Beyond the Lens

How the witness perspective can become a false refuge, and the real purpose of spirituality

“I’ve been meditating every day for decades, so the witness state is like home to me. I stay in that quiet, spacious awareness almost without effort now. But I’m noticing something that’s hard to explain. Life feels… muted. I’m not depressed, but there’s a subtle lack of vitality—less curiosity, less spark, even in things I used to love. It’s as if the very ease of being the observer has thinned out my interest in participating. Have you seen this before? How can the peace of the witness open into a fuller sense of aliveness and engagement? Is there a further turn beyond the witness that I might be missing?”

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There is always a further turn…

Believing one has arrived at some final resting place is to turn life into a linear and finite process.

Over nearly a decade writing on these matters, I have spoken to several people who, like you, report a similar phenomenon. A stagnant peace drained of vitality. An equanimity that feels more numb than content. A spaciousness that, paradoxically, is unable to include our humanity.

It’s a fairly common phenomenon especially among seekers who follow spiritual teachings of the non-dual variety - which elevate the state of the witness as transcendental and, thereby, superior.

Many spiritual seekers get “stuck” in emptiness, in the absolute, in transcendence. They cling to bliss, or peace, or indifference. When the self-centered motivation for living disappears, many seekers become indifferent. They see the perfection of all existence and find no reason for doing anything, including caring for themselves or others. I call this “taking a false refuge.”

-Adyashanti

I was a seeker once myself. And as I reflect on the kinds of teachings I encountered back then - it is no wonder I was so thoroughly confused. Most spiritual teachings provide very skewed and scattered perspectives on the topic of awareness. They conceal their gaps using poetic or cryptic language - shrouding it in an aura of mystery.

But why should awareness be mysterious?

Awareness is the only thing one can be certain of in this life. Everything else is doubtful.

The problem is human beings are so enculturated into understanding the world through hierarchies, that we have no choice but to try and grasp awareness in this way. And so we bifurcate it into ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ states, setting ourselves up to skew our preferences in one direction.

From this place of fundamental misunderstanding, we then struggle to reconcile these two undeniable aspects of our existence - the human and the being. A person with desires, fears, needs and aspirations - and an impersonal witness with no skin in the game.

Then, how does one go about reconciling the two? They almost seem mutually exclusive modes of perception.

How does one desire desirelessly? How does one fear fearlessly?

It seems an impossible paradox.

Few spiritual teachings, if any, provide clarity on how these two modes of perception can coexist in harmony. And further, what does that kind of existence look like in practical terms?

However, the problem actually appears more complex than it is.

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Lens of Perception

Imagine you are a photographer.

Your camera is one of those analog film-based SLRs. You’ve got a great lens on this camera with a powerful zoom function.

When you look through the viewfinder and zoom in on a subject, two things happen:

• The subject comes into sharp focus.

• The background blurs into an incomprehensible soup.

Now, I want you to imagine the lens on your camera has become defective. Perhaps some fine particles of sand have entered into its mechanism - and now the lens is unable to pan out. It is stuck in zoom-mode.

This zoomed-in focus is how most people go about experiencing life. The ordinary everyday mode of awareness we have been trained to default to is one in which we are perpetually isolating objects, people, events and experiences in our environment and bringing them into sharp focus.

This is the vantage point of the personal - in which every thing we encounter has an individual existence, an individual identity, an individual meaning and an individual purpose. Stuck in this zoomed-in mode - we are unable to sense a vaster context to our lives. Our existence feels trivial - we feel like disconnected cogs in some giant incomprehensible machinery - while something within us craves to grasp a more holistic and interconnected view of what we are a part of.

This is how spiritual seeking begins.

Now imagine you, the photographer, having realized that your lens is stuck in zoom-mode, begin to pry away at this lens - trying to loosen up some of the particles trapped in its mechanism. This is what spiritual practice is. Then, one day, after countless attempts, the lens suddenly slides back - and, when it does, the image in the viewfinder pans out.

You are shocked - because your perception is transformed! Two things have now happened:

• The whole background has come into focus.

• The individual subjects in the center of the viewfinder have faded to a blur.

