What are the three steps to enlightenment: witnessing, choiceless awareness, and suchness?

One of your old sannyasins says that there are three steps to enlightenment -- witnessing, choiceless awareness, suchness. What do you say?

THE QUESTION HAS NOT BEEN SIGNED. I don't like questions which are not signed, because the person who is not signing his question is being very cowardly. You don't want to say that you have a question. You want to hide that fact. It always happens to knowledgeable people -- they don't want to ask a question because that shows that they are ignorant. But if you are ignorant, you are ignorant! Accept the fact. Through that acceptance, some transcendence is possible. And what is the fear? If you cannot even ask a question, how will you be able to receive the ansWer? A question deeply, rightly asked prepares the ground for the answer to be received. When you are committed to a question, when you are involved in it, when it is a life-and-death problem to you, then only will you understand the answer. Otherwise the answer will be…

Osho, what I am doing in this carries a kind of sense of awakening—I am trying, making an effort; whether it will happen or not, I don’t know. Yet it is happening—like when I do some work with my hand, I keep remembering that the hand is doing it; the legs are doing it; when I am walking, the legs are walking. This feeling is arising. In this, I separate myself, so from this that nonattachment...

Yes, this is the witness-attitude. This is exactly the third thing I have been speaking about—the witnessing. This witnessing means living each act totally, and keeping the sense of suchness (tathata), that things are as they are. There is simply no reason in anything for us to move into turmoil; there is no reason at all. If these three come together and are cared for, then slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly the present by itself... and nothing else will remain; the present will arrive of its own accord. There is no reason for anything else to remain; there is no way for it. And about suchness, what I said today needs much attention. It is very basic.

Osho, in the context of the practice of heedfulness (apramad), please explain the similarities and differences among the practices of witnessing, awareness, and tathata.

One more thought on tathata. A Zen fakir wrote a small song: “The geese fly across the sky. They have no desire that their reflections be formed in the still lake below. Yet the reflections form. The blue lake has no desire to catch the reflections of the geese. Yet the reflections are caught. Then the geese fly on and the reflections also fly away. The geese do not know they were caught in the lake; the lake does not know that the reflections aroused any curiosity, any stir, any disturbance in its bosom.” Tathata means such a being. Things happen. He is ready for all—wants to do nothing and has no complaint. That is why one of Buddha’s names is Tathagata. He loved that name. Even speaking of himself he would say, “The Tathagata passed through a certain village.” Tathagata means one who has attained tathata—thus come, thus gone.…

The moment you witness something you become separate from it, you are the witness, the thing becomes an object -- the witnessed. If you are walking on the road, and you are also witnessing that you are walking -- not going along just like a robot, mechanical, everyday habit, the road is known, the legs know it, you can even walk with closed eyes. But walking with absolute alertness every step, every fall of a leaf, every ray of the sun, every bird flying in front of you, fully alert... slowly, slowly, you become aware that you are not the body that is walking, you are something inside which is witnessing. Once you have witnessed your body, you have got the knack of the method. Then you start witnessing your thoughts -- sitting silently, just watching the rush of thoughts, not interfering, not saying, "This is good. This is bad.

Osho, please explain the difference between sakshi (witnessing) and tathata (suchness).

So, better to be powerful than to be nerveless and powerless. Even among the powerful, there are journeys of the auspicious and the inauspicious. Better to be powerful and be on the auspicious journey. If the auspicious journey of power proceeds rightly, it will bring you to witnessing. If the inauspicious journey proceeds, you will not reach witnessing; you will remain lost in the power of resolve. Then there will be mesmerism, hypnotism, tantra, mantra, sorcery and witchcraft of all kinds. But there will be no journey of the soul. That is a derailment—power, but gone astray. If power takes the auspicious path, witnessing is born. For ultimately, when power arises, a man can use it to know and attain himself—that is its auspicious journey. To use it to subdue another, to possess another, to tighten one’s grip on another—that is the inauspicious journey, black magic. To use power to…