We have all seen westerns and we have all seen the situation where the guys with the black hats are running the town, and then the lawman arrives. The man with the white hat rides into town and all of a sudden the black hats either become very confrontational or begin to scurry around or hide or develop new strategies to handle the white hat. Before the white hat came into town they sort of ran free, they had their way with things and there was no confrontation, there was just their aggression. Now, all of a sudden aggression has to be answered for. This creates tension, because aggression has to be answered for.
Well, similarly we have within us a level of conscience called judgment, which sometimes enters into our being and takes a look at what we have been doing. And when that happens it creates internal conflict within us, because all of a sudden there is a dilemma, a confrontation, who’s in charge? Is judgment in charge, or is the aggression that has been going on and the lower self that’s been running wild, in charge?
Since we are the ones in the midst of this aggression and we are the ones who are the aggressor, there is a real dilemma here, and it’s a dilemma that we face constantly. The dilemma is do we hide from judgment? Do we essentially do what the cat does when it thinks it’s being seen and it closes it’s eyes and it makes believe there’s nobody watching. Or do what the ostrich does, which puts it’s head in the sand and makes believe it can’t be seen.
We are told that we need to act as if we are constantly being watched, whether we know we are or not. The truth is that we are capable of watching ourselves in addition to acknowledging that we are being watched by God. The question is do we acknowledge that we are being watched and do we actually interact inside ourselves as if we are being watched, and as if we are being controlled through the watching so that our higher self is the one that is in control?
This has to do with the witness that exists in each of our beings, and the ability that we have to bring that witness forth. The explanation is that this witness comes after sense, awareness and intellect, as the fourth level of consciousness, which is the level of judgment, which is the level that looks at our acts and is able to make a dispassionate, non-involved, non-arbitrary decision based on God’s laws as to whether our acting, our acts, our actions, our demeanor, our thoughts are appropriate or not.
What happens when that witness comes into being in our selves, what happens between ourselves and ourselves is the key to who we become. It is the key to our progress on the path. It is the key to our transformation.
The Witness Within