Osho : Remember this word ’witness’. This is one of the key words in the search for spirituality. If you can understand this word and practice it, you don’t need anything else. Even this one key will open all the doors of paradise. This is a master key. Any lock can be opened by it. What does it mean to stand aside?
When sex arises in you, you get identified with it. Then, when you have moved through the sex act, depression sets in, because you hoped so much and nothing has happened. You longed too much, you expected too much, and nothing has happened. The whole thing has just been a fraud. You feel betrayed, deceived. Then repentance sets in and you start thinking in anti-sex terms. You start thinking how to be brahmacharya, how to be a celibate.
You think in terms of how to be a monk; you go against sex. Then you get identified with that ’anti’ attitude. Witnessing means that when sex arises, stand aside and look at it. Don’t get identified. Don’t say, ”I have become sex.” Say, ”Sexual desire has arisen in me. Now I must observe it.” Don’t be for it and don’t be against it. Remain quiet and calm – just an observer.
That doesn’t mean to suppress it, because suppression wiD not allow you to know what it is. Don’t suppress it. Suppression means that you are identified with the ’anti’ attitude. Remember this: if you suppress, you are identified with the ’anti’ attitude. Don’t suppress, don’t get identified. Allow it to happen. Don’t be afraid; just wait and watch.
Move in the sex act but with a watchful eye, knowing well what is happening and allowing it to happen. Not disturbing it, not suppressing it – allowing it to become manifest in its totality, but standing aside as if you are watching someone else. The act will move to its peak. Go with it, but always standing by the side. Know whatsoever is happening in detail. Be alert; don’t lose awareness. Then, from the peak, you will start falling down and the ’anti’ attitude will set in. Be alert again. Don’t get identified with the ’anti’ attitude.
Look at what is happening: the wave has gone up to a peak; now the wave is falling down. Sex is the wave arising. brahmacharya, the ’anti’ attitude toward sex, is the wave falling down. Be aware, be alert. Don’t be for or against; don’t condemn; don’t make any judgement. Don’t be a judge; just be a witness. Don’t say, ”This is good. That is bad.” Don’t say anything. Just be alert and watch what is happening. Be true to the facts; don’t give any interpretation. That’s what witnessing means.
If you can be a witness to sex, and to the anti-sex attitude, you will come to a great understanding. That understanding will tell you that sex and anti-sex are two poles of one wave. They are not really opposite to one another. They are just the rising and falling down of the same wave. They are one, so there is nothing to choose. If you choose one you have already chosen the other, because it is part of it, the hidden part of it.
If you choose one you have already chosen the other because the other cannot be separated from it. They are one, so there is no choice. Then, choicelessness happens to you. That choicelessness is the path of victory. Now you don’t choose; there is nothing to choose. And a miracle happens: when you don’t choose, both fall down. Sex and brahmacharya both disappear and for the first time you are not in their clutches, for the first time you are not in the hold of the opposites.
Witnessing is the beginning, and witnessing is the end. The first step and the last step are one. Witnessing is the means and witnessing is the goal. Then the fight goes on, but you are not the warrior. Now the fighting is on a different level. What is that level?
Now, sex and anti-sex are both present to you simultaneously. This simultaneous presence of the opposites is the fight. They fight with each other, and you remain a witness. Because they are opposites, anti-poles, they destroy each other completely and both disappear. They are of the same strength and the same energy. They cut each other, they negate each other.
This is the fight. But you are not the warrior; you are just a witness. You are just looking from without: a watcher on the hills. Down in the valley the fight will go on, but now you are just a watcher on the tower. You just look down and you know they are fighting; the opposites are fighting. But they negate each other, because they are of the same strength.
Remember this: only a very deeply sexual person can become a brahmacharya. Much sexual desire can be converted into brahmacharya. If you are just ordinarily sexual you cannot become a brahmacharya because to become a brahmacharya much energy is needed. And the opposite energies are always equivalent, so only very deeply sexual persons become brahmacharyas. Ordinary persons, with ordinary, natural sex, never move to that extreme.
They cannot. The energy to move comes from sex. Opposite energies are equivalent. You need not fight; you need not take part from this side or that side. That is the way of defeat. Just remain aside, get out of the circle – be a witness. It is difficult, because the mind wants to choose; the mind always chooses. Mind is the chooser because, without choosing, there will be no mind; you will fall out of the mind. That’s why it is so difficult not to choose.
Even what I am saying…. Many of you may choose to follow what I am saying, but you will choose to do so for a reason. People come to me and when I say, ”Be a witness,” they immediately ask, ”If I become a witness will sexuality disappear?” Then they cannot become a witness because they have already chosen. They ask, ”Will sexuality disappear if I become a witness?” They are even ready to become a witness if sexuality will disappear!
But they have made a choice. They have decided that sexuality is bad and brahmacharya is good. They ask me, ”If I become a witness will I become brahmacharya, will I become celibate?” They are missing the whole point. I am saying, ”Don’t choose,” and they have already chosen. They want to use witnessing as an instrument for their choice. But you cannot use witnessing that way.