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When the penny drops, there’s no way for it
– or its inventor (me/you) – to go back.
It’s not a question of not wanting to,
or of wanting to ‘for the sake of others.’
When the penny drops, the place it drops to is no-where.
And the one who thought up whole penny-idea is awol.
So there’s nobody to go back
and nowhere to go back from or to.
The full impact of this isn’t apparent at first.
It unfolds like a flower: petal by petal.
Watching, one sees the shifts in behavior,
especially in one’s reactions.
One sees the vast liberation that was never-not-present.
One sees the joy that has no cause or meaning.
One sees, but no-one watches.
There is no witness!
Watching sees and that Watching is what One is.
~
echoes from emptiness 
‘There is no witness’
The Witness would be a stage between the thinker/doer/observer (individual mind) and awareingness or Watching, as you put it, and it finally dissolves into the latter.
Yes, I have heard that stage mentioned by some Direct Path teachers (Greg Goode for one) but for some reason I missed out. The wild dakini leaped right over that construct and … pooof!
Smiles. Happy Friday.
~ ml