The Witness Quotes

It is possible for a man to know whether God has called him or not, and he may know it too beyond a doubt. He may know it as surely as if he read it with his own eyes; nay, he may know it more surely than that, for if I read a thing with my eyes, even my eyes may deceived me, the testimony of sense may be false, but the testimony of the Spirit must be true. We have the witness of the Spirit within, bearing witness with our spirits that we are born of God. There is such a thing on earth as an infallible assurance of our election. Let a man once get that, and it will anoint his head with fresh oil, it will clothe him with the white garment of praise, and put the son of the angel into his mouth. Happy, happy man! who is fully assured of his interest in the covenant of grace, in the blood of atonement, and in the glories of heaven! Such men there are here this very day. Let them 'rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say rejoice.'

What would some of you give if you could arrive at this assurance? Mark, if you anxiously desire to know, you may know. If your heart pants to read its title clear it shall do so ere long. No man ever desired Christ in his heart with a living and longing desire, who did not find Him sooner or later. If thou hast a desire, God has given it thee. If thou pantest, and criest, and groanest after Christ, even this is His gift; bless Him for it. Thank Him for little grace, and ask Him for great grace. He has given thee hope, ask for faith; and wh ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

After meditating for some years, I began to see the patterns of my own behavior. As you quiet your mind, you begin to see the nature of your own resistance more clearly, struggles, inner dialogues, the way in which you procrastinate and develop passive resistance against life. As you cultivate the witness, things change. You don't have to change them. Things just change. ~ Ram Dass

The Witness is a huge step forward, and it is a necessary and important step in meditation, but it is not ultimate. When the Witness or the soul is finally undone, then the Witness dissolves into everything that is witnessed. The subject/object duality collapses and there is only pure nondual awareness, which is very simple, very obvious. ~ Ken Wilber

Hold the thoughts, know the thoughts and you realize the thoughts have slowed showing breaks and gaps, be the witness to them and you shall be meditating ~ Maitreya Rudrabhayananda

You are the witness of the three bodies: the gross, the subtle, and the causal, and of the three times: past, present and future, and also this void. In the story of the tenth man, when each of them counted and thought they were only nine, each one forgetting to count himself, there is a stage when they think one is missing and do not know who it is; and that corresponds to the void. We are so accustomed to the notion that all that we see around us is permanent and that we are this body, that when all this ceases to exist we imagine and fear that we also have ceased to exist. ~ Ramana Maharshi

Pain is the mind. It's the thoughts of the mind. Then I get rid of the thoughts, and I get in my witness, which is down in my spiritual heart. The witness that witnesses being. Then those particular thoughts that are painful - love them. I love them to death! ~ Ram Dass

I know how to be the witness to her grief. I don't know how to be this kind of villain. ~ Holly Black

The spirit of bondage works by fear for the slave fears the rod: but love cries, Abba, Father; it disposes us to go to God, and behave ourselves towards God as children; and it gives us clear evidence of our union to God as His children, and so casts out fear. So that it appears that the witness of the Spirit the apostle speaks of, is far from being any whisper, or immediate suggestion or revelation; but that gracious holy effect of the Spirit of God in the hearts of the saints, the disposition and temper of children, appearing in sweet childlike love to God, which casts out fear or a spirit of a slave. ~ Jonathan Edwards

The fundamental text of the Hindu tradition is, of course, the Bhagavad Gītā; and there four basic yogas are described. The word yoga itself, from a Sanskrit verbal root yuj, meaning "to yoke, to link one thing to another," refers to the act of linking the mind to the source of mind, consciousness to the source of consciousness; the import of which definition is perhaps best illustrated in the discipline known as knowledge yoga, the yoga, that is to say, of discrimination between the knower and the known, between the subject and the object in every act of knowing, and the identification of oneself, then, with the subject. "I know my body. My body is the object. I am the witness, the knower of the object. I, therefore, am not my body." Next: "I know my thoughts; I am not my thoughts." And so on: "I know my feelings; I am not my feelings." You can back yourself out of the room that way. And the Buddha then comes along and adds: "You are not the witness either. There is no witness." So where are you now? Where are you between two thoughts? That is the way known as jñāna yoga, the way of sheer knowledge. ~ Joseph Campbell

The witness of which the New Testament passages speak is God's gift, not our accomplishment. ~ Lesslie Newbigin

Reason must approach nature in order to be taught by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the witness to answer questions which he has himself formulated. ~ Immanuel Kant

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher. And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty ... ~ Rajneesh

Acts have their being in the witness. Without him who can speak of it? In the end one could even say that the act is nothing, the witness all. ~ Cormac McCarthy

"Transcending the ego" thus actually means to transcend but include the ego in a deeper and higher embrace, first in the soul or deeper psychic, then with the Witness or primordial Self, then with each previous stage taken up, enfolded, included, and embraced in the radiance of One Taste. And that means we do not "get rid" of the small ego, but rahter, we inhabit it fully, live it with verve, use it as the necessary vehicle through which higher truths are communicated. Soul and Spirit include body, emotions, and mind; they do not erase them. ~ Ken Wilber

The heart of the gospel is that you don't know Jesus without the witness of the church. It's always mediated. ~ Stanley Hauerwas

History is the depository of great actions, the witness of what is past, the example and instructor of the present, and monitor to the future. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

On the stand, I asked the witness, "What's your occupation?"
"Make-up artist."
"Objection!" I replied, "Lack of foundation. ~ Natalya Vorobyova

The moon: in that luminous face one can behold those tired phases that bring only disappointment and no satisfaction; the impulses governing its expression remain patternistic, its cycles of transition easily predictable. With moderated temperament it commands the capricious sea: its diametric opponent, in whose helpless defiance, arises an empty, albeit elegant promise, an ever-changing flicker of reflected light, a simultaneous opening and closing of paths to be traversed, a vacillating hope and disillusionment in whose unsettling direction emerges something one might wish to call, even under the hardened visage of sky, a marginal sense of freedom. To walk upon the decks of ramshackle vessels rising and descending in patterns indeterminate, to lean in ecstasy over their shaky rails to witness the splendor of that which transforms immediately upon being witnessed and which transforms thereby the witness in question: it was these flights of reverie that appealed better to one's imagination than the lean pragmatism of predictable transition. ~ Ashim Shanker

I did not speak. I have found in any Q&A, in court, in witness interviews, wherever, often the best thing you can do is wait, say nothing. The witness will want to fill the awkward silence. He will feel a vague compassion to keep talking, to prove he is not holding back, to prove he is smart and in the know, to earn your trust. ~ William Landay

Expect no trivial truth from me, unless I am on the witness- stand. I will come as near to lying as you can drive a coach and four. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I have been in the witness protection program for the last three weeks. I campaigned for Ralph Nader. I'm now living as a woman in Mississippi. ~ Phil Donahue

The world is like a courtroom, with God as our judge. We are called upon to fulfill our covenant with God, who asked, "Am I not your Lord?" To which we answered, "Yea." And since here on earth we are on trial, our every word and action form the witness to and the evidence of that agreement. ~ Rumi

Literally, no man ever sees himself as others see him. No photograph or reflection ever gives us the same slant on ourselves that others see. It has often been proved on the witness stand that no two people ever see the same accident precisely the same way. We see through different eyes and from different angles. But if we could see things as other people see them, we could come closer to knowing why they do what they do and why they say what they say. ~ Richard L. Evans

Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson star. I neglected to mention that, maybe because I was trying to place them in this review's version of the Witness Protection Program. If I were taken off the movie beat and assigned to cover the interior design of bowling alleys, I would have some idea of how they must have felt as they made this film. ~ Roger Ebert

Silence and stillness are not states and therefore cannot be produced or created. Silence is the non-state in which all states arise and subside. Silence, stillness and awareness are not states and can never be perceived in their totality as objects. Silence is itself the eternal witness without form or attributes. As you rest more profoundly as the witness, all objects take on their natural functionality, and awareness becomes free of the mind's compulsive contractions and identifications. It returns to its natural non-state of Presence. ~ Adyashanti

There we stood. Elephants to our left, lions to our right, only a stone's throw from hippos and leopards, and what were they doing? Playing with a doodlebug.
Don't we all? Myriads of mighty angels encircle us, the presence of our Maker engulfs us, the witness of a thousand galaxies and constellations calls to us, the flowing tide of God's history carries us, the crowning of Christ as King of the universe awaits us, but we can't get our eyes off of the doodlebugs of life: paychecks, gadgets, vacations, and weekends. ~ Max Lucado

Three means by which God assures us that we do have eternal life: 1. The promises of His Word, 2. The witness of the Spirit in our hearts, 3. The transforming work of the Spirit in our lives. ~ Jerry Bridges

Far from wife and son am 1, far from land and wealth and other notions of that kind. I am the Witness, the Eternal, the Inner Self. ~ Guru Nanak

