Why do I continue to feel dazed despite experiencing moments of serenity and harmony while witnessing?

For years I am most of the time witnessing and I feel it like a disease. So is it that there are two kinds of witnessing and mine is wrong? Tell me.

And only then can the third step be taken, which will bring you close to what Gurdjieff calls self-remembering, or Krishnamurti calls awareness, or the Upanishads call witnessing. But first the two steps have to be fulfilled; then the third comes easy. Don't start doing the third immediately. First the object, then the consciousness, then the subject. Once the object is dropped and the emphasis on the consciousness is no longer a strain, the subject is there but there is no subjectivity in it. You are there but there is no "I" in it, just being. You are, but there is no feeling that "I am." That confinement of "I" has disappeared; only amness exists. That amness is divine. Drop the "I" and just be that amness. And if you have been working too long on witnessing, then for a few months, at least for three months, drop it completely,…

Osho does witnessing always bring joy? The moments that I call witnessing sometimes feel distant -- almost cold in their neutrality. Other times it is like sprouting wings and soaring in joy over the open sea.

THE STATE OF WITNESSING IS NEITHER COLD NOR hot. It is neither happiness nor unhappiness. It is neither dark nor light. It is neither life nor death. The Upanishads say NETI NETI -- neither this nor that. If you feel joy you have already become identified; witnessing is gone. If you feel sad you are no more a witness; you have forgotten witnessing, you have become involved. You are colored by your psychology of the moment. Joy, sadness, all these qualities, are part of your psychology. And witnessing is a transcendence; it is not psychological. The whole art of meditation consists in witnessing. Then what does it bring? At the most we can say it brings total peace; it simply brings eternal silence. You cannot define it as joy. The moment you define it as joy you have fallen into the world of duality again. Then you have become part…

Osho said that there was no need to try to still the mind, to stop the thoughts. He said that just as the traffic goes by and one remains on the sidewalk, unaffected, just a watcher, so one should simply witness the thoughts as they went by. We are not our thoughts, and recognising that we are the witness is enough. The very acceptance of the thoughts makes one more relaxed. The relaxation helps to create a distance, to separate oneself. To evaluate a thought as good or bad means that you are attached to your thoughts -- so one should not put labels on them.] ... put yourself aside, sit under a tree, and just watch the traffic. Soon, one day, the traffic disappears and the road is empty. Suddenly there is an interval and in that interval is meditation. But that interval cannot be created or cultivated.

Beloved Osho, for me it's either high-energy excitement where life is wonderful and a joy to be alone; or very often these days there's a quietness that's dull and boring. In the one there's juice but no awareness, and in the other there's awareness but no juice. Is there a knack in bringing these two together?

It is a very simple thing. You say you have moments of great ecstasy, full of juice, but you become drowned in that juice; the ecstasy is so overwhelming you forget to be watchful. You become immersed in that ecstasy, the witness is not there. And then you say there are moments when you are sad, bored, but the witness is there. You just have to put things in their right place. Start from your boredom and sadness, because the witness is there and the witness is going to be the bridge. So when you are sad and bored, just watch it, as if it is something outside of you -- it is. You are always a witness -- now you are witnessing sadness and boredom. It is easy to witness sadness and boredom, because who wants to get immersed in boredom? But this is of tremendous importance because you…

Osho, to go beyond the gunas you have suggested the practice of witnessing. It seems the central element of all your teaching is witnessing. For years I have been listening to you, and perhaps I have also been practicing witnessing. But like the horizon, it seems to stay just where it is—always at a distance. Please tell me where I am going wrong.

Just this one mistake: you have turned witnessing into a doing. You think you are practicing witnessing. Witnessing appears to you as something to do. That is the mistake. Witnessing is not an act; it is the awareness toward all acts. Therefore witnessing itself is not a doing. Nothing needs to be done for witnessing. Whatever you do, simply see it. And if you make witnessing into a deed, then you will have to watch that too. Behind that you would again have to be a witness. The witness is final; there is no going behind it. So do not make witnessing a doing—let it be natural. It is a little difficult, because we turn everything into doing. We try to “practice” witnessing as well. It is like telling a man that nothing needs to be done to bring sleep. And he does not get sleep. He asks me, “That…