The Acid Diaries (Christopher Gray) / quote 88 of 125
Standing apart as the pure witness
Again I found a luminously clear reflection of what had happened in Nisargadatta Maharaj. Consciousness coming apart from its identification with matter plays a crucial role in I Am That. Speaking of meditation, Nisargadatta says: When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure witness. We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer and stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two. The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining oneself to be something: “I am this, I am that,” continues, but only as a part of the objective world. Its identification with the witness snaps. That described it perfectly . . . aside from “snaps” seeming a somewhat understated way of describing being torn in two. To “stand apart in pure awareness” you have to let go of absolutely everything. To all intents and purposes you have to die; and the terror I felt at dying was what kept blocking me.