S01/E10: “I Am Observer” – Remaining Present Without Interference

Introduction

Welcome back to the Martfotai podcasts.

In our last episode, we explored intention – the force that directs your energy and shapes your life. We discovered how real intention differs from wish, preference, emotion, and momentum. We learned that intention is not effort, but alignment. The steady presence that chooses direction.

We saw how attention feeds identity, but intention transforms it. How the question is not “Who am I?” but “What am I serving right now?” Because whatever you serve in this moment, that is who you become.

Yet intention alone can still be hijacked by the very fragments it seeks to unify.

Something must witness intention at work. Something must remain stable as emotions rise and fall, as reactions surge and subside. That something is the Observer.

This episode is about that awareness – the consciousness that watches your psychological weather without being blown around by it. The presence that can witness road rage, defensive reactions, and streams of stories without becoming any of them.

When the Observer is absent, you become whatever visits you. Anger makes you angry. Fear makes you afraid. You disappear completely into each reaction, tossed like a leaf in the wind of your own psychological weather.

When the Observer is present, something extraordinary becomes possible. You can engage fully with life without being destabilised by life’s movements. You can feel without being overwhelmed. You can respond rather than react. You can choose rather than be chosen.

This is not detachment. This is not withdrawal from life. This is conscious participation from a place that cannot be touched by the drama it observes.

Let’s discover what it means to remain present without interference.

Section 2 – What the Observer Is (And What It Isn’t)

Right now, as you hear or read these words, notice what’s noticing them. Not the words themselves. Not your thoughts about the words. But the aware presence that’s receiving all of it. That awareness reading or listening to this sentence… that’s the Observer.

The Observer is not a part of you. It is what you are when you stop being everything else.

But let’s be clear about what it isn’t, because this is where most people get confused.

It is not the voice in your head that comments on your experience. The inner voice saying “I’m getting angry” or “I shouldn’t feel this way” – that’s just another thought to be witnessed. The Observer is the silent awareness in which that voice appears.

It is not the one who judges what arises. When anger appeared, judgment might have followed: “This anger is bad, I need to stop it.” But judgment is just another reaction. The Observer simply sees anger arising, like watching a red car drive past. No preference. No agenda. No need to change what it witnesses.

But here’s a crucial point that trips people up: The Observer is not detached. Many people try to turn witnessing into a spiritual identity – “I’m the enlightened one who doesn’t get caught in emotions.” This is just ego wearing spiritual clothes.

True observing doesn’t pull away from experience. The Observer doesn’t distance itself from the anger. It remains intimately present with the anger without becoming angry. Intimate without being identified.

You may have touched this awareness already without even recognising it. In moments of crisis, when everything slows down and you seem to watch events unfold with crystal clarity. In meditation, when thoughts drift by like clouds. In nature, when the sense of “you” dissolves and there’s only seeing, only presence.

But here’s the recognition that changes everything: This is not a special state you achieved. It is your natural condition, temporarily remembered.

The Observer doesn’t come and go. It’s always here. What comes and goes is your remembrance of it. Your willingness to rest as it, rather than become the drama it was witnessing.

It has no qualities because it’s the open space in which all qualities appear. It has no story because it witnesses all stories. It has no problems because problems exist only for the one who identifies with circumstances.

This is why it remains present without interference. Nothing can disturb what has no fixed position to defend. Nothing can threaten what claims nothing for itself.

The moment you try to grasp the Observer as something you possess, you become something else doing the grasping. The moment you try to use it as a spiritual technique, you step out of it entirely. It cannot be owned because it is what experiences everything else – not through possession, but through simple, open awareness.

You cannot find the Observer because you cannot be separate from what you’re looking for. You cannot strengthen the Observer because it needs no strengthening. You cannot become the Observer because you never stopped being it.

Even in moments of complete reactivity, the Observer was there. It was the awareness that later could say “I was angry” – meaning something was witnessing the anger the entire time.

This is the foundation of all real seeing. Looking from the right place. Taking the proper seat. Recognising the witness that is already here, reading these words, effortlessly aware of whatever arises.

