There is a lot of difference between “being aware” and “being a witness.” Being a witness is an act; you are doing it, the ego is there. So the phenomenon of being a witness is divided between the subject and the object.
Being a witness is a relationship between subject and object. Being conscious is completely devoid of any subjectivity or objectivity.
There is no one watching when you are aware; no one is being watched. Being conscious is a total, integrated act; the subject and the object are not related in it; they have dissolved.
So being aware does not mean that there is someone to be aware, nor does it mean that there is anything to be aware of.
Being aware is something total. A total subjectivity and a total objectivity, as a single phenomenon. Meanwhile, in being a witness, there is a duality between subject and object. Being aware does not imply any action; being a witness implies an executor.
But through being a witness, it is possible to be conscious, because being a witness means that it is a conscious act. It is an act, but conscious.
You can do something and be unconscious; our ordinary activity is unconscious activity, but if you become conscious in it, witnessing appears.
So, from normal unconscious activity to conscious being, there is a gap that can be bridged by being a witness.
Witnessing is a technique, a method, towards being conscious. It is not being conscious, but compared to ordinary activity, unconscious activity, it is one step higher.
Something has changed, the activity has become conscious; unconsciousness has been replaced by consciousness. But there is something else that still has to be changed.
And it is this: activity has to be replaced by inactivity. That will be the second step.
It is difficult to jump from ordinary, unconscious action to being conscious. It is possible, but difficult, so an intermediate step is helpful. If one starts out as a witness to conscious activity, then the jump becomes easier; the leap into being conscious without there being any conscious object, without any conscious subject, without any conscious activity at all. That is not to say that being conscious is not consciousness; it is pure awareness, but there is no one who is aware of it.
There is still a difference between awareness and being aware. Consciousness is a quality of your mind, but it is not the totality of your mind.
Your mind can be both conscious and unconscious, but when you transcend your mind, there is no longer unconsciousness and there is no corresponding consciousness.
There is being conscious. To be aware means that the whole mind has become aware. Now the old mind is no longer there, but there is the quality of being aware.
Being aware has become the whole; the mind itself is now part of the conscious being.
We cannot ask that the mind be conscious; we can only say for certain that the mind is consciousness. To be aware means to transcend the mind, so it is not the mind that is aware. Only through the transcendence of the mind, dispensing with the mind, does conscious being become possible.
Consciousness is a quality of the mind; to be conscious is to transcend it, is to go beyond the mind.
The mind, as such, is the medium of duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. She is always aware of something, and there is always someone who is aware.
So consciousness is a part of the mind, and the mind as such is the origin of all duality, of all division, whether it is between subject and object, between activity or inactivity, or between consciousness and unconsciousness.
All kinds of duality is mental. Being aware is non-dual, so being aware refers to the state of no-mind.
What then is the relationship between consciousness and being a witness? Witnessing is a state, and consciousness is a means to witnessing. If you start being aware, you become a witness. If you start being aware of your actions, aware of everything you do on a daily basis, aware of everything around you, then you start observing.
Being a witness comes as a consequence of consciousness. You cannot practice being a witness; you can only practice awareness. Witnessing comes as a consequence, as a shadow, as a result, as a by-product.
The more aware you become, the more you go into being a witness, the more a witness you become.
Thus, awareness is a method of attaining witnessing. And the second step is that being a witness will become the method to reach awareness.
So those are the three steps: awareness, witnessing, awareness. But we are in the lowest step, that is, in the unconscious activity. Unconscious activity is the state of our minds.
Through awareness you can become a witness, and through witnessing you can become aware, and through awareness you can become ‘attaining nothing’.
By being conscious you can achieve everything that has already been achieved. After the conscious being there is nothing; being aware is the end.
Being aware is the end of spiritual progress; not being aware is the beginning. Not being conscious is a state of material existence.
So unawareness and unconsciousness are not the same. Not being conscious implies matter. Matter is not unconscious; it is not being aware.
Animal existence is an unconscious existence; human existence is a mental phenomenon: ninety-nine percent unconscious and one percent conscious.
This one percent awareness implies that you are one percent aware of your ninety-nine percent unconsciousness.
But if you become aware of your own awareness, then one percent will go on increasing, and ninety-nine percent unconscious will go on decreasing.
If you become one hundred percent conscious, it makes you a witness, a saksin. If you become a saksin, you will have reached the launch point from which the leap into consciousness is possible.
In conscious being, you lose the witness and only the act of observing remains. The one who observes is lost, you lose subjectivity, you lose egocentric consciousness. Then egoless awareness remains. The circumference remains without the center.
This circumference without the center is the conscious being. Conscious being is consciousness without any center, without any origin, without any motivation, without any center from which it proceeds; a consciousness without origin.
This is why you go from the existence that is not conscious—matter, prakriti—to the conscious being. You can call it the divine, the sacred, or whatever you want to call it.
Between matter and the divine, the difference is always consciousness.
OSHO-Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy, chapter 13
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