Sakshi

Sakshi

Not an experience,

for all experience flickers and fades.

Not a state,

for all states arrive in time

and leave in space.

I am not what appears.

I am that to which appearing happens.

The seer never becomes the seen.

The knower never steps into the known.

Between them dances a fragile divide,

but I…

I am the light in which both arise.

The body is known.

The eye is known.

The mind is known.

Even the absence of mind

is quietly known in deep sleep.

Speech ripples,

silence deepens,

thoughts parade,

their absence too,

All are witnessed.

None are me.

Who am I?

Not the knower,

for the knower comes and goes

like a title worn for a moment.

Hearer, seer, thinker, feeler,

roles assumed, roles dissolved.

I am not “this” or “that”

I,

just am.

Sat,

quietly undeniable.

I,

self-reveal

never needing a mirror

Chit,

the light behind all lights.

 

I,

am the ananda,

limitless joy.

 

I pervade time and space

Ahankara flickers

like a thought trying to be solid.

Sometimes present,

sometimes gone,

but I watch both arrival and departure of the ahankara.

Even in sleep,

where mind dissolves into night,

I return and say,

“I slept.”

The final dissolving tripod

known,

knowing,

knower,

all sink back

like waves in the ocean

The wave rises—water is.

Wave falls—water is.

The moon borrows light from sun,

mind borrows from Atma.

Mind changes,

I do not.

I am the thread

stringing all beads into one,

connecting the past with the present

connecting the present with the future

Sakshi, they call me,

witness.

But even that is a name

placed upon the nameless.

The sun does not think, “I illumine.”

It simply shines.

So too,

I do not witness

I just be.

unnegatable negator

unobjectifiable subject

unexperienceable experience

Unattached.

Unmoved.

Unbroken.

Asanga.

That is me!