Only a witness can really dance

You continually encourage us to “be aware,” to “be a witness.” But can a witnessing consciousness really sing, dance and taste life? Isn’t a “witness” a mere spectator of life and never a participant?

Mind is bound to raise this question sooner or later, because mind is very much afraid of you becoming a witness. Why is the mind so much afraid of you becoming a witness? Because becoming a witness is the death of the mind. Mind is a doer—it wants to do things—and witnessing is a state of non-doing. The mind is afraid that, “If you become a witness, I will not be needed any more.” And in a way the mind is right.

Once the witness arises in you the mind has to disappear, just as when you bring light into your room and the darkness has to disappear; it is inevitable.

Mind can exist only if you remain fast asleep because mind is a state of dreaming, and dreams can exist only in sleep.

By becoming a witness you are no longer asleep; you are awake. You become awareness—so crystal-clear, so young and fresh, so vital and potent. You become a flame, intense, as if burning from both ends. In that state of intensity, light, of consciousness, mind dies, mind commits suicide.

Hence the mind is afraid, and mind will create many problems for you. It will raise many, many questions. It will make you hesitate to take the jump into the unknown; it will try to pull you back. It will try to convince you: “With me is safety, security; with me you are living under a shelter, well guarded. I take every care of you. With me you are efficient, skillful. The moment you leave me you will have to leave all your knowledge, and you will have to leave all your securities, safeties. You will have to drop your armor and you will be going into the unknown. You are unnecessarily taking a risk for no reason at all.” It will try to bring beautiful rationalizations. This is one of the rationalizations which almost always happens to every meditator.

It is not you who is asking the question; it is the mind, your enemy, who is putting the question through you. It is mind who is saying “Osho, you continuously tell us to ‘be aware’, to ‘be a witness.’ But can a witnessing

consciousness really sing, dance and taste life?”

Yes! In fact, only a witnessing consciousness can really sing, dance and taste life. It will appear like a paradox—it is! But all that is true is always paradoxical. Remember: if truth is not paradoxical then it is not truth at all, then it is something else.

Paradox is a basic, intrinsic quality of truth. Let it sink into your heart forever: truth as such is paradoxical. Although all paradoxes are not truths, all truths are paradoxes. The truth has to be a paradox because it has to be both poles, the negative and the positive, and yet a transcendence. It has to be life and death, and plus. By ‘plus’ I mean the transcendence of both—both, and both not. That is the ultimate paradox.

When you are in the mind, how can you sing? The mind creates misery; out of misery there can be no song. When you are in the mind, how can you dance? Yes, you can go through certain empty gestures called dance, but it is not a real dance.

Only a Meera knows a real dance, or a Krishna, or a Chaitanya; these are the people who know real dance. Others know only the technique of dancing, but there is nothing overflowing; their energies are stagnant. People who are living in the mind are living in the ego, and the ego cannot dance. It can make a performance but not a dance.

The real dance happens only when you have become a witness. Then you are so blissful that the very bliss starts overflowing you; that is the dance. The very bliss starts singing, a song arises on its own accord. And only when you are a witness can you taste life.

I can understand your question. You are worried that by becoming a witness you will become merely a spectator of life. No, to be a spectator is one thing, and to be a witness is a totally different thing, qualitatively different.

A spectator is indifferent; he is dull, he is in a kind of sleep. He does not participate in life. He is afraid, he is a coward. He stands by the side of the road and simply goes on seeing others living. That’s what you are doing all your life: somebody else acts in a movie and you see it. You are a spectator! People are glued to their chairs for hours together before their TVs—spectators. Somebody else is singing, you are listening. Somebody else is dancing, you are just a spectator. Somebody else is loving and you are just seeing, you are not a participant. Professionals are doing what you should have done on your own.

A witness is not a spectator.

Then what is a witness? A witness is one who participates yet remains alert.

A witness is in the state of wei-wu-wei. That is Lao Tzu’s word; it means action through inaction. A witness is not one who has escaped from life. He lives in life, lives far more totally, far more passionately, but yet remains a watcher deep down, goes on remembering, “I am a consciousness.”

Try it. Walking on the road, remember that you are a consciousness. Walking continues, and a new thing is added—a new richness is added, a new beauty.

Something interior is added to the outward act. You become a flame of consciousness, and then the walking has a totally different joy to it: you are on the earth and yet your feet are not touching the earth at all.

That’s what Buddha has said: Pass through a river but don’t let the water touch your feet.

That’s the meaning of the Eastern symbol of the lotus. You must have seen Buddha’s statues, pictures, sitting on a lotus; that is a metaphor. A lotus is a flower that lives in the water and yet the water cannot touch it. The lotus does not escape to the Himalayan caves; he lives in the water and yet remains far, far away. Being in the marketplace but not allowing the marketplace to enter into your being, living in the world and yet not of the world: that is what is meant by ‘witnessing consciousness.’

That’s what I mean by saying to you again and again: Be aware! I am not against action, but your action has to be enlightened by awareness. Those who are against action, they are bound to be repressive, and all kinds of repressions make you pathological, not whole, not healthy.

The monks living in the monasteries—Catholic or Hindu, the monks of the Jainas and the Buddhists—who have escaped from life are not true sannyasins. They have simply repressed their desires and they have moved away from the world, the world of action. Where can you be a witness if you move away from the world of action? The world of action is the best opportunity to be aware. It gives you a challenge, it remains constantly a challenge. Either you can fall asleep and become a doer—then you are a worldly man, a dreamer, a victim of illusions; or you can become a witness and yet go on living in the world. Then your action has a different quality to it: it is really action. Those who are not aware, their actions are not real actions but reactions. They only react.

Somebody insults you and you react. Insult the Buddha—he does not react, he acts. Reaction is dependent on the other: he pushes a button and you are only a victim, a slave; you function like a machine.

The real person who knows what awareness is never reacts; he acts out of his own awareness. The action does not come from the other’s act; nobody can push

his button. If he feels spontaneously that this is right to do, he does it; if he feels nothing is needed he keeps quiet. He is not repressive; he is always open, expressive. His expression is multi-dimensional: in song, in poetry, in dance, in love, in prayer, in compassion, he flows.

If you don’t become aware, then there are only two possibilities: either you will be repressive or indulgent. In both ways you remain in bondage.

A nun was raped just outside the monastery. When she was finally found, she was carried inside and the nearby physician was called.

He came, raised his hands and said, “This is work for a plastic surgeon!”

A plastic surgeon was called. When he saw the poor nun he exclaimed. “Oh, my God! What a mess! Where should I start?”

The Mother Superior replied, “Well, that is easy. First get that smile off her face!” 1

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