When the Eighth Sense reveals itself from the tenderness of the Ninth Sense, we give our experience over to what we might call a “conscious awareness.” We have previously called this Knowing. Using the capital “K” implies that it is an unattached version of recognition, far different from the regular, attached, egoic, lower case “k” knowing that categorizes, compartmentalizes, and evaluates our experiences. Knowing is consciously sourced from the Ninth Sense, and the Witness is nothing other than an unattached Knower. The “attached knower,” on the other hand, may simply be seen as the ego. So while the Witness and the ego are not separate, it’s critical to recognize that they are not the same. Because the Witness can observe the activity of ego, it is always beyond ego’s limitations and actions.
While the Witness isn’t an object of the mind that can be known by the senses of the body or by the constructs of the mind, it can be experienced by itself as itself. To be sure, words can get in the way at this point. There is not much that we can really say about the ineffable since doing so only limits the experience as an attachment to a thought. The Witness is simply a name, a concept, a template we throw over an experiential Knowing that can’t be grasped. The name is only a thing that points us in the direction of the Path up the Mountain. And the Path is the continual surrender of all things, even of the concepts that support an ever-deepening understanding. Despite the fact that we don’t want to turn any of this into an intellectual exercise, we can say that by following the Witness to its source, we Awaken.
Those who have fearlessly walked the Path before us point this out in their teaching. The Buddha, for example, suggested that attachments fall away as soon as the ego and its structures are witnessed, when he says, “House builder you have now been seen; you shall not build the house again.” Christ does the same thing telling us that witnessing our interior shows us that which is beyond the ego when he says, “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” Teresa of Avila tells us that in our still observation of all that is, we see that, “All things pass; God never changes. Patience attains all that it strives for. He who has God finds he lacks nothing: God alone suffices.” Plotinus tells us even more directly to “Withdraw into yourself and look… cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow or beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue, until you see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.” Aurobindo also suggests, “To have a developed intellect is always helpful if one can enlighten it from above and turn it to a divine use.” While Sri Ramana Maharshi carries this a step further when he suggests that instead of indulging in mental speculations about Enlightenment, each of us should devote ourselves to witnessing the “here and now, to the search for the Truth that is ever within you.”
The shared gift of these sages was to map this process for us so that we might climb to the top of the Mountain of Spirit on our own. Doing so shows us that this Witness, this Eighth Sense, this direct connection with Spirit, can be realized as what’s underneath, above, and throughout all experience. As such, the Eighth Sense, like the sky, like God, doesn’t move. It’s just there, like a “stainless shrine.” Always. It doesn’t make a sound, but is rather the source of all sound. It is not familiar to our bodily senses, since it is the source of all sensation. As the source of all things that arise within us and without us, it cannot be said to have substance. In fact, it is forever, the vast and totally still space between and around all substance. It is the all-encompassing Source of an Ultimate Life. It is Spirit. It is the Now. It is Awareness. It is the Truth that is always within you, waiting to be uncovered as your most sacred presence. It is the radical, unquantifiable fullness of Emptiness that both surpasses and embraces all form.
Aligning ourselves from this clear, unattached space beyond time and mind becomes a practice of perpetual Knowing. Orienting our actions from here, we see that this space is not “empty” in the conventional sense, but is a total and complete fulfillment without any boundary; a placeless place that is totally complete; an openness where nothing is lacking. It is a seamless monument to the still presence that always and forever shows itself as a divine expression of wisdom.