That recognition is available right now. Something to remember rather than achieve. The one who is aware of this very moment – that’s what you actually are beneath all the costumes of identity.

Section 3 – The Difference Between Watching and Witnessing

Most people think they are observing when they are actually analysing. They confuse attention with awareness, focus with presence.

Let’s experience both modes right now with something simple: the sounds around you.

First, try watching the sounds. Focus your attention on them. Try to identify each sound – is that a car? Air conditioning? Voices? Notice how you’re aiming your attention like a spotlight, targetting specific sounds. Feel the effort involved. The sense that you’re here and the sounds are there.

Now shift into witnessing the sounds. Stop trying to focus on them. Instead, let your awareness simply be open to whatever sounds are present. Let them exist in the open space of awareness, like birds moving through the sky. No effort. No pursuit. Just spacious, effortless awareness.

Feel the difference in your body. Watching creates subtle tension. Witnessing feels like relaxing into a larger space.

Watching is active. Witnessing is receptive.

When you watch your emotions, you direct attention toward them. You aim, you target, you concentrate as if they’re separate from you. There’s effort involved – you’re working to observe your emotional state.

When you witness emotions, there’s no separation between you and what arises. No effort. No strain. Awareness simply includes the emotion like sky includes clouds. The emotion isn’t happening to someone – it’s just arising in the open space of consciousness.

Watching narrows. Witnessing opens.

Watching makes you focus on one thing while missing everything else. Witnessing includes whatever arises AND the sky AND the music AND the safety all at once.

Watching seeks to understand. Witnessing simply receives.

Here’s where people get stuck: They try so hard to witness that witnessing becomes another form of watching. They effort to be effortless. They make witnessing into a technique to master.

The shift happens when you stop trying to witness and simply notice that witnessing is already happening. Right now, something is effortlessly aware of these words without any effort from you. That’s witnessing. You don’t make it happen. You recognise it’s already here.

How to make the shift: Instead of trying to witness, ask: “What’s already aware right now?” This question points you toward the awareness that’s effortlessly present rather than making you work to create awareness.

Watching tires you because it requires energy, attention, sustained effort. After watching your thoughts for ten minutes, you need a break.

Witnessing never tires because it’s not work – it’s rest itself. It’s your natural state when you stop trying to control your experience. You can witness continuously because witnessing requires no energy. It is the source of energy.

This is why the Observer can remain present without interference. It’s not doing anything that could be interrupted. It’s simply being what it is – the aware space in which everything appears.

Some meditation teaches watching: “Focus on the breath. Observe your thoughts. Pay attention to sensations.” This has value, but it’s still effortful. It still maintains the illusion that you’re separate from what you’re observing.

True witnessing dissolves that separation. There’s no one watching the anger – there’s only anger appearing in awareness. No one observing the frustration – only frustration arising and passing away in consciousness.

This is what it means to remain present without interference. You’re not interfering with emotions by trying to watch them, understand them, or change them. You’re not interfering with awareness by trying to direct it or focus it.

You simply rest as the space in which everything appears. And from that space, a natural response arises. Not planned. Not forced. Something emerging from the stillness itself.

This is how the Observer acts in the world. Through natural responsiveness to what is actually present. Like water flowing around rocks – simply because that is its nature.

Section 4 – The Observer and the Stream of I’s

Every day, you are visited by a parade of different selves.

The ‘I’ that wakes up irritated. The ‘I’ that feels enthusiastic about a project. The ‘I’ that gets defensive in conversation. The ‘I’ that seeks approval. The ‘I’ that judges others.

Each one feels completely real when it appears. Each one claims to be you. Each one has its own desires, fears, and agendas. And each one genuinely believes it is in charge.

But the Observer sees them all.

It witnesses each ‘I’ arise and fade – the irritated one, the enthusiastic one, the defensive one. Without being any of them.

This is one of the most liberating discoveries you can make: You are not your shifting states. You are not your moods, your reactions, your opinions, or your stories. You are the awareness in which they all appear.

