Witness Consciousness

heatherreba
May 9
8 min read

Sermon: March 8, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito

My best friend Richard turned 50 years old two weeks ago and his friends took him to Mexico to celebrate. They were in an Air BnB in Puerto Vallarta when bombs began to explode cars and buildings only one block from where they were staying. I asked him if it was scary and he said, “Well, you know me. I don’t get scared. I just start paying attention.” And I knew this to be true after having been best friends with him for almost 40 years. He went on to say, “I’m not like most people. I have what I call “Walking Dead Season 4 Morals.” If you haven’t seen the Walking Dead, there is nothing particularly special about season 4, but it is about the time when the characters stop being shocked by what they’re experiencing and begin to hone the ability to witness what’s happening with enough emotional detachment to make better survival choices.

These kinds of survival skills can often be found in people who experience trauma and are not always ideal because they can become a defense mechanism that keeps people from actually experiencing the emotions they need to process. This “spiritual bypassing” can stunt emotional and spiritual development and growth. However, there is a spiritual practice that encompasses a similar technique which allows people to pay attention to their experiences not only as a directly affected individual, but also as an outside witness to the experience itself. This state of mind is called Witness Consciousness and when practiced, can be a skill used to create focused and effective action with a simultaneously calm and peaceful spirit.

Witness consciousness is the practice of observing one’s own thoughts, emotions, and sensations as a non-judgemental, neutral observer. It is often called Sakshi in Hindu philosophy and is a practice of Hindus and Buddhists alike. Yoga guru Ram Dass said, “"Witnessing yourself is like directing the beam of a flashlight back at itself. In any experience — sensory, emotional, or conceptual — there's the experience... and there's your awareness of it". This concept, of being one’s own observer, has been a topic of conversation among philosophers and psychologists for years. Modern psychologist Gregg Henriques describes the three parts of the Self in Psychology Today as the witness, the ego, and the persona. Witness consciousness is “perceiving what is… the “pure” sensory-perceptual aspects of your conscious experience… This is different from your narrating human ego, which reflects on your experience and is concerned with whether you are justified according to your values and worldview… Your persona is the portion of your consciousness that manages the social world and the impressions you make, and focuses on things like your reputation and how you appear to others.”

If we look at these three areas of consciousness and how they apply to our emotional landscape, it seems evident that the potential for emotional reactivity increases the more we move away from witness consciousness toward the persona, where our thoughts are entangled completely in how we are perceived in a social context. When we identify our sense of self with what is happening, we open ourselves up to emotional reactions that we may not want to engage with at that time. While this sounds like a peaceful place to exist, it also sounds as though this practice has the potential to minimize our life experiences and can even make them less enjoyable. While living in a constant state of emotional detachment may seem like experiencing life as a walking zombie, it doesn’t have to be an eternal state of being. When practiced enough, it can be utilized when you most need it, when you need some emotional distance in order to navigate your experiences, when you find yourself in the Walking Dead Season 4 and need some clarity of thought.

One can see the individual, internal benefits of Witness consciousness when in the midst of experiences that may trigger negative emotional reactions associated with the sense of self. Being a witness to yourself can illuminate reality in a way that allows us to gain freedom from the emotions that control us and bring about internal peace. How might Witness Consciousness also benefit us as we watch the world in its current state of devolution?

Every day the news reports events that seem too absurd and frightening to be real. We’re faced sometimes hourly with updates about how further we have sunk into a puddle of disillusioned despair as our society melts around us. We can feel helpless and what else can we do but watch it happen? Well, that’s exactly what we can do. Witness.

Wayne Martin Mellinger, who identifies as a Dionysian Naturalist, states that “bearing witness to the suffering of others as a spiritual practice is an essential component in movements for social justice.” He imparts the importance of the testimonies of eyewitnesses to influence public debates about moral issues. In the article “Bearing Witness to Social Injustice as a Spiritual Practice: Moving from Pain to Taking Compassionate Action,” he insists that maintaining a witness consciousness during situations that are highly emotionally charged is essential. He says, “We must enter situations without knowing what is right and what is wrong. We should bear witness to what is happening without expectations. We must let go of our ideas about what needs to be done and any notion of what compassionate action will look like. We often become complicit to the system by our routine patterns of thinking. I see you suffering and I want to help. The two roles and two practices—sufferer and suffering, helper and helping—may lock us into cognitive traps which limit our openness to a deeper reality… We must discard what we think we already know and expect to happen… These old stories we tell ourselves must be gently set aside.”

