Question:

Didi, how to stay at a distance when a captivating arising appears? How to develop sufficient Vairagya (dispassion) towards it? 

Answer:

Realizing one is the Witness of the Waker and not the Waker-body or Waker-mind is a prerequisite for establishing in Sakshi bhaava.

• • One must be able to SEE that the body-sensation appears and disappears, hence it is called a ‘body-arising’.
  • Similarly, a thought or feeling is also not continuous; it arises and falls. Hence, it is called a ‘mind-arising’.
  • A perception is not continuous either. Sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch appear and disappear. There is no separate world that can be confirmed besides these 5 perceptions. Hence, these are called ‘world-arisings’.

There is only the blank canvas of the NOW and one arising that appears and disappears on it, in any given instance. Witnessing means realizing that one is the blank canvas of the NOW on which these arisings appear and disappear. This must be SEEN directly, not memorized, intellectualized, or analyzed.

• • Realize the Witnessing awareness field that you are first.
  • Once recognized, quit pretending to be the Waker-body and Waker-mind that appear and disappear consistently.

How should one get established in Sakshi bhaava? How should one develop the skill of not giving in to a captivating arising? Standing as the Sakshi or the Witness means that when an arising appears:

1. One must recognize the randomness of the ‘arising’. Address the unintentionality of the movement in Consciousness.

2. Resist the temptation to indulge in name and form, as that is merely an illusion, just like the name and form of a dream-tiger is illusory. Narrow the labelling down to ‘illusory’ or ‘imagination’, or a ‘Dream’.

3. Accept that all names and forms are mere conditioning. Prior to conditioning, as a baby, all appearances were seen as devoid of name and form. Accept conditioning as an illusion.

4. Resolve to dive deeper and go beyond conditioning. Pay attention to the movement in Consciousness as simply a movement.

5. Resist the temptation to identify with the movement by resolving to stand at a distance. Realize that this movement in Consciousness is naturally devoid of a mover. In other words, there is no ‘I’ that is the cause of the movement.

6. Recognize that the movement is identified as an ‘arising’ after it has already commenced. If you were:

• • • the thinker or experiencer of the thought,
    • the generator or feeler of the feeling,
    • the originator or sensor of a sensation, or
    • the creator or perceiver of the perception,

then you would have known the arising before it arose. Realize that there is no ‘I’ that is the doer or experiencer of these arisings.

7. Due to the absence of the ‘I’, a naturally inherent absence of every kind of reaction is realized, like judgment, labeling, attraction, or resistance. It becomes evident that there is inherently no story around any arising. Any story can now be realized as only an imagination or an illusion.

8. It is then realized that every Consciousness-in-motion arising has the opposites of plus and minus co-located within it. It naturally seeks to arrive at a ZERO balance or Consciousness-at-rest. Consciousness-in-motion vacillates between two opposites on account of its nature. Witnessing brings the observation to the equilibrium of the ZERO. Allow the Balance to Happen Naturally. Consciousness always seeks balance. If an arising pulls to +100 (intense pleasure, craving, attachment), it will eventually shift to -100 (pain, aversion, loss) to restore equilibrium. Do not interfere; let it settle back to zero on its own.

9. NOT-DOING is witnessing. There is nothing you can control, so quit pretending. Just BE! Quit becoming!

10. This naturally evolves to a natural dispassion or Vairagya. Vairagya is not a doing. It is a natural happening. It cannot be cultivated. It is the natural product of SEEING Reality as it is. This was described by an ancient sage, Bhartrhari, in his scripture on Vairagya. The direct seeing of his 100 verses on Vairagya has been described in the book called Vairagya Drishti, available on Amazon:

• • • USA: https://tinyurl.com/VairagyaDristhi 
    • India: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0CRPQT2V4 

11. Once Vairagya erupts from within like a fountain of equanimous silence, it is called Ksham – the Silence of the Witness.

Don’t stop until you taste its sweet water. The sweet water calls. Keep moving in its direction. Keep chugging earnestly!