Question – Osho, Would you please speak a little on Witnessing and The Heart. Can they be experienced simultaneously?
Osho – Deva Darshan, WITNESSING AND THE HEART ARE ONE AND THE same thing. Witnessing is not of the mind; mind can never be a witness. When you start witnessing, mind becomes the witnessed not the witness, it is the observed not the observer. You see your thoughts moving, your desires, your fantasies, your memories, your dreams — just as you see things moving on the screen of a film. But you are not identified with them.
That non-identification is what is meant by witnessing. Then who is the witness? Mind is being seen, then who is the seer? It is the heart.
So the heart and witnessing are not two things. If you witness, you will be centered in the heart; or if you are centered in the heart, you will become a witness. These are two processes to reach the same goal. The lover, the devotee, never thinks of witnessing; he simply tries to reach the heart, the source of his being. Once he has reached the heart, witnessing comes of its own accord.
The meditator never thinks of love and the heart; he starts by witnessing. But once witnessing is there, the heart opens, because there is no other place from where to witness: The path of the meditator and the path of the devotee are different, but they culminate in one experience. At the ultimate point they reach the same peak.
You can choose the path, but you cannot choose the goal — because there are not two goals, there is only one goal. Of course, if you have followed the path of a devotee, you will not talk of witnessing when you have arrived — you will talk of love. If you have followed the path of meditation you will not talk of love when you have arrived — you will talk of witnessing. The difference is only of words, language, expression — but that which is expressed is one and the same reality.
Source – Osho Book “The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty”