We start making every child ambitious, and ambition means you cannot love; ambition is anti-love. Ambition needs fight, ambition needs struggle, ambition needs you to use others as a means.
RajneeshRead
There is a difference. You watch television, you don't witness it. But, while watching television, if you start witnessing yourself watching television, then there are two processes going on: you are watching television, and something within you is witnessing the process of watching television. Witnessing is deeper, far deeper. It is not equivalent to watching. Watching is superficial. So remember that meditation is witnessing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the difference between passively observing and actively engaging with one's consciousness.
In this quote, Rajneesh highlights the distinction between simply watching something, like television, and the deeper act of 'witnessing'—an introspective awareness of one's own thoughts and feelings. He suggests that while watching is a superficial activity, witnessing requires a more profound connection to the self, akin to the practice of meditation. This concept implies that true understanding and mindfulness come from being aware of the processes of our perceptions rather than just passively experiencing them.
Themes
WitnessingMeditationAwarenessObservationConsciousness
In practice
Example use cases
In a meditation workshop, I quoted Rajneesh to illustrate the importance of self-awareness.
More from Rajneesh
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Creativity has two possibilities. One is that it arises out of your silence, love, understanding, your clarity of vision, your intimate friendliness with existence - then creativity is healthy. But if it does not arise out of meditation, out of silence and peace and understanding and love, then there is a danger. It may be arising out of your confused mind. It may be arising out of your insanity.
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There is no separate art of life. If you know how to allow poetry, if you know how to allow dance, if you know how to allow love - if you know how to ALLOW, then you know the art of life. In the allowing, in the let-go, in the surrender, is the art of life. How not to be and to let God be - that is the only art of life.
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Love is not a relationship, love is a state of being; it has nothing to do with anybody else. One is not "in love", one is love. And of course when one is love, one is in love – but that is an outcome, a by-product, that is not the source. The source is that one is love.
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