That's what arrest is: it's a blinding flash and a blow which shifts the present instantly into the past and the impossible into omnipotent actuality.
That's all. And neither for the first hour nor for the first day will you be able to grasp anything else.
Except that in your desperation the fake circus moon will blink at you: "It's a mistake! They'll set things right!"
And everything which is by now comprised in the traditional, even literary, image of an arrest will pile up and take shape, not in your own disordered memory, but in what your family and your neighbors in your apartment remember: The sharp nighttime ring or the rude knock at the door.
The insolent entrance of the unwiped jackboots of the unsleeping State Security operatives. The frightened and cowed civilian witness at their backs. (And what function does this civilian witness serve? The victim doesn't even dare think about it and the operatives don't remember, but that's what the regulations call for, and so he has to sit there all night long and sign in the morning. 1 For the witness, jerked from his bed, it is torture too - to go out night after night to help arrest his own neighbors and acquaintances. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Many can only say of Jesus that they hope they love him; they trust they love him; but only a poor and shallow experience will be content to stay here. No one ought to give any rest to his spirit till he feels quite sure about a matter of such vital importance. We ought not to be satisfied with a superficial hope that Jesus loves us, and with a bare trust that we love him. The old saints did not generally speak with "buts," and "ifs," and "hopes," and "trusts," but they spoke positively and plainly. "I know whom I have believed," saith Paul. "I know that my Redeemer liveth," saith Job. Get positive knowledge of your love of Jesus, and be not satisfied till you can speak of your interest in him as a reality, which you have made sure by having received the witness of the Holy Spirit, and his seal upon your soul by faith. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The problem with most Christians today is that they would rather be on the judgment seat than on the witness stand. Anonymous ~ Britt Merrick

There is a curious idea among unscientific men that in scientific writing there is a common plateau of perfectionism. Nothing could be more untrue. The reports of biologists are the measure, not of the science, but of the men themselves. There are as few scientific giants as any other kind. In some reports it is impossible, because of inept expression, to relate the descriptions to the living animals. In some papers collecting places are so mixed or ignored that the animals mentioned cannot be found at all. The same conditioning forces itself into specification as it does into any other kind of observation, and the same faults of carelessness will be found in scientific reports as in the witness chair of a criminal court. It has seemed sometimes that the little men in scientific work assumed the awe-fullness of a priesthood to hide their deficiencies, as the witch-doctor does with his stilts and high masks, as the priesthoods of all cults have, with secret or unfamiliar languages and symbols. It is usually found that only the little stuffy men object to what is called "popularization", by which they mean writing with a clarity understandable to one not familiar with the tricks and codes of the cult. We have not known a single great scientist who could not discourse freely and interestingly with a child. Can it be that the haters of clarity have nothing to say, have observed nothing, have no clear picture of even their own fields? A dull man seems to be a dull man no matter wh ~ John Steinbeck

Doctor, do you read the Harry Potter books?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, yes, I have."
"The fourth was my favorite. What was yours?"
"Umm, I don't know really."
"Is it possible," the prosecutor asked the witness, "that those writings of Mr. Kobel are merely attempts at writing a novel? Some big fantasy book."
"I…I can't imagine it."
"But it's possible, isn't it?"
"I suppose. But I'll tell you, he'll never sell the movie rights. ~ Jeffery Deaver

And you told Mr. Marsh at that time that a refinance was impossible, did you not?" "I did." Every teacher of cross-examination points out that you never ask a question that you do not know the answer to, and you never ask the question "why" because that gives the witness the opportunity to answer in a narrative, but Brent wanted the jury to hear the answer to the next question in Bernstein's own words, so he took the calculated risk. "Why was it impossible?" "Because Mr. Marsh was delinquent in his loan payments." "But Mr. Bernstein, didn't you tell Mr. Marsh about six months earlier that, in order to qualify for a loan modification, he had to be delinquent in his loan payments?" "That's for a modification, not a refinance, and that was Tentane's policy ... " "Object ~ Kenneth Eade

D.A. I got my orders - either the recordings and the witness' name, or I put a slug in you where it'll do the most good. ~ Norman Daniels

The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation. ~ George Santayana

History is indeed the witness of the times, the light of truth. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is the witness alone that can work without any desire, without any idea of going to heaven, without any idea of blame, without any idea of praise. The witness alone enjoys, and none else. ~ Swami Vivekananda

The witness is frequent and insistent that God is inherently relational and personal. So God cannot be either received or understood apart from our being personal and realtional as well. That most emphatically excludes the detached intellect as a way of knowing God. It excludes programmatic work as a way of knowing God. It excludes cultivation of the ecstatic and visionary as a way of knowing God. God is not an abstract idea that can be mastered, not an impersonal force that can be used, not a private experience that can be indulged." Eugene Peterson, "Living the Resurrection" (106). ~ Eugene H. Peterson