The Observer doesn’t judge these different ‘I’s. It doesn’t try to get rid of the unpleasant ones or hold onto the pleasant ones. It simply sees them as temporary visitors in the space of consciousness.

From the Observer, you begin to see the mechanical nature of these shifting identities. How the angry ‘I’ always responds the same way. How the fearful ‘I’ always projects the same scenarios. How the seeking ‘I’ always looks in the same places. How each identity speaks in absolutes – ‘this always happens,’ ‘I never get what I want,’ ‘people are always selfish.’ The Observer notices these patterns without believing them.

But you also see something else: these ‘I’s are not problems to be solved. They are simply phenomena to be witnessed. And in the witnessing, their power over you begins to dissolve.

You stop taking them so seriously. You stop believing everything they tell you. You stop thinking their thoughts are your thoughts, their emotions are your emotions.

This doesn’t make you cold or detached. It makes you free. Free to respond from wisdom rather than react from conditioning. Free to choose which impulses to follow and which to let pass.

The Observer gives you choice because it gives you psychological space. The crucial gap between stimulus and response where freedom lives.

When the angry ‘I’ arises, the Observer sees it. And in that seeing, a choice point appears: Will you become the anger, or will you remain as the witness?

When the fearful ‘I’ projects disaster, the Observer notices. And again, the choice: Will you enter the story of fear, or will you rest in the awareness that holds the story?

This is how the Observer remains present without interference. It doesn’t interfere with what arises, and it doesn’t allow what arises to interfere with its essential nature.

It remains like the still centre of a turning wheel. Everything moves around it, but it stays motionless. From this stillness, authentic action becomes possible.

Section 5 – What Cannot Be Observed

Here is a mystery that points to the deepest truth: the Observer itself cannot be observed.

You can witness thoughts, emotions, sensations, even the activity of observing. But you cannot step outside the Observer to observe it. You cannot turn awareness back on itself to see what is looking.

Try this experiment right now: Try to observe the Observer.

Go ahead. See if you can turn your awareness back on itself to catch a glimpse of what’s doing the observing.

What happened? You probably found that the moment you attempted to witness the witness, you became something else trying to observe it. But what was that something else?

If you follow this inquiry honestly, you discover something that cannot be grasped, cannot be seen as an object, cannot be reached by any effort.

This is like asking: What sees the eyes? What hears the ears? What knows the mind?

There’s no answer – because the one who would answer is what you’re looking for. It’s not findable because it’s the finder. It’s not knowable because it’s the knower.

Most people hit this wall and think they’ve failed at the practice: “I can’t find the Observer. I must be doing it wrong.”

But this is exactly the point. The frustration comes from trying to make awareness into another object of awareness.

Let’s use a different scene:

You’re walking alone through a quiet forest. The light filters through the trees. Your thoughts slow. A sense of presence arises. You become aware of your surroundings – the crunch of leaves, the call of a distant bird.

Then a second awareness arises: you’re aware that you’re aware of the forest. Then, perhaps, another: you’re aware of being aware of being aware.

Now ask: What is aware of all this?

If you follow this regress honestly, you discover something that has no qualities, no characteristics, no boundaries. It’s not a thing among other things. It’s not an experience you can have. It’s what all experiences appear in.

Without this open awareness, there would be no place for your anger to appear, no space for your love to be felt, no backdrop against which any experience could arise.

This points to what you fundamentally are. Not the Observer, but the awareness in which even the Observer appears.

The Observer is still a function, still an activity. But what you actually are is prior to all functions, all activities, all experiences.

This is what the ancient teachings called the Self – with a capital S. Not the personal self – not you with your job and your relationships and your defensive reactions – but the impersonal awareness that is the deepest nature of what you call “I.”

And here’s the crucial point: You cannot become this – because you already are this.

Right now, with you listening to or reading these words, what you fundamentally are is this open awareness in which the words manifest. That aware space in which hearing, seeing, and understanding happen.

Most spiritual practices focus on becoming a better observer. Learning to witness thoughts without getting caught. Watching emotions without being swept away.

