Isolation, Introspection, Introversion and the Witness Consciousness

A young person, around 20 years of age, reported an experience he had while visiting a beer hall in Munich, Germany with some friends and acquaintances. As could be expected, there was a lot of noise, clinking of glasses, singing, laughing, story-telling among his friends, as well as generally in the pub. He suddenly felt totally isolated, ‘alone in the crowd’, as he phrased it. He felt out of place, like he could not understand what he was doing there. It brought him to a state of disorientation about what his entire life was about. He indicated he took up a pen and a napkin and wrote a poem about his experience.

What he reported is actually not an unusual experience! Many people have reported on feeling ‘alone in the crowd’. They have a sense of isolation. The mood is a depressive one. In some cases it causes the individual to feel such a deep sense of isolation that they feel like they simply don’t fit in. In other cases, the experience causes the individual to look inside to determine what the cause, and the solution, to this feeling might be. In such a case, it can be the first step towards the deeper seeking that somehow recognizes that the enjoyments and pleasures of the outer existence hold little relevance for them, and thus, they need to undertake the search for the soul.

An early stage of this search leads to what is called ‘introspection’. This is an internal review of one’s thoughts and feelings to try to sort out some sense of what it is all about and what they should do about it. Introspection does not separate the observer from the object of observation, but looks on what is being seen as “oneself”.

There are people who are naturally indrawn within themselves, who find comfort in quiet times, readings, communing with nature, gardening, rather than simply running after exte
al stimulation of crowds, events and activities. These people are called introverts as opposed to the extroverts who tend to thrive in the active, outgoing relationships of life. These individuals tend to identify with the ego-personality nexus and do not experience a “separation” from their being. They simply feel more at ease and secure with a less outward orientation.

The experience of the witness consciousness described in the yogic texts is not the same as any of these other experiences. The witness consciousness is described as the separation of the Purusha, the witness from Prakriti, the active nature. The active nature does not just relate to exte
al actions, events or circumstances, but includes the indiividual himself. There is a stage where everything, including the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, reactions of the individual’s own being is seen as something exte
al to himself, and in some cases, it may seem like one is observing a film rather than participating in the life. This is a key difference between introspecition, where the individual still feels the thoughts, responses, etc. to be himself, and the witness consciousness, where they are experienced as ‘other’ than himself. The standpoint shift from participation to pure disinterested observation is an essential difference.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “There is a stage in the sadhana in which the inner being begins to awake. Often the first result is the condition made up of the following elements:

A sort of witness attitude in which the inner consciousness looks at all that happens as a spectator or observer, observing things but taking no active interest or pleasure in them.”
A state of neutral equanimity in which there is neither joy nor sorrow, only quietude.”
A sense of being something separate from all that happens, observing it but not part of it.”
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pg. 147