Witness the objects, the contents, of the mind. Whatsoever passes before you, watch it, without evaluating, judging or condemning.

The essence of witnessing is the foundation of meditation. To witness the objects of the mind, you have to become a detached observer of your own mental landscape. It is like sitting by the side of a river, watching the flow of water. The river is your stream of consciousness, the flow of thoughts, emotions, memories, and sensations.

By watching without evaluating, judging, or condemning, you are not getting involved. You are not saying, “This is good, this is bad. I want this, I don’t want that.” You are simply observing.

Let’s take an example. Imagine a thought comes to you: “I am not good enough.” Now, ordinarily, you may either attach to this thought and feel bad or immediately try to suppress it, deny it, or replace it with a positive one. But to witness it means to simply observe it and say, “Ah, here is the thought that ‘I am not good enough.’” You neither accept it as truth nor throw it away as falsehood. You don’t need to act on it or react to it. You just acknowledge its presence.

This very act of witnessing changes the nature of the mind. When you watch the thoughts without getting entangled in them, they start losing their power over you. You will find that thoughts come and go, but you, the watcher, remain untouched, serene. Slowly, the space between thoughts will grow. In that space lies your true nature, which is pure consciousness, beyond the turmoil of the mind.

That is clarity. That is enlightenment. When you are not the thought, not the emotion, not the sensation, but the witness of all these, you become free. Remember, you are the sky, and thoughts are just clouds passing by. Don’t cling to the clouds, stay as the wide, open sky.