This has value – but it’s not the end. It’s a doorway.

The Observer is like learning to walk a forest trail with full presence. An essential skill. But ultimately, you discover there was no path at all – only the stillness from which all paths arise.

Beyond the Observer lies what cannot be observed. Beyond the witness lies what cannot be witnessed.

This recognition doesn’t come through effort or technique. You cannot think your way to it or meditate your way to it.

It comes through a kind of letting go, so complete that even the one who lets go disappears.

Even in moments of deep entanglement – in argument, in confusion, in self-judgement – this fundamental awareness is present.

It’s the open field against which all stories play out. Never threatened. Never disturbed. Never damaged.

This is why all methods ultimately fail. Why all practices eventually dissolve. Because what you’re seeking is what’s already here. Closer than breath. More intimate than thought.

But this understanding comes only through the Observer. You can’t skip steps.

Only by witnessing completely do you discover what lies beyond witnessing. Only by observing fully do you see what cannot be observed.

These practices don’t create awareness. They remove what obscures the recognition of what you already are.

This is the final understanding:

There is no Observer watching your thoughts in the forest. There is only this seamless awareness appearing as the entire scene – the trees, the path, the sound of birds, the thoughts, the observation of thoughts, the one who observes, and the awareness in which all of this arises.

Undivided. Present without interference – because there’s no one to interfere, and nothing to interfere with.

But this recognition doesn’t eliminate you or make your life irrelevant. It reveals what you actually are beneath the costume of personhood.

You still live, love, walk the forest, forget and remember. But you do it all from what cannot be touched by any of it.

This is the pathless path. The gateless gate. The return to what never left.

Section 6 – The Observer in the Marketplace

The real test of Observer consciousness is not in meditation, but in the middle of ordinary life. When someone cuts you off in traffic. When your plans fall apart. When criticism comes your way. When you’re running late and everything goes wrong.

This is where the Observer proves its worth – or reveals its absence.

Specific Scenarios

The Meeting Room: You’re presenting quarterly results when a colleague interrupts with sharp criticism. Your chest tightens. Heat rises. The familiar defensive story begins: They’re trying to undermine me. I need to prove I’m right.

Without the Observer, you become the defensiveness. You either argue or retreat into silence. The meeting derails. The relationship suffers. The real issue gets lost in ego warfare.

From the Observer, you notice: Criticism is landing. Body contracting. Defensive reaction forming. Story about being attacked arising. From that space, you might respond: That’s a valid point. Let me walk through the methodology so we can explore it together. Same situation. Different energy. Different outcome.

The Family Dinner: Your teenager rolls their eyes and mutters that you “don’t understand anything.” The parental ego flares: After everything I’ve done for you!

Or the Observer notices: Eye-roll. Story about disrespect forming. Impulse to lecture. Old pattern activating. Instead, you pause. Breathe. And ask: Help me understand what I’m missing here. What could’ve become a power struggle becomes an opening.

The Integration Without Inflation

Here’s a subtle trap: using Observer consciousness to feel spiritually superior. The ego sneaks in with a new identity: I’m the one who doesn’t react. Look how aware I am compared to others.

That’s not witnessing. That’s detachment dressed as wisdom.

True observing is humble. It doesn’t compare or elevate. It doesn’t create distance to avoid discomfort – it remains fully available to it.

When your partner is upset, the Observer doesn’t think: I’ll just witness their emotional drama from a centred place. It stays present with the pain. Open. Unshielded. Willing to feel without being swept away.

When Witnessing Becomes Avoidance

Another trap is using witnessing to avoid feeling. You observe anger but never let it move through you. You see grief but don’t let yourself cry. You touch joy but hold it at arm’s length.

This isn’t freedom. It’s subtle suppression.

The Observer doesn’t pull back from experience. It creates the space for experience to unfold completely – without the added story that anything is wrong.

Grief is allowed to be grief. The tears flow. The heart breaks. The loss is honoured – fully felt, not resisted.