This shift feels transformational to you. Because for the first time you can get a real sense of the totality you are a part of. At the same time, the small details relating to each subject that used to cause you so much frustration are no longer relevant - since they have faded from focus.

This is the impersonal witness state that many meditators and spiritual aspirants often arrive at. And at first, it can certainly feel liberating. Firstly - there is a sense of continuity and certainty that emerges - since the background of spaciousness does not change at the same rate at which the subjects in the environment do. Secondly, this background of spaciousness demands very little emotional energy. It does not trigger one’s fears, it does not seduce one’s desires. There is a natural equanimity that settles due to the relative lack of polarity. At the same time, the personal dimension blurs out of focus - people, their petty problems, their egotistical ambitions - and one gradually loses interest in worldly affairs.

Quite naturally, many spiritual seekers - who have spent a lifetime burdened with their suffering - get comfortable in the relative freedom of this witness state, feeling they have ‘arrived’.

Yet, over time - this panned out state comes with its own drawbacks. You, the photographer, begin to notice that your lens is now stuck in this mode. And while you are able to perceive the serene background - there is much that is happening in the foreground that you are unable to connect with anymore. For the foreground is where the action happens - where the vitality of life unfolds.

And so a feeling of your own emotional numbness, intellectual apathy and muted curiosity begins to take over. This is, from my sense of things, where you currently find yourself now.

Back and Forth

If you were to ask a photographer whether they believed the ‘panned out’ mode of the camera lens was superior to the ‘zoomed in’ mode - what do you think they would say?

They would likely respond that your question is utterly absurd.

The purpose of the lens is to shift freely between the two perspectives - focusing in on the subjects of attention when necessary and panning out to the background wholeness when appropriate.

As an infant, you naturally manifested the witness state. Yet, over time, society trained you to hyperfocus on externalities - and to extract value, meaning, purpose and identity from it. When this strategy failed, you began seeking that witness perspective once more. Through meditation and spiritual practice - you eventually found your way back to it. The lens that was stuck on zoom is now back in pan-mode.

Yet, the same fine sand particles that prevented the lens from panning out, now restrict it from zooming in. These particles - these impurities - are what we call our egotistical compulsions.

And so, ironically, the very thing that once caused you to be stuck in the personal mode as a separate self - now causes you to be stuck in the impersonal, as the witnessing awareness.

Yet, just as the purpose of the camera lens is not to show preference to one mode over another but to move smoothly between the two - your perception is not meant to be stuck in either mode of awareness.

For the real purpose is to flow.

To move seamlessly and freely between the two. Not asserting one as superior to the other - but seeing the value in both - and the entire spectrum of interim modes in between.

Now, I want to take the metaphor of the lens one step further. Beyond just metaphor.

If you were to look at your own eyes - they function in the same way as the camera lens. When we look at the world, we are perpetually bringing objects and events into sharp focus. Yet, when we sit in meditation and adopt a softened passive gaze, the objects in the world begin to blur in boundary and the spaciousness surrounding them comes to the fore.

The same happens with the ears. Sounds that typically dominate our attention begin to mute, as the background energetic hum of silence takes over.

A similar phenomenon happens with the skin - where sensations of discomfort fade as the underlying aliveness of the body begins to be felt like an electrostatic field.

With the nose - rather than smells, an acute awareness of one’s own breath. And similarly with taste.

In other words, the camera is not just a metaphor. Our sense perception is a multisensory apparatus capable of zooming into experience or panning out of it - from identifying individual flavors to tasting the whole.

And beyond the physical senses - lie the mental ones:

The mind’s eye - which is capable of focusing on events in the past or an imagined future. The mind’s ear - capable of hearing voices or replaying conversations no longer present. The mind’s ‘skin’ - capable of generating somatic sensations of pleasure or pain by projecting these scenarios. Or the mind’s nose - that remembers the scent of grandma’s cooking. And the mind’s tongue - that recalls the unique flavor of her homemade marmalade that you have never been able to replicate.

Here also the zoom and pan function exists.

And finally, there is the heart - the body’s emotional hub. Which sees beauty where others can’t. Which perceives pain in the seemingly ordinary.

And so, the lens of our perception is not just one-dimensional like that of a camera. It is multi-dimensional and multifaceted.

