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Two Polacks were driving along in the front seat of their car. As they approached a corner, the one who was driving said to his friend, “Will you look out of the window and see if the indicator, the turn signal, is working?”
He promptly leaned out of the window and looked at the indicator light and shouted back at his friend, “Yes it is—no it’s not, yes it is—no it’s not, yes it is— no it’s not.”
Osho, if anybody were to ask me whether I was witnessing or not, my answer would have to be the same: Yes I am, no I’m not; yes I am, no I’m not. Is it like that all the way home?
It is not, because as far as your witnessing is concerned, it may be coming and going, and your answer may be perfectly the same as the Polack who said that the indicator is working, “Yes—no—yes again…” That is the function of the indicator; to be, not to be; to be, not to be. But don’t laugh at the poor Polack. As far as his awareness is concerned, he is fully aware. Whenever it is working he says yes; whenever it is not working he says no. His awareness of the indicator is continuous. The indicator goes on changing, but the Polack remains fully aware of when it is working, when it is not working, when it is on, when it is off. His awareness is a continuity.
If you can give the same answer about your witnessing: “Yes I am witnessing, no I am not witnessing, yes I am witnessing, no I am not witnessing,” then you have to remember that there is something more behind these witnessing moments that is witnessing all this process. Who is witnessing that sometimes you are witnessing and sometimes you are not witnessing?
Something is constant.
Your witnessing has become just an indicator; don’t be bothered by it. Your emphasis should be on the eternal, the constant, the continuum—and it is there. And it is in everyone, we have just forgotten it. But even in times when we have forgotten it, it is there in its absolute perfection. It is like a mirror which is able to mirror everything, is still mirroring everything, but you are standing with your back towards the mirror. The poor mirror is mirroring your back.
Turn, it will mirror your face.
Open your heart, it will mirror your heart.
Put everything on the table, don’t hide even a single card and it will reflect your whole reality. But if you go on standing with your back to the mirror looking all around the world asking people, “Who am I?” then it is up to you. Because there are idiots who will come and teach you that “This is the way. Do this and you will know who you are.”
No method is needed, just a 180-degree turn—and that is not a method. And the mirror is your very being.
You may not have looked at the joke in this light. If you tell the joke to anybody he is going to laugh because the Polack is so stupid, because that is the function of the indicator—to be on, off, on, off. But you have brought me a joke
—I cannot simply laugh at it because I see something more in it, which perhaps nobody else will see. The Polack is constant, alert. He does not miss a single point, a single moment.
And when you say “witnessing, yes” and then it disappears and you say “no”—again it appears, you say “yes”…it simply shows that there is something behind all these moments of witnessing and not witnessing. The true witness, which is reflecting the changing process of what you think is your witness, is behind. It is not the true witness, it is only the indicator.
Forget the indicator. Remember the constant mirroring that goes on twenty- four hours within you, silently watching everything. Slowly, slowly clean it— there is so much dust on it, centuries of dust. Remove the dust. And one day, when the mirror is completely clean, those moments of witnessing and not- witnessing will disappear; you will be simply a witness. And unless you find that
eternity of witnessing, all other kinds of witnessing are part of mind. They have no value.
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