When you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has come in. ~ Eckhart Tolle

All you need to do is recognize your true position as the witness. You only have to do this for some time, until the spell is broken. Even after the spell is broken these mental tendencies may arise, but without any power, just like you can see the moon in the daylight. ~ Mooji

Unhappiness is a warped and distorted perception of reality. When a man says he is unhappy with his life and gives a written list of why he is dissatisfied, he has given a frank account of the state of his mind. If his mind is neglected and starved from stillness of thought, the nature of his thinking will reflect turbulence, anxiety and a lack of fulfilment.
However, when he is able to transcend thought, by being the observer (the witness) of his thinking and can take control of his mind, tranquility begins to flow through him. He is no longer a slave to his mental concepts, distinctions and limiting beliefs. ~ Christopher Dines

In a vivid parable to Soeur Philippine Molinéry, Bernadette asks, "What do you do with a broom when you're done sweeping?" Soeur Philippine got surprised and answered, "What kind of a Question is that?"
"Yes, I am asking you where you put it when you are done with it?
"'....In a corner behind the door.'
Then gleefully Bernadette said, "Well, I was like a broomstick for the Blessed Virgin; when she no longer needed me, she put me in my place behind the door.'
And with a clap of her hands, she added, "Here I am and here I'll stay."
"Both her voice and gesture were very happy," the witness went on to say. ~ St. Bernadette

You should be real witnesses of a world of doing and acting differently. But in life it is difficult for everything to be clear, precise, outlined neatly. Life is complicated; it consists of grace and sin. He who does not sin is not human. We all make mistakes and we need to recognise our weakness. A religious who recognises himself as weak and a sinner does not negate the witness that he is called to give, rather he reinforces it, and this is good for everyone. What I expect of you therefore is to give witness. I want this special witness from religious. ~ Pope Francis

Most libels, and I have taken about 30 actions, take place at election time. It has not stuck because I am prepared to go before a court, stand in the witness box and face the most aggressive of lawyers who can cross-examine me on my personal history. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

I stood there, 220 pounds of ex-football player, ex-public defender, ex-a-lot-of-things, leaning against the faded walnut rail of the witness stand, home to a million sweaty palms. "To Speak for the Dead" (The Jake Lassiter Series) http://tinyurl.com/69eua2t ~ Paul Levine

It occurred to me there were some fairly obvious reasons to wear a trenchcoat - because you were a detective, a spy, or a flasher…There are three reasons to wear a trenchcoat: because you have something to find, something to hide, or something you want desperately to show. The garment that seems to beg you 'Don't notice me!' is also begging you to take notice, whether the wearer wants you to see what's underneath, or whether he wants you simply to fear it. But part of the contract is for the wearer and the witness - who is also being watched - to maintain the fiction of non-theatricality, of non-spectacularity, of the extreme understatement of performance. ~ Barbara Browning

Never try to stop the thoughts.
If you try to stop the thoughts they will become bigger and greater and they will win. Because the mind appears to be very powerful.
Yet in reality the mind does not exist.
There is no mind.
There is no such thing as a mind.
So when you sit in the silence you observe, you watch, you become the witness. ~ Robert Adams

As the witness testified before my Subcommittee on Immigration, that barriers magnify the ability of every Border Patrol agent to be more effective. And so if you make up your mind, you can build substantial mileage barriers. It will increase the ability of our officers to perform, and the most important thing is, it sends a message to the world, the border is closed. ~ Jeff Sessions

Have you ever wanted something very badly-something that was within your grasp-and yet you were afraid to reach out for it?
That night he had answered no. Tonight he would have said yes. Among other things, he wanted to know where she was; a month ago he'd told himself it was because he wanted the divorce petition served. Tonight he was too exhausted from his long internal battle to bother lying to himself anymore. He wanted to know where she was because he needed to know. His grandfather claimed not to know; his uncle and Alexandra both know, but they'd both refused to tell him, and he hadn't pressed them.
Wearily, Ian leaned his head against the back of his chair and closed his eyes, but he wouldn't sleep, and he knew it, even though it was three o'clock in the morning. He never slept anymore unless he'd either had a day of grueling physical activity or drunk enough brandy to knock himself out. And even when he did, he laid awake, wanting her, and knowing-because she'd told him-that she was somewhere out there, lying awake, wanting him.
A faint smile touched his lips as he remembered her standing in the witness box, looking heartbreakingly young and beautiful, first trying logically to explain to everyone what had happened-and when that failed, playing the part of an incorrigible henwit. Ian chuckled, as he'd been doing whenever he thought of her that day. Only Elizabeth would have dared to take on the entire House of Lords-and when she couldn't sway them wit ~ Judith McNaught

You are so accustomed to think of yourselves as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Writing is the witness to myself about myself. Whatever others say of me or how they interpret me is a simulacrum of their own devising. ~ Amy Tan

I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.

