By Frank M. Wanderer, The Mind Unleashed, September 14, 2015

In the past century, a lot of people realized that their real identity was the Presence, the Alertness, the ever present now. There is only one Truth (although when it is wrapped in words, it may appear differently, as words are easy to misunderstand), and that Truth is the Witnessing Presence. The testimony of Awareness and Presence of some Awakened Witnesses (the list is not complete):

Eckhart Tolle

“Once the desperate escape from the Now is over, the joy of Existence pours into all your deeds. As soon as you focus your attention on the Now, you will be filled with a sense of Presence, tranquility and peace.If your actions are rooted in the Consciousness of the Present moment (that is, Witnessing), no matter what you do –even the most common actions– will be characterised by quality, care and love.”

Adyashanti

 “It is not frightening to be something. It is not frightening to be somebody. If you are not somebody or something, you are a pure soul.  You are a pure Awakened Presence (Witnessing Presence). Not somebody, who has woken up, not I, who have woken up, no somebody who is enlightened. The Awakenedness (the Witness) has woken up! The inner emptiness is what I call a little secret of mankind. If we watch inward, and we see that directly beyond the mind we are not somebody’s son or daughter, mother or father. These are roles that happen. There is something primary that preceeds all those roles. This is not a good somebody or a bad somebody. Something beyond all that. That is behind the mind (the Witnessing Presence). That is what is looking out of your eyes and my eyes. The same nobodiness, the same nothingness. The nothingness of our own Existence. The nobodiness (the Witness).”

 Mooji

„To do things in life it doesn’t make you a person. It’s you thinking you are a person. Going and cooking, doing this or that it does not make you a person. A Buddha has to cook and eat as well. He has to wash his face it does not make him a person. So don’t think to not be a person I should not do anything. That’s another thought you don’t need this thought. You are you. You are That. Inside you know who you are (Witnessing Presence).”

Osho

 “Just as you cannot be dead or alive at the same time, you cannot sleep and be awake at the same time, you cannot think and witness at the same time. Contemplate something as a Wittness, and you will cease to be thinking. As thinking begins, witnessing vanishes. If you look depeer in your mind, it disappears.You will recognize that thoughts are like clouds: they come and go. But you are the sky above them, the Witness.”

Krishnamurti

 “Searching for deeper, more transcendental experience is one of the ways of running away from reality, and it is the work of our trained mind. Why would an alert, intelligent, free Consciousness need any kind of “experience?” Light is light – you do not ask for more of it. I do not know whether you have ever noticed that when you are in a perfect alertness, silence is complete. In this attention there is no limit, no center, no “I,” who is conscious or attentive. This attention, this silence is the state meditation (Witnessing Presence). Do not try to look other than what you are, because any kind of pretence dims the clear light of Truth that has to shine through you like sunlight shines through clear glass.”

 Various Dimensions of the Truth

Adyashanti suggests that you should imagine that you are in the land of alien creatures where you find that every strange creature has their own personal image of themselves, and they have a personal story running in their heads. But you see that none of the stories is true. It is crystal clear for you that we could take the whole thing and throw it out of the window, the creatures would come to no harm. In reality, it is not the stories that live their own life, but the light of Consciousness. The roles and stories of the mind only distort, break and absorb that light.

In reality we human beings are embodiments of that light, but we still believe in our fantasies instead. It is sheer madness if we think into it. We only fail to realize the Truth because everybody else makes the same mistake. Generally approved opinion makes people accept that madness. Out of the stories running in your mind (even the stories of the highest order, rich in spiritual experience) none is identical with you. On the contrary: your real Self is best described with the lack of stories and roles.

Read more articles from Frank M. Wanderer