Who Is Watching?

What to expect

There’s a voice in your head that has been talking all day. This meditation asks it four questions, one at a time, and has you try each for yourself: what would it be like if the voice stopped, why is it so busy, who has this body, and who is watching. Nothing has to be answered, and the last one is left open to rest in. Under it the music slows with the mind: a soft techno pulse at the start, a slower melodic groove, then deep piano, and at the end the stillest notes of all.

How to listen:

• Sitting or lying down, with your eyes closed. Never while driving.
• Lee reads the first half and Lucas the second.
• Moving is always allowed, and you can stop at any point.

About

Safety and aftercare. You can stop at any point: open your eyes, move, look around the room, and feel what is holding you up. Moving is always allowed. Paying close attention to the voice in your head, and to who is noticing it, can sometimes bring up fear, old memories or a sense of unreality. That is known, it is not a failing, and it is a reason to stop for now. If you have a history of trauma, dissociation or panic, keep it short, and consider having someone you trust nearby or talking with a professional first. If you feel unsettled afterwards, move, walk, eat something, and talk with someone. The thing it asks you to choose is small and in the room with you. If what comes to mind is heavy, leave it and choose something lighter, or open your eyes and stop.

Credits. The four questions are Michael Singer’s, in the order he asked them: what it would be like if the voice in his head stopped, in the days after he first noticed it, on a couch in 1970, and why it was so busy, the turn that began his surrender experiment, both told in The Surrender Experiment (2015); who has the body, in his first book, The Search for Truth (1974); and who sees when you see, Ramana Maharshi’s Who am I? as he gives it in The Untethered Soul (2007). The last question is left unanswered; a talk of Singer’s, The Real Work: Letting Go From Within (2025), likewise asks that the question of how you know you are in there never be answered by an argument. Asking a question and never answering it, letting it stay with you and evoke what it will, is after Adyashanti, in Sounds True’s Waking Up: What Does It Really Mean? (2022).

Written by Lee and Lucas + Twins. Voices: Lee and Lucas.

Transcript

Opening

There’s a voice in your head that has been talking all day.

It talked while you worked, while you waited, while you tried to rest.

Hardly anyone stops to ask who has been listening.

There’s time for that question here.

Begin with the eyes.

Let your eyes close.

Shift until you are comfortable.

Let your weight be held.

Soften your face.

Notice your breathing as it is.

Feel each breath come and go.

Set the day aside, for now.

Part One: If the voice stopped

Notice the voice in your head.

Hear it from a step back.

As if someone nearby were talking.

Just overhear it.

The voice in your head talks nearly all the time. See if that is true right now.

Have the voice count slowly to five.

Did it follow?

You can change what it talks about. But you cannot make it stop by trying.

So don’t try.

Notice that you hear it.

The one hearing is not the voice. See if that is so.

Now wonder, silently. What would it be like if the voice stopped?

Nothing needs to happen.

Let the voice keep talking.

Just keep wondering.

Ask once more. What would it be like if the voice stopped?

Part Two: Why it is so busy

Listen to the voice again.

Ask. Why is it so busy?

Notice what it is busy about.

Keep looking, and leave it be.

Most of what the voice says is about what it likes, and what it doesn’t. It talks to get things the way it prefers.

Like plumping a pillow until it feels right. Is the voice doing that now?

Choose one small, plain thing right here. Something you mind only because you’d prefer it otherwise. The temperature of the room, perhaps. You’ll use it to try letting a preference go.

Notice what the voice says about it.

Now loosen the preference, and let the thing stay. Breathe out, and soften the wanting.

Notice how the wanting is now.

Say inwardly. It can be like this.

Listen. Does the voice talk as much about it?

Ask once more, and look for yourself. Why is it so busy?

Part Three: Who has this body

Bring your attention to one hand.

Feel it from the inside.

Now call it my hand, and feel it that way.

No one says, I am a hand. We say, my hand. The body is something we have.

Feel whether that is so.

Then feel your whole body’s weight.

Notice it as my weight.

No need to think it through.

Only wonder. Who has this body?

Feel the hand. Who has it?

Ask once more. Who has this body?

Part Four: Who is watching

Notice what’s behind your closed eyes.

Ask. Who sees when you see?

Listen to whatever you can hear.

Ask. Who hears when you hear?

Feel the body from the inside.

Ask. Who feels when you feel?

Whatever you can see, hear or feel is something you notice. None of it is the one noticing.

Check that against what’s here.

Leave what’s behind your closed eyes alone.

Let each sound pass by.

Allow what the body feels to come and go.

Now ask, without answering. Who is watching?

Part Five: Rest in the question

Rest in the question.

Stay as long as you like. Open your eyes whenever you choose.