Witness, Not Watcher
The witness is not an entity that watches; it is the presence in which watching happens.
The subtle error
When Vedānta speaks of the sākṣin — the witness — it is easy to imagine a little homunculus inside the head, peering out at experience. A watcher behind the eyes.
This is precisely wrong.
What the texts actually say
The witness is not located anywhere. It does not have a position from which it watches. It is not an object among objects, however subtle.
The eye cannot see itself. The witness cannot witness itself as an object.
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad is explicit: “You cannot see the seer of seeing, hear the hearer of hearing, think the thinker of thinking.”
Presence, not entity
Better to say: the witness is the presence in which all experience appears. Not a thing that is present, but presence itself. Not awareness of something, but awareness as such.
Why this matters
If you look for the witness as an object, you will never find it — and you will conclude it doesn’t exist. But the looking itself is happening in the witness. The search is already the answer, misrecognized.
A pointer
Stop looking for what is aware. Notice that looking is already appearing in awareness. Rest there.
Version notes
- v1.0 — initial publication.