If we move through the world bearing witness to its atrocities in this way, giving an accurate account to reality without judgment, how do we make the leap from this place to action? Mellinger goes on to say that while bearing witness, we need to lean into our moral outrage, concern for the common good, and promotion for social change. We need to continue to embrace our visions of justice so we can inspire and imagine a better world. While witnessing, we can continue to promote a society rooted in democracy that embraces an inclusive social contract. He says, “Especially in these times… we need to promote stories that uphold community, shared values and democracy itself. We need public spheres that circulate historical narratives of structural impoverishment, that tell the truth about how our social system fails so many… The American public needs to develop a culture for producing a language of critique, possibility, and social change.”

How we bear witness, what we see, the stories we tell about it, has the potential to create a public memory that will challenge what is being fed to us via corporate media. Questioning our sources of information and seeking the most objective accounts of the news guarantees we are better informed of reality. Bearing witness to social injustices while rooted in observations without judgement, provides an alternate narrative that allows space for others to trust what they are hearing. Witness consciousness allows us to observe injustices for exactly what they are, not what they look like through a cloud of assumptions or dressed up in a costume of propaganda. One of the modern tools of witness consciousness is the cell phone. Videos don’t lie (as long as they’re not created by AI.)

When it feels like the world is crumbling before our very eyes, it’s important to not discount the role of the witnesses. We know the name of George Floyd but do you know the name Darnella Frazier? She was the witness whose video of his murder enlightened the world. Alex Pretti’s murder was captured on video by multiple witnesses including Kayla Schultz. Then there’s Carlitos Ricardo Parias, who livestreams ICE activity in LA on his TikTok channel. While professional reporters have an important role to play in getting information out to the public, these people are regular bystanders who are collectively helping us understand the reality of what’s happening by actively witnessing. In some instances, these people were at the right place at the right time, but in some other cases they are putting themselves in the right place at the right time. We have some of our own fellowship members who are following ICE, not to involve themselves in their activities, but just to be present, because being a witness not only helps inform the rest of us, but it can also help shape the immediate future. More people witnessing ICE activity means fewer detainments are made. Presence matters. Witnessing matters.

Not everyone can do this kind of work. I’ve had people tell me that they couldn’t handle it, that it’s too disturbing. It’s not right for everyone all of the time. However, if witnessing is something that you’d like to do more of, engaging in the practice of witness consciousness can help. I have found that the more I engage in this practice, the more hard work I can do without feeling like I need a break or experiencing burnout. Witness consciousness allows me to be present with reality without the stress of engaging with how I feel about that reality. In this state, I have a heightened sense of awareness that helps me best deal with what is to come. It also helps me be my most compassionate self, since I’m not worried about my own feelings in a situation and can fully concentrate on the needs of the other.

To take this one step further, I have found that most of the time, when I later unpack my own emotional response to an experience, I find that I no longer have a negative emotional response because now that I fully understand the reality of the situation, I do not react to it the same way as I would have if I had allowed myself to have a visceral, negative response. That initial response would have been uninformed and full of assumptions based on my preconceived notions of what is good and bad. As a witness, however, I have no need to have a judgemental initial reaction because my sense of ego isn’t involved. Later, when given the chance to evaluate the experience to see how it resonates with my values, I have moved further away from the period of time in which the shock of such an experience would have instigated emotional reactivity. Even then I can experience sadness and anger, and sometimes I should. Those emotions help steer my future actions when experienced in healthy, helpful amounts.

As we go out into the world to fight for change, the practice of Witness Consciousness can be an important tool in your tool box. And while it takes practice, it’s doable. Mooji says, “Sometimes I speak about the witness and people think it’s some mystical thing, but it just means that you are conscious. Consciousness is the witness. It is as simple as this… Stay as the witness and everything becomes smooth and clear.”

I think we would all welcome more smoothness and clarity in our lives during these days of turmoil when it is so important to pay attention. With individual clear minds and compassionate hearts, we can be the witnesses the world needs us to be, and we can collectively make the difference we so desperately want to make. May this allow us to continue ever forward with peace and with hope. Amen.

M E G I L L M U S I C

Witness Consciousness

Recent Posts

Comments