I am that witness

Questioner: On what side is the witness? Is it real or unreal?

Maharaj: Nobody can say: ‘I am the witness’. The ‘I am’ is always witnessed. 

The state of detached awareness is the witness consciousness, the ‘mirror-mind’. It rises and sets with its object and thus it is not quite the real. Whatever its object, it remains the same, hence it is also real. It partakes of both the real and the unreal and is therefore a bridge between the two.

Questioner: If all happens only to the ‘I am’, if the ‘I am’ is the known and the knower and the knowledge itself, what does the witness do?

Of what use is it?

Maharaj: It does nothing and is of no use whatsoever.

Questioner: Then why do we talk of it?

Maharaj: Because it is there. 

The bridge serves one purpose only —

to cross over. You don’t build houses on a bridge. The ‘I am’ looks at things, the witness sees through them. It sees them as they are — unreal and transient. 

To say ‘not me, not mine’ is the task of the witness.

Questioner: Is it the manifested (saguna) by which the unmanifested (nirguna) is represented?

Maharaj: The unmanifested is not represented. Nothing manifested can represent the unmanifested.

Questioner: Then why do you talk of it? 

Maharaj: Because it is my birthplace.

- Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Excerpt from the book: I am That. Ch. 78.