Witnessing Is The Key To Spiritual life

Anecdotes

oi-Priya Devi

By Priya Devi

Tuesday, May 31, 2011, 11:58

“Witnessing is the golden key to spirituality," says Osho. A short story conveys the truth.

It was the regular practice of a mystic named Bal Shem to go out at midnight and sit by the river in absolute silence.

A watchman of a nearby mansion was intrigued by the strange behavior of the mystic. One day when Baal Shem appeared at the stroke of the clock at midnight, the watchman hurried to him and asked,

“Sir why do you come out everyday in the night and sit here silently in darkness?"

Baal Shem, instead of answering, shot a question back.
“What is your work?"

“I work as a watchman" said he.

Baal Shem said, “Well I am a watchman too"

The surprised watchman asked, “But if you are a watchman what are you doing here every night?"

Baal Shem replied, “You watch someone's house, but I watch my own house! Wherever I go, I carry my house, but I am continuously the watchman!"

Osho says that the art of witnessing (looking inwards) is the key to spiritual life. He urges to witness one's dark moments.

Osho urges one to get into the habit of witnessing. If those witnessed disappear, Osho says that they are bound to be faulty. But when they become more clearer, they are absorbed. This kind of witnessing defines good and bad or sin and virtue. Those that disappear are sins and those which are absorbed are virtues.

That which is absorbed is good and that which disappears is bad. There is no other means to distinguish good and bad other than witnessing. Further more witnessing leads one beyond virtue and vice to ultimate freedom or spiritual freedom.