The Observer and the Witness

From the point of view of the observer, behind the phenomenal (the appearance) is the noumenal (the unknowable ground of the appearance). The observer is also a phenomenon in the form of a subtle thought-feeling localized in time and space. Behind the observer is also the noumenal.

From the standpoint of the witnessing Self however, all phenomena including time and space as well as the elusive ‘observer’ are within. The noumenal, although not directly perceived, is also within. The nature of the witnessing self is pure consciousness, pure intelligence.

The analogy of a movie screen to describe the witnessing consciousness is apt (in so far as concerns the superimposition of the appearance on pure consciousness), but is also misleading in that a movie screen is a flat surface, whereas the Self is dimensionless. After a certain stage of self-enquiry there comes the direct intuition or realization that the totality of the world-appearance (including the observer) is contained within and permeated by the Self. The Self is itself unmoving, yet within it is the apprehension of movement. It encompasses and surpasses all time and space, all that is known and unknowable, and the universe is felt to be floating within it, weightless so to speak.