Unidentified
Unidentified one is free. Identified, one is encaged.
Don’t be identified with anything whatsoever. And then, naturally, transcendence happens. You see misery coming and you remain a watcher. You see misery arising, engulfing you, surrounding you like great dark smoke, but you remain a watcher. You see it, you don’t judge. You simply see this is the fact, that there is misery. Then as it had come one day, one day it starts disappearing. Clouds had gathered and now they are disappearing, and there is great sunshine and happiness. You don’t get identified with that either. You just see that sunshine has come back, clouds have disappeared. You simply go on watching.
Many times it will happen – misery will come, happiness will come. Many times you will succeed, many times you will fail. Many times you will be depressed and many times you will feel very high. Watching all this duality, by and by you will see that you are beyond all these dual pairs of things.
Life and death is also a pair; mind and body is also a pair; the world and nirvana is also a pair. All are dual, pairs. When you can see thoroughly, when you can see transparently and you don’t choose, you are something transcendental – the witness. That witness is never born and never dies.
Death and life come into that witnessing vision, but that witness is eternal. It was there before you were born and it will be there when you are gone. You have been coming into the world millions of times and you may yet be coming – and still you have never come. The world appears in you just like a reflection appears in a mirror.
This mirror- like quality is what is meant by witnessing. And that’s why the mirror remains clean of all impressions. It goes on reflecting, but no impressions are collected on it. This is the state of awareness. This is what meditation is all about.
Watch, see, be alert, but don’t choose. And don’t get into any part. The part is not the whole. The part is part, and sooner or later the part will go, because the part cannot stay long enough. And when it goes you will be miserable because you will not be willing to leave it; you will cling to it, because you got identified with it. But it will have to go, and you will feel miserable and you will cry and you will weep – but that is your creation. If you had remained like a mirror there would be no problem. Whatsoever happens, happens. You remain undisturbed and undistracted.
