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Sri Vidