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The Experience of the Witness Consciousness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The standpoint of the witness consciousness separated from the
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  external being is not something that is acquired through
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  thinking or the exercise of willpower based in the mind.
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  Many people have developed approaches or systems to not
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  react to outer circumstances, such as Stoicism, various forms
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  of training, disciplines, or attempts at acclimating oneself
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  to particular forces and thereby increasing 1's capacity to
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  resist their influence. These approaches may be useful
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  in gaining some manner of overview or control over the
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  actions and reactions of the external nature, but they do not
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  actually provide the experience itself.
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  People who have had an out of body experience report a sense
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  that they can see the body. They can see others responding
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  to the body, but they feel disassociated from the body and
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  its activities. They can observe but do not have
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  the sense of wanting to intervene in any way.
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  This experience is akin to the separation of the witness from
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  the nature and provides us an inkling about the experience
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  itself. An individual reported an event
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  that occurred to him at the time of the mothers Maha Samadhi in
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  1973. He was residing at the Shrioro
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  Bindo Ashram. He notified the mother secretary
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  of his birthday and he received the mother's birthday blessings
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  on November 17th, 1973 in the morning, in other words, earlier
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  in the same day as her leaving her body.
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  The message he received said live within, be not shaken by
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  outward happenings. He reported that he fell into a
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  deep state of walking meditation, feeling separated
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  and abstracted from everything occurring to him that day.
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  That night as he slept, he had a dream that he recalled upon
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  waking that everything had become intensely dark and
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  foreboding, and then suddenly there was a brilliant light and
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  the darkness was dispelled. He was working during that
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  period in the fruit room, helping to hand out fruits to
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  the sawdocks each morning, and this required him to reach the
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  ashram building while it was still dark early in the morning.
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  When he reached the ashram, he was surprised to see all the
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  lights on and people milling about everywhere.
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  Some people were grief stricken and crying.
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  He learned that the mother had left her body.
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  He indicated that he was still experiencing the almost trance
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  like separation of his awareness that had begun the prior day and
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  he had no reaction other than that this seemed like an outward
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  happening and his dream experience told him an entirely
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  different tale. Over the next several days, as
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  people poured in from all around the world, he continued to feel
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  the state of abstraction and separation as he became an
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  observer of the event, as the mother's body was placed in the
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  meditation hall for the darshan, as he participated in all the
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  activities, and as the samadhi was prepared for the internment
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  of the body. His report, that was that he
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  would could carry on all the activities of his life, but felt
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  totally separated, uninvolved and unaffected by all of them.
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  He became a pure observer. This was not some mental idea,
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  nor was it some discipline. Rather, he indicated that it was
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  to him a grace, a gift he had been given by the mother, and he
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  accepted it without question. He surrendered to the experience
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  and simply observed his own internal responses and
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  everything going on around him. While eventually the intense
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  experience receded and his normal psychological standpoint
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  reasserted itself, more or less, he kept the remembrance of the
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  experience and recounted it as a modest extended period of a
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  shift of standpoint to that of the witness consciousness.
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  He later indicated he had been able to remain observant of his
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  inner thoughts, feelings, perceptions and reactions to
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  some degree since that time. While this is a first hand
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  recounting of an experience, there are many such a similar
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  experiences recounted in the spiritual literature.
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  Individuals who have such an intense experience frequently
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  find that some constant sense of separation and observation stays
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  with them while the intensity recedes and the experience
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  becomes normalized. Srioro Bindu observes quote the
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  attitude of the witness consciousness within.
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  I do not think it necessarily involves an external seclusion,
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  though one may do. That also is a very necessary
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  stage in the progress. It helps the liberation from the
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  lower procrity, not getting involved in the ordinary nature
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  movements. It helps the establishment of a
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  perfect calm and peace within, for there is one part of the
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  being which remains detached and sees without being disturbed the
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  perturbations of the surface. It helps also the ascent into
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  the higher consciousness and the descent of the higher
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  consciousness, for it is through this calm, detached and
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  liberated inner being that the ascent and descent can easily be
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  done. Also to have the same witness
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  look on the movements of procrity in others, seeing,
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  understanding but not perturbed by them in any way, is a very
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  great help towards both the liberation and the
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  universalization of the being. As for the surrender, it is not
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  inconsistent with the witness attitude.
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  On the contrary, by liberating from the ordinary procrity, it
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  makes easier to surrender to the higher or divine power.
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  Very often, when this witness attitude has not been taken, but
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  there is a successful calling in of the force to act in one, one
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  of the first things the forces does is to establish the witness
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  attitude so as to be able to act with less interference or in
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  mixture from the movements of the lower property.
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  End Quote Reference Shrioro Bindu and the Mother Looking
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  from Within, Chapter 5. Attitudes on the Path, pages
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  1:48 to 1:49.