Beyond the witnessing state - Balsekar

[Guest guest]

AMIT GOSWAMI:

Balsekarji, I have a final question. When you are not seeing people, what's

your day like? Just curious.

 

RAMESH BALSEKAR:

Yes, what happens, I will tell you exactly what happens. Someone who came

to see me, in fact he was the first person who came, who invited me to the

States and subsequently I started going to the States. The door was always

open here, we kept the elevator locked. So about this time, I unlocked the

elevator. So he came through it, he came in and I was sitting on the chair

with my eyes closed. So, Henry just came in and quietly sat in his place.

And after a while, there must have been some sound or he may have coughed.

So, I looked, and I said, " Henry you are here! " He said " Wait, before we

start our conversation, tell me what state of mind were you in? " So I said,

" I haven't thought about it, but I can only tell you what it is. When you

came in, it was witnessed that you are here and the working mind took over.

When you leave there is nothing to witness. So the witnessing stops. "

So, when there is nothing to witness, the witnessing state goes deeper into

what I call non-witnessing state, because there is nothing to witness. If

there is something to witness, there is a witnessing. The non-witnessing

state and the witnessing state are so close, it's like an automatic change

of gears, you see.

 

So, witnessing does not need any effort. And in that non-witnessing state,

if it is not disturbed for a while, then that non-witnessing state goes

into a deeper state which may be called samadhi. But in the non-witnessing

state, Consciousness is still there. What I call the non-witnessing state,

is what Ramana Maharshi calls sahasastriti, and he made it quite clear,

sahasastriti is not samadhi. In the sahasastriti, Consciousness is there.

Therefore the sounds are heard, the smells are smelled, but there is no

individual to respond to the senses. So that is what I told Henry, I would

call it the non-witnessing state, which Ramana Maharshi calls sahasastriti,

the natural state. So, it's either one or the other, you see, either

witnessing or non-witnessing.