The Witness: Finding Your True Self Beyond All Roles

So welcome everyone and thank you for joining me.

So in today's journey,

I invite you to step back from all the roles that you play,

That we play and discover and experience the one who has been watching it all.

Now all of us spend so much of our time identified with what we do,

With who we are with,

What we achieve,

What we own and we become so absorbed in playing these parts that we forget there is someone watching the play,

Watching this dance of Maya and someone who remains constant even as all the scenes,

All the cycles change.

Now today's meditation is about finding that witness within you,

The one who observes your thoughts without being your thoughts,

The one who watches and feels your emotions without being the emotions and the one who sees all the roles that you play but is not limited by any of them.

The witness is always peaceful,

Always free and it's always here.

It's been with you through every experience of your life,

Watching with gentle awareness as experiences,

People,

Places,

Things come and go.

So let's discover this peaceful observer that you truly already are.

Now find a comfortable position where you will not be disturbed for the next few minutes.

You can be sitting up,

You could be lying down.

Now close your eyes if that feels comfortable for you and we'll just start simply by taking a few natural breaths.

Breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth.

Now allowing your body to relax and settle as you are focused on your breath.

With each inhale,

I'm breathing in life force,

Prana,

Relaxation,

Peace,

Joy.

And with each exhale,

Anything that I don't need in this moment can now begin to leave me.

Not by force,

Just by simply allowing it to pass.

I'm arriving more fully into the present moment.

As I feel a little bit more settled into the moment,

Into the body,

Into the now.

Just begin by simply noticing that you are aware.

You are aware of your physical body.

You may be aware of some sounds,

Noises.

You may be aware of certain thoughts that you're having.

Right now in this moment,

There is awareness happening.

Thoughts are being noticed,

Sensations are being felt and sounds are being heard.

Let's gently ask this question to ourselves and simply observe what shows up.

Who is doing this noticing?

Who is doing this noticing?

Who is doing this noticing?

Now take a moment to look for the one who is aware.

Not with your eyes,

But with your attention.

Who is watching the thoughts?

Who is feeling the sensations?

Now notice that there is a difference between what you observe and the one who observes.

You can watch your breath,

But you are not your breath.

You can notice your thoughts,

But you are also not your thoughts.

You can feel your emotions,

But you are not your emotions.

There is always someone watching in the background,

Calm,

Steady and unchanging.

Now let's explore who you are beyond all the roles and identities that you've taken on.

Imagine yourself now with your job,

With your profession.

Imagine if you had no work identity,

If you had no career,

Who would you be?

What remains when that label is removed?

Now feel into that space where that identity used to be and just notice the relief of not having to be defined by what you do.

Now imagine yourself without your relationships.

No partner,

No family roles,

No children,

No friends.

If you were completely alone,

Who would you be?

And what's left when you remove the mask of being someone's parent,

Child,

Friend,

Partner?

Now feel into this freedom of not needing to be anybody for anybody else.

Imagine yourself without your possessions.

No house,

No car,

Nothing you own in this moment.

Who are you when you have nothing?

Notice what remains now when the mask of ownership is dropped.

If you are a visual person,

You can see yourself dropping these masks one by one.

The mask of my profession,

The mask of my family roles,

The mask of my relationships,

The mask of material possessions and ownership.

Now,

I often also identify with my body.

Now imagine yourself without your physical body,

Without your age,

Without your appearance,

Without your physical form.

Who are you beyond the body?

What's here even when the physical form falls away?

Now imagine yourself without your thoughts.

No beliefs,

No opinions,

No mental stories,

Nothing to heal,

Nothing to fix.

Who remains when the thinking mind goes quiet?

Feel the vast space that exists beyond all mental concepts.

Going back to that visualization again,

Every single mask,

Story and identity that I created for myself,

Given my life,

Given my circumstances,

Given my soul's journey,

Just for now,

I have put them down.

What am I left with now?

Find this witness in your body and rest now as what remains.

Beyond all roles,

Beyond all identities,

Beyond all masks,

What's left is pure awareness,

The one who has been watching all along.

The witness has no age.

It's the same awareness you had as a child.

The witness has no gender,

No nationality,

No story,

No possessions,

No belief system.

The witness needs nothing,

Lacks nothing and fears nothing.

Step back from everything that you've created for yourself and watch your life now from that space.

Notice how peaceful this awareness is.

It doesn't struggle with what appears.

It doesn't judge what it sees.

It simply watches with perfect acceptance.

This is who you really are,

Not what you do,

Not what you have,

Not what you think,

But the pure awareness in which all experiences arise and pass away.

Now this is the closest you will get to experiencing being a soul in a human body,

Having a human experience.

I am here to play certain roles,

To meet certain people,

To have certain experiences,

But none of those things are me.

Just continuing to watch now whatever appears in front of you from this place of being the witness.

From this place of pure awareness now,

Imagine going about your daily life.

You can still play your roles.

You can be that worker,

That partner,

That friend,

But you know these are just roles,

Not who you truly are.

You can have thoughts,

You can have emotions,

But remember,

You are the one watching them,

Not lost in them.

You can engage fully with life while remaining free,

Like an actor who plays their part with joy but never forgets that this is just a play,

A play of form,

A play of experiences,

A play of different cycles of life,

Good and bad,

Up and down,

Joy and sadness.

Feel the freedom of this perspective now in your body.

I can still care without clinging.

I can still participate without attachment.

I can still be fully human while remaining free.

There will always be things,

People,

Situations that can be better,

That will challenge me,

That I want to fix,

That I want to change,

That I want to improve,

But I can still tap into this place of being the witness and realize the impermanence of everything that I'm seeing and experiencing.

There are some things which I can consciously control and there are other things which I have absolutely no control over.

I can choose to remain the witness and allow the play to happen.

Now,

As we prepare to close this session,

Know that this witness awareness is always available to you in the middle of a busy day,

After a busy stressful day.

You can just step back and remind yourself,

I am just the one watching this.

When emotions feel overwhelming,

You can find peace in the awareness that observes them.

When life feels complicated and you don't have an answer,

You can simply return to just being aware.

Now,

Let's just take a few breaths now,

Bringing ourselves back to our bodies,

To the now,

To the room,

To the chair,

To the bed,

Wherever else you are.

Now,

Very gently,

Very slowly,

You can wiggle your fingers,

Wiggle your toes,

And with this expanded awareness that you've brought in today,

You can now open your eyes.

So today we touched upon something that has always been with you,

The peaceful witness that watches all of life's dramas,

Cycles,

Without being disturbed by them.

Now,

This witness doesn't need to go to a mountain or leave the world to find peace.

It is already at peace,

Right here,

Right now,

In the middle of whatever is happening.

As you continue your day,

You might occasionally remember now to step back and ask,

Who is experiencing this?

And you'll find the same peaceful awareness that is always present and always free.

The roles that we play,

The masks that we wear,

They're not wrong,

They're part of the human experience.

But now you know,

They are not who you really are.

I am just the eternal witness,

Temporarily enjoying the play of being human.

So thank you everyone,

For joining me today in this journey,

And until next time,

Namaste.