Common Failure Modes

The Effort and Judgment Trap: Trying so hard to be present that observing becomes tension. You’re working to witness. Now it’s another task. Or turning the Observer into an inner critic: I shouldn’t feel this. I’m failing at presence.

The Bypass Trap: Avoiding necessary action: I’ll just observe this injustice, not get involved.

The Identity Trap: Building a self-image: I’m the calm one. I rise above emotions. The Observer becomes a costume.

But true witnessing is effortless, engaged, and real. It doesn’t make you special. It reveals what you are beneath all the roles and reactions.

The Integration Promise

When the Observer becomes your natural way of being, something extraordinary shifts in ordinary life.

You’re fully present in conflict without being consumed by it. You feel deeply without being overwhelmed. You act without being driven by impulse.

Relationships soften. Work gets lighter. Even difficulty becomes workable – because you’re no longer resisting it.

The Observer doesn’t eliminate problems. It dissolves the suffering added by identification.

Pain may still arise. But suffering – the story layered on top – becomes optional.

This is the gift of remaining present without interference.

Life moves through you, but it no longer moves you off-centre. You become like a mountain. Storms may swirl – but your foundation remains steady.

And from that stillness, right action emerges. Not driven by ego. Not forced by will. But arising naturally from presence, moment to moment.

Section 7 – The Three Depths of Seeing

Not all observation is equal. There are depths to witnessing – layers of clarity that unfold as consciousness matures. Most people remain at the first level, trapped in identification. But for those willing to explore, each level reveals a deeper kind of freedom.

Level 1: Surface Observation – “I notice I’m angry” In the body: There’s tension. Your jaw is clenched. Shoulders tight. Observation feels like work – trying to stay aware while swimming in the emotion. The awareness: You recognise the anger, but you’re still inside it. The observer and observed are tangled. You feel like someone who has anger – someone personally involved. How it sounds: Thoughts like “I’m angry, but I shouldn’t be” or “I’m watching my anger, so I’m being conscious” show that observation is still filtered through identity. This is a valuable beginning. A gap has opened between you and your reaction. But the reaction still colours the seeing.

Level 2: Clear Observation – “Anger is arising” In the body: There’s more space. Your breath deepens. Observation feels relaxed, like watching weather shift from the shelter of a cabin. The awareness: Anger is no longer “yours.” It’s simply a phenomenon appearing in awareness – like wind moving through trees. How it sounds: “Anger is moving through. Heat rising. Thoughts forming.” The language becomes impersonal. No one owns the experience – it is simply happening. The bridge: Shift your language. From “I’m angry” to “Anger is present.” From “I’m thinking” to “Thinking is happening.” Language reflects awareness. At this level, emotions, thoughts, and sensations arise, move through, and dissolve. You are no longer at their mercy.

Level 3: Transparent Observation – “Anger appears in what I am” In the body: Complete ease. There is no sense of watching. The body feels like open space. No one is tense. No one is relaxed. The awareness: Even the sense of observing dissolves. There is no observer. No subject. Only the movement of anger through open being. How it sounds: “There’s no one here to be angry.” “Anger is appearing in the same space as peace.” Observer and observed vanish into seamless presence. The bridge: This cannot be achieved. It arrives when even the one who would observe is surrendered. What remains is awareness expressing itself as everything. You do not witness anger – you are the space in which it moves. Like water reflecting the sky without effort, awareness flows as whatever arises.

The Effort Paradox Each level requires less effort – but initially feels like it takes more. Level 1 takes effort to maintain. Level 2 feels effortless once the shift occurs. Level 3 has no effort – because no one remains to make it.

Which Level Am I Operating From? Level 1: Observing takes work. There’s inner struggle and commentary about your state. Level 2: Witnessing feels natural and open. Reactions move through without consuming you. Level 3: There’s no sense of a witness. Experience simply arises and dissolves in open awareness.

Most live at Level 1 – identified with every thought and mood. Some reach Level 2 – able to witness without being caught. Few recognise Level 3 – where even the witness disappears, and only seamless being remains.

But each level prepares for the next. Surface observation opens the way to clarity. Clear observation dissolves into transparency. Each layer erodes the illusion that there is a separate someone watching.