It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say "this is good, this is bad," you have already jumped onto the thought process.

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.

And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.

That's the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being. ~ Osho

And you're convinced you can hide yourself better than an organization that specializes in hiding people from bad guys?"
"From what I've seen, yes. The Witness Protection Program didn't do a very good job of keeping me safe, did it?"
"Whereas you will, yourself?"
She lifted her chin defiantly. "There's obviously a lot I'll need to learn. But there's got to be some book in the library that will tell me what to do. How to hide."
A book from the library? Harry concealed his laughter with a cough. She was going to get a book.
"The setup was a complete goatfuck, I'll grant you that." He took a sip from a can of Pepsi he'd opened four hundred miles ago. It was warm and flat, but it contained caffeine. Christ, he was tired, and she was going to get a book. ~ Suzanne Brockmann

Just each of us being me, me, me first. The murderer, the victim, the witness each of us thinks our role is the lead.
Probably that goes for anybody in the world. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Records subpoenaed from the state Liquor Authority proved that the bar was owned by someone else, not by the witness who had testified to be the owner. The real owner testified that he had closed the bar before the alleged kidnapping, that he had visited it every day during the period of time it has hosted the "kidnapping," and had locked the door as he left and had given no one permission to use it. The bar had been closed for one year before the alleged crime. The irrefutable and obvious conclusion was that, in fact, there was no bar, no "scene" of the alleged crime, and, therefore, no crime. ~ Assata Shakur

It is obvious that the concept of truth has become suspect. Of course it is correct that is has been much abused. Intolerance and cruelty have occurred in the name of truth. To that extent people are afraid when someone says, "This is the truth", or even "I have the truth". We never have it, at best is has us. No one will dispute that one must be careful and cautious in claiming the truth. But simply to dismiss it as unattainable is really destructive.
(...) We must have the courage to dare to say: Yes, man must seek the truth; he is capable of truth. It goes without saying that truth requires criteria for verification and falsification. It must always be accompanied by tolerance, also. But then truth also points out to us those constant values which have made mankind great. That is why the humility to recognize the truth and to accept it as a standard has to be relearned and practiced again.
The truth comes to rule, not through violence, but rather through its own power; this is the central theme of John's Gospel: When brought before Pilate, Jesus professes that he himself is The Truth and the witness to the truth. He does not defend the truth with legions but rather makes it visible through his Passion and thereby also implements it. ~ Benedict XVI

Anger will come and go and the watcher abides. Sadness comes and passes by and the witness remains ~ Rajneesh

It is the witness still of excellency to put a strange face on his own perfection. ~ William Shakespeare

I refer to the awesome experience of Joseph Smith when he beheld God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, in the spring of 1820. There has been no event more glorious, more controversial, nor more important in the story of Joseph Smith than this vision. It is possibly the most singular event to occur on the earth since the Resurrection. Those who do not believe it happened find it difficult to explain away. Too much has happened since its occurrence to summarily deny that it ever took place. . . .

"Since no one was with Joseph when this great vision took place in the wooded grove near Palmyra, a testimony concerning its reality can come only by believing the truthfulness of Joseph Smith's own account or by the witness of the Holy Ghost, or both. I have such a conviction. It is a sure conviction that lies deep in my soul. As a special witness of the same Christ who appeared with the Father and instructed the boy Joseph Smith, I bear witness of the truthfulness of the magnificent First Vision near Palmyra. I declare this in all soberness and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. ~ James E. Faust

I picked up one and then a second and then a third of these stones, finding them at about the rate of one stone to the acre. And here is where my adventure became magical, for in a striking foreshortening of time that embraced thousands of years, I had become the witness of this miserly rain from the stars. the marvel of marvels was that there on the rounded back of the planet, between this magnetic sheet and those stars, a human consciousness was present in which as in a mirror that rain could be reflected. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Never during its pilgrimage is the human spirit completely adrift and alone. From start to finish its nucleus is the Atman, the god-within ... underlying its whirlpool of transient feelings, emotions, and delusions is the self-luminous, abiding point of the transpersonal god. As the sun lights the world even when cloud-covered, "the Immutable is never seen but is the Witness; it is never heard but is the Hearer; it is never thought but is the Thinker; it is never known but is the Knower. There is no other witness but This, no other knower but This." from the Upanishad ~ Huston Smith

