The Observing of the Observing

“You are the observer” is the most common expression in nonduality. The question is “who is observing?” This often gets turned into a practice without seeing the depth of it. Any observation you are aware of is not it. The observing cannot observe itself, for it contains any observation. This is why it cannot be known, because it is the knowing.

Very frustrating to the mind, which wants so badly to know it. There cannot even be a known being of it, because the moment something is known, whatever is known is placed in front of the knowing of it. The mind keeps trying to take that step backwards, yet it misses every time, often believing the whole thing is elusive and far away. However, it is never gone… it is only the trying to see it, trying to be it, trying to think about it that makes it appear to be this slippery thing that it is not.

There is only the beingness of it, not what you’re reading in these words, for these are only pointers. The moment it’s talked about, it’s in duality, and that is never where it is. There is no “where” to it, even though we use phrases like “right here, right now.” These are great pointers, the same ones that were shared with me, but even those words fail to indicate it… no words can. This is why I was told over and over to forget searching in words, books, teachings. Reading and listening get the mind caught in the concepts rather than what they point to.

The observing is not something you do. It is not a stance you take, it is not a position behind the thoughts. It is not a watcher sitting somewhere in the background, it is simply the fact that whatever appears is known. The knowing is automatic, effortless, prior to any attempt to observe. The moment you try to observe, you’ve already stepped into the mind’s version of it, and that version is always one step removed from the simplicity of what is.

You can’t get there, because there is nowhere to get. You can’t understand it, because there is no one there to understand the very understanding itself. If this sounds like I’m saying give up, that is correct… any “you” who can seemingly do anything does give up. In the clear seeing that there is no one there to give up, never was, then this is all there is, right here, right now, before the words, before the doing, just this… seeing the seeing, observing the observing, the effortless knowing that never began and never ends.