Question:

Namaste Ektaji, Is this distinction correct?  When there is observation without an observer, there is no arising, only Awareness. When there is Witnessing, the witness sees an arising arise and dissolve.

Answer:

When there is observation devoid of an observer, there is:

• • No central observer
  • No object of observation

There is only an infinite observation field or borderless knowingness. This must be one’s direct seeing and not simply an intellectual understanding. 

Here are the Stages of this Direct Seeing:

Stage 0: The creation is seen as a pre-existing world consisting of:

• • people,
  • events, and
  • objects.

Stage 1: The creation is NOT seen as consisting of permanently existing entities called people, events, and objects.

The creation is witnessed as mere arisings that appear and disappear.  Arisings are seen as perceptions, sensations, thoughts, and feelings.

• • Perception of Sight arises and disappears.
  • Perception of Sound arises and disappears.
  • Perception of Smell arises and disappears.
  • Perception of Taste arises and disappears.
  • Perception of Touch arises and disappears.
  • Sensation arises and disappears.
  • Thought arises and disappears.
  • Feeling arises and disappears.

Stage 2: As Direct Seeing progresses, even the labels of perceptions, sensations, thoughts, and feelings reduce to mere thoughts.

• • Perceptions are thoughts that appear and disappear. 
  • Sensations are thoughts that appear and disappear.
  • Feelings are thoughts that appear and disappear.

Stage 3: At this higher stage, thought is seen as nothing but knowledge. Knowledge of pleasant as well as unpleasant. E.g. There is no love, hatred, rape, terrorism, divorce, compassion, domestic violence, non-violence, suicide, murder, charity, faithfulness, or gratitude, etc. It is mere knowledge like the story of a movie. Only knowledge.

• • Thought is Knowledge.

Stage 4: Knowledge, Knower, and the process of Knowing finally merge into simply Knowingness Or Consciousness.

There remains:

• • No ‘I-the-Knower’.
  • No Knowledge nor the object of knowing.
  • No process called ‘Knowing’.

Only Knowingness IS! That is the Oneness or No-Two. That is Advaita!

All these stages are only described progressively here for the sake of understanding. Direct seeing does not happen necessarily in the order of progression. It may be seen in a single flash.

An earnest seeker will certainly SEE each of these. Keep chugging! I am right by the side of the Earnest Seeker. 

#Non-Duality