I would listen with growing outrage as hypocritical and obtuse American senators made all these demands of Iraqi legislators and yet themselves could not even pass budgets or appropriations bills, not to mention deal with tough challenges like the budget deficit, Social Security, and entitlement reforms. So many times I wanted to come right out of my chair at the witness table and scream, You guys have been in business for over two hundred years and can't pass routine legislation. How can you be so impatient with a bunch of parliamentarians who've been at it a year after four thousand years of dictatorship? ~ Robert M. Gates

It's rather naive, apart from being ethically objectionable, to assume that our investigators travel around the country with bags of money trying to bribe witnesses to lie on the witness stand. We just don't operate that way. ~ Jim Garrison

Sadness comes, joy comes, and everything passes by. What remains always is the witness. The witness is beyond all polarities. ~ Rajneesh

Unless every member of this church gains for himself an unshakable testimony of the divinity of this church, he will be among those who will be deceived in this day when the "elect according to the covenant" are going to be tried and tested. Only those will survive who have gained for themselves that testimony. . . .

It is not alone sufficient for us as Latter-day Saints to follow our leaders and to accept their counsel, but we have the greater obligation to gain for ourselves the unshakable testimony of the divine appointment of these men and the witness that what they have told us is the will of our Heavenly Father. ~ Harold B. Lee

People say to someone they love: I'd die for you. They don't expect to, of course, have no plans to. They may believe it, or mean it, or it may simply be an expression of devotion. But I know what it means now, I understand that impossible depth of emotion now. And I know you would die for me. You'd put my life before yours to protect me. And that terrifies me. ~ Nora Roberts

You do not consist of the elements - earth, water, fire, air or even ether. To be liberated, know yourself as consisting of consciousness, the witness of these. ~ Ashtavakra

The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost is the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. ~ William Lane Craig

This is the secret of spiritual life: to think that I am the Atman and not the body, and that the whole of this universe with all its relations, with all its good and all its evil, is but as a series of paintings ... scenes on a canvas ... of which I am the witness. ~ Swami Vivekananda

When I look beyond the mind, I see the witness. Beyond the witness, there is infinite intensity of emptiness and silence. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The mere summoning of a witness and compelling him to testify against his will, about his beliefs, expressions or associations, is a measure of governmental interference. And when those forced revelations concern maters that are unorthodox, unpopular, or even hateful to the general public, the reactions in the life of the witness may be disastrous. ~ Earl Warren

Notice in Acts 4 that there were "no needy persons among them." Why? Because they shared with "anyone one who had need." The expression of neediness in the community allowed the economy of love to flow. But in churches in America and other places where affluence poses special problems, the situation is very different. These cultures are enslaved to the fear of death and death avoidance holds serious sway. In these cultures the expression of need is taboo and pornographic. What results is neurotic image-management, the pressure to be "fine." The perversity here is that on the surface American churches do look like the church in Acts 4 - there are "no needy persons" among us. We all appear to be doing just fine, thank you very much.

But we know this to be a sham, a collective delusion driven by the fear of death. I'm really not fine and neither are you. But you are afraid of me and I'm afraid of you. We are neurotic about being vulnerable with each other. We fear exposing our need and failure to each other. And because of this fear - the fear of being needy within a community of neediness - the witness of the church is compromised. A collection of self-sustaining and self-reliant people - people who are all pretending to be fine - is not the Kingdom of God. It's a church built upon the delusional anthropology we described earlier. Specifically, a church where everyone is "fine" is a group of humans refusing to be human beings and pretending to be gods. Such a "church ~ Richard Beck

Take myths, for instance! As we know, fools are the overwhelming majority, which means that the witness to any interesting event has generally been a fool. Ergo: a myth is a description of a real event as perceived by a fool and refined by a poet. eh? ~ Arkady Strugatsky

The witness is always in the here and now and it lives in each instant of living. To be in the witness is to listen with a still heart, with a waiting, open soul, without clinging, without opinions. ~ Ram Dass

