Over the past two years of intensified genocide in Gaza, some yoga people, Hindu people, and Buddhist people from the West have publicly announced that they feel duty-bound to “witness” the horror. A message from Shambhavi Sarasvati at Kindred 108. We're all kindred here.
Powerful reframing! The panopticon metaphor cuts straight to the heart of whats wrong with using witnessing as spiritual bypassing. Traditional texts set up this tension between the observing bird and the one eating the fig, but the move here is showing how that very structure can become a prison for compassion. The part about realized teachers having huge emotional range instead of performing stillness is so importnat because it exposes the difference beween actual practice and spiritual theater. When compassion becomes something we position ourselves around rather than something that moves through us naturally, we've already lost the thread.
Powerful reframing! The panopticon metaphor cuts straight to the heart of whats wrong with using witnessing as spiritual bypassing. Traditional texts set up this tension between the observing bird and the one eating the fig, but the move here is showing how that very structure can become a prison for compassion. The part about realized teachers having huge emotional range instead of performing stillness is so importnat because it exposes the difference beween actual practice and spiritual theater. When compassion becomes something we position ourselves around rather than something that moves through us naturally, we've already lost the thread.
"Spiritual theater!"