Yet, like the camera lens, it functions between two extremes of perception - zoomed in and panned out. The personal and the impersonal. The being (I AM) and the person (who I am).

Beyond the Lens

A freely moving camera lens - one that is able to zoom and pan without effort or struggle - is one that is unimpeded by the impurities that cling to its mechanism. While some remaining grains of sand may still stick to its surface, they are no longer in the way of the mechanism since the back and forth movement of the lens prevents them from accumulating for long.

Practically speaking, this freedom to move between the personal and the impersonal is what spirituality is really about. To be able to inhabit the full breadth of modes that awareness is capable of. Without being pulled to fixate on separation or to hide out in the absolute. For both kinds of stuckness imply a lack of freedom.

Yet, beyond these two modes of perception - and the spectrum of degrees in between - what is it that is perceiving?

What is it that can experience itself as a separate self or as an impersonal witness?

What is it that becomes stuck or flows freely?

What is it that focuses on the part, blurring out the whole - then brings the whole into view, while blurring out the parts?

Whatever it is - it is neither whole nor part. It is neither personal nor impersonal. It is neither subject nor spaciousness.

It is neither the I AM, nor the who-I-am.

It is beyond all perception and conception. For all perception and conception happens within the apparatus of the body-heart-mind.

Yet, it is what you truly are.

And so the irony, that that which we are can never be known. All we can perceive are reflections in the mirror of perception.

Like the moon reflecting upon a lake - when the lake is still, we see a clear and whole reflection. This is the impersonal witness. And when the lake is disturbed, the moon’s reflection is shattered into a million luminous fragments. This is the personal separate self living in a world of individualized experiences.

Yet, whether still or placid - a reflection is all we see. For the moon does not really exist in the lake of our perceptions.

We cannot see the real moon - for we are that real moon.

Looking down from the sky towards the lake - attempting to glimpse ourselves. And when we confuse what we see for what we are - we become preoccupied with what the lake is doing - our perceptual states. We attempt to still its waves - craving a clearer reflection.

Yet, there is a beauty to a rippling lake also. It scatters our light causing it to shimmer endlessly.

Reflections

Early in this essay, I stated that:

“Few spiritual teachings, if any, provide clarity on how these two modes of perception can coexist in harmony. And further, what does that kind of existence look like in practical terms?”

So, let me use my own lived experience as an example of how these two modes can function harmoniously in a practical life.

I live with an acute awareness that all I can ever encounter are reflections of myself.

I will never truly see myself. And that’s ok. Because I am myself.

Everything I see holds only a relative truth - a relative reality - including the absolute.

The impersonal witness that I often default to when I go on walks with my dog, when I am sitting alone in my house, when I am contemplating what to write or while washing dishes - is spacious, silent, peaceful and enduring. It reflects an aspect of wholeness within me.

The personal self that I shift into when I engage with family members and society in general - is energetic, dichotomous, curious and contradictory. It reflects the multi-dimensional, often competing, facets of my personhood.

My days are spent moving gently between the two. Balancing moments of silence and solitude with moments of emotion and engagement.

As a family man - I am highly involved with my loved ones and my community. I work with my wife in our family food business, I homeschool our older daughter, I sit on the board of my younger daughter’s school, I work pro bono as an advocate in the sport of artistic gymnastics - which both my daughters train and compete. At the same time, I write essays on the Dark Knight of the Soul Substack - and facilitate the Dark Knight Journeys year-long program in which participants learn to shift between the zoomed-in and panned-out modes of awareness through simple intuitive activities that I create for them.

Yet, when I am not engaged in any of these activities - I settle into the silent, spacious and impersonal witness view. Where I cease being a father, a husband, a writer, a teacher, an advocate - a '“Shiv”. And I become an undifferentiated flux of energy - an amorphous presence.

Between these two modes - awareness moves - mostly seamlessly, although there are times admittedly where it becomes temporarily stuck. Yet, even when it does, I don’t fret about it like I once did.

For I know that I am not either of these modes.

I am that which is beyond both relative and absolute.

Beyond person and presence.

Beyond feelings of stuck and flow.

I am free to be myself. Because I simply cannot see myself.