At every stage, the truth holds: You remain present without interference. You don’t interfere with what arises. And what arises cannot interfere with what you are.

This is real freedom – not the freedom to control life, but the freedom to remain unshaken within it. The freedom to be here, with everything – without being destabilised by anything.

Section 8 – The Observer as Inner Ground

Remember that moment when an argument broke out over something small? Voices raised, frustration rising. But this time, something different happens. Instead of becoming the anger, you remember: What would the Observer see here?

Suddenly, there’s space. The tension is still present – but you’re no longer drowning in it. This is what it means to live from the Observer.

The Observer isn’t a technique you practise occasionally. It is what you are when you stop being everything else. But in a world that constantly pulls for identification, you must learn to return to this centre again and again.

The Observer Toolkit

The Morning Anchor: Before the day begins, spend three minutes simply witnessing. Just notice that awareness is already here.

The Midday Reset: When reaction takes over, ask: “What would the Observer see here?” That single question creates space.

The Friction Practice: When caught in tension, ask: “Who is aware right now?” This brings you back to the quiet clarity that sees it all.

The Observer’s Compass

Authentic Witnessing feels like: Spaciousness in the chest, effortless clarity, no inner commentary, intimacy with what’s happening.

Thinking About Witnessing feels like: Mental strain, internal narration, distance from the moment, trying to be aware.

Real witnessing simply notices: “Heat rising. Jaw clenching. Story forming.” No judgment. No effort.

Witnessing Without Withdrawal

The Observer doesn’t pull away – it meets life from stability. When your partner is crying, it remains present with the pain, responsive without being swept away. When your child celebrates, it joins fully – pure celebration without pride or possession.

Witnessing doesn’t weaken experience. It purifies it.

From the Observer, you discover something extraordinary:

You can engage fully without being destabilised. You can feel deeply without being overwhelmed. You can act decisively without being driven by compulsion.

This is true intimacy – the ability to be fully with life without becoming tangled in it.

Whatever arises comes from the stillness beneath it all.

This is what it means to live from the Observer as your ground.

Conclusion

Let’s return to that moment of reactivity one final time, whether it’s a rising argument or a wave of self-doubt.

Something has fundamentally shifted. Frustration still arises, but you no longer become the frustration. You witness it from an unshakeable centre.

This is what daily life looks like when the Observer becomes your natural way of being.

The final paradox: If you already are the Observer, why practise at all?

Because the Observer needs no practice – but the person caught in reactions and lost in stories benefits enormously from remembering. You don’t practise to become the Observer. You practise to stop becoming what you are not.

This awareness expresses itself through your body moving with less tension… Your relationships deepening through presence… Your actions arising from response, not reaction. You engage fully with the human drama while remaining rooted in what cannot be disturbed.

The Observer has been waiting your entire life to be remembered. It has witnessed every joy, every sorrow, every triumph, every failure. It has never left you. Never judged you. Never abandoned you.

Closer than breath. More constant than your heartbeat. It is what you are when you stop pretending to be everything else.

The Observer is not a state you achieve. It is your natural condition – temporarily forgotten. Not a level to reach, but the ground you never left.

When you rest as the Observer, something in you stops seeking and starts being. Something stops struggling and starts flowing. Something stops defending and starts opening.

This is what it means to remain present without interference – not because disturbance disappears, but because you’ve discovered what cannot be disturbed.

If something in you recognised itself today, let that recognition deepen.

You can subscribe at martfotai.com for our weekly newsletter, guided practices, and eventual access to the full premium series. A deeper guided meditation on Observer consciousness is coming soon. Next, we explore I Am Stillness – What Remains When I Cease to React. If the Observer gives you space from your reactions, stillness reveals what was always here beneath the movement.

Thank you for walking this path with me. Not toward somewhere else, but into the heart of what you have always been.

I’m Gary Eggleton, and this is Martfotai.

Until next time, remember: You are not what you observe. You are the space in which all observation arises. Rest there. That’s home.