing soon disappears. And don't be afraid that beautiful spaces will disappear. You don't know yet what is really waiting ahead of you - when beautiful spaces and depressive moments both have gone, when that duality is no longer there.
You are not aware of what is going to happen to you. It is so profound and so deep that those who have found it have remained silent. They will not say a single word about it. There is no word in any language to express it. All these words - "beautiful," "blissful" - fall too short. And the greatest thing is that there is no duality, that you have come to a point which remains with you always; there is no opposite to it.
This is something to be remembered, that whenever you experience something of which there is no opposite, you have come home.

(Osho - Light on the Path #25)

The Fire of Witnessing

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