Now a witness was called who testified that he found Muff Potter washing in the brook, at an early hour of the morning that the murder was discovered, and that he immediately sneaked away. After some further questioning, counsel for the prosecution said: "Take the witness." The prisoner raised his eyes for a moment, but dropped them again when his own counsel said: "I have no questions to ask him." The next witness proved the finding of the knife near the corpse. Counsel for the prosecution said: "Take the witness." "I have no questions to ask him," Potter's lawyer replied. A third witness swore he had often seen the knife in Potter's possession. "Take the witness." Counsel for Potter declined to question him. The faces of the audience began to betray annoyance. Did this attorney mean to throw away his client's life without an effort? ~ Mark Twain

What you complain of in yourself, comprises the best marks of grace I can offer. A sense of unworthiness and weakness, joined with a hope in the Savior, constitutes the character of a Christian in this world. But you want the witness of the Spirit. What do you mean by this? Is it a whisper or a voice from heaven, to encourage you to believe that you may venture to hope that the promises of God are true, that he means what he says, and is able to make his word good? Your eyes are opened, you are weary of sin, you love the way of salvation yourself, and love to point it out to others, you are devoted to God, to his cause and people. It was not so with you once. Either you have somewhere stolen these blessings, or you have received them from the Holy Spirit. ~ Tony Reinke

With the advent of this something-not-known (which he scarcely dares consider lest it vanish), the metastasizing animosities among the witness bearers are dissolving, as if the Dancing were sealing their acceptance of all woebegone humankind in all its greed and cruelties as the only creature capable of evil and the only one - surely those two are connected - aware that it must die. ~ Peter Matthiessen

There are times not to flirt. When you're sick. When you're with children. When you're on the witness stand. ~ Joyce Jillson

This was self-defense. You're unarmed. He wanted your gold. I'll call your lawyer." She put her hat on his head.
"What about the witness?" Beckett wheezed.
"There is no witness." Eve leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Beckett's lips.
Our first fucking kiss. ~ Debra Anastasia

A common and highly effective method for challenging a statement is to compare it to the previous statements of the witness for consistency and to compare it with the physical evidence. ~ Robert P. McCulloch

The witness' manner not only affects whether the testimony is believed; it determines whether it was even heard. When was the last time you tuned out someone that you did not like, or found yourself in a mental haze during a monotonous monologue? ~ Steven H. Goldberg

The witness of the three states of consciousness [waking, dream and deep sleep] and of the nature of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss is the Self ~ Adi Shankara

She asked me if the schoolteacher and the horsemaster were still at odds, and by this I discerned that Burrich and Galen's challenge at the Witness Stones had become something of a local legend already. I assured her that peace had been restored. We spent ~ Robin Hobb

Sermon of the Mounts

Matthew 5

AND SEEING THE MULTITUDES, HE WENT UP INTO A MOUNTAIN, AND WHEN HE WAS SET, HIS DISCIPLES CAME UNTO HIM

The Gospels starts in a very beautiful way.

The Bible is the book of the books. The meaning of the word "bible" is - the book.

It is the most precious and beautiful document that humanity has. These statements are the most beautiful ever made.

That is why it is called "The Testament", because Jesus has become the witness of God.

While Buddha's words are refined and philosophic, Jesus words are poetic, plain and simple.

The beginning of the Gospel of Matthew states that 42 generations have passed from Abraham, the founder of Judaism, to Jesus.

Jesus is the flowering, the fulfillment, of these 42 generations.

The whole history that has preceded Jesus is the fulfillment in him.

Jesus is the fruit, the growth, the evolution, of those 42 generations.

The path of Jesus is the path of love. Jesus moved among ordinary people, while Buddha - whose path is the path of meditation, intelligence and understanding - moved with sophisticated people, who was already on the spiritual path,

Jesus is the culmination of the whole Jewish consciousness, while Buddha was the culmination of the Hindu consciousness and Socrates was the culmination of the Greek consciousness.

But the strange things is t ~ Swami Dhyan Giten

And here in Los Angeles, once again, I'm going to go down and be a witness. There's a guilty plea. I don't mind being on the witness stand, but I think they mind it a lot. ~ Patty Hearst

What sets a man writhing sleepless in bed at night is not having injured his fellow so much as having been wrong; the mere injury he can efface by destroying the victim and the witness but the mistake is his and that is one of his cats which he always prefers to choke to death with butter. ~ William Faulkner

There were no witnesses except the woman who'd been up all night, had consumed two beers and three vodka tonics before switching to (and sharing) the play-wright's Scotch, and she (the witness) could remember the morning only in snatches, like the digital stills and clips that cycled through her computer's screensaver. ~ Dana Cann

While separation does not mean disengagement from the world, there are certain activities and places that God clearly wants us to avoid not only to protect ourselves from spiritual harm but so that the witness we have will not be tarnished. ~ Billy Graham

Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in a scene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed, will be unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfully anxious and intent as she gave this evidence, and, in the pauses when she stopped for the Judge to write it down, watched its effect upon the counsel for and against. Among the lookers-on there was the same expression in all quarters of the court; insomuch, that a great majority of the foreheads there, might have been mirrors reflecting the witness, ~ Charles Dickens

Change no one. Change nothing. React to no one, react to nothing. Do not live in the past and do not, worry about the future. Stay in the eternal now, where all is well. After all you are me and I am you. There's no difference. Do not react to the world. Do not even react to your own body. Do not even react to your own thoughts. Learn to become the witness. Learn to be quiet. ~ Robert Adams

Are you perhaps one of those who worries about having committed the unpardonable sin? If so, you should face squarely what the Bible says on this subject, not what you may have heard from others. The unpardonable sin is rejecting the truth about Christ. It is rejecting, completely and finally, the witness of the Holy Spirit, which declares that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who alone can save us from our sins. Have you rejected Christ in your own life, and said in your heart that what the Bible teaches about Him is a lie? Then I tell you as solemnly and as sincerely as I know how that you are in a very dangerous position. I urge you without delay to accept the truth about Christ, and to come to humble confession and repentance and faith. It would be tragic for you to persist in your unbelief, and eventually go into eternity without hope and without God. ~ Billy Graham

stepped into the witness box to be examined. The defense wanted jurors who empathized with Muybridge - a married man who had a runaway wife, on the one hand, and a man who confronted a sexual rival, on the other. ~ Edward Ball

Much is being missed because of fear. We are too attached to the body and we go on creating more and more fear because of that attachment. The body is going to die, the body is part of death, the body is death - but you are beyond the body. You are not the body; you are the bodiless. Remember it. Realize it. Awaken yourself to this truth - that you are beyond the body. You are the witness, the seer. ~ Rajneesh

Initial proclamation brings the person 'into the love of God, who invites him to enter into a personal relationship with himself in Christ'.42Initial proclamation brings about conversion, when those who have not previously encountered Christ, or have dismissed him, open their heart to his love.43Sometimes it is a simple word offered, an experience of neighbourly love, or the witness of life on the part of a companion or an acquaintance that enables the person to see Jesus in a new light. As Pope Benedict points out: 'A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and let love alone speak. He knows that God is love ~ Irish Episcopal Conference

The revelations of the Father and the Son are conveyed through the third member of the Godhead, even the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the witness of and messenger for the Father and the Son. ~ David A. Bednar

Once the writer was at the deathbed of a fellow writer. What interested his dying colleague more than anything else was what was being said in the cultural section of the newspapers. Did these battles of opinion take his mind off his illness by infuriating him or making him laugh? Did they put him in mind of an eternal repetition, preferable after all to what was in store for him? There was more to it than that. Even in his hopeless situation, far-removed as he was from the editorial offices, he was their prisoner; more than his nearest and dearest, the critics and editors were the object of his dreams; and in the intervals when he was free from pain, he would ask, since by then he was incapable of reading, what one publication or another had said about some new book. The intrigues, and the almost pleasurable fury they aroused in the sufferer - who saw through them - brought a kind of world, a certain permanence into the sickroom, and the man at his bedside understood his vituperating or silently nodding friend as well as if it had been his own self lying there. But later, when the end was near and the dying man still insisted on having opinions read out to him from the latest batch of newspapers, the witness vowed that he would never let things come to such a pass with him as they had with his image and likeness. Never again would he involve himself in this circuit of classifications and judgments, the substance of which was almost exclusively the playing off of one writer o ~ Peter Handke

Your story is not a picture of life; it lacks the elements of truth. And why? Simply because you run straight on to the end; because you do not analyze. Your heroes do this thing or that from this or that motive, which you assign without ever a thought of dissecting their mental and moral natures. Our feelings, you must remember, are far more complex than all that. In real life every act is the
resultant of a hundred thoughts that come and go, and these
you must study, each by itself, if you would create a living
character. 'But,' you will say, 'in order to note these fleeting
thoughts one must know them, must be able to follow them in their capricious meanderings.You have simply to make use of hypnotism, electrical or human, which gives one a two-fold being, setting free the witness-personality so that it may see, understand, and remember the reasons which determine the personality that acts. ~ Jules Verne

Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter. ~ William Lane Craig

God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down. ~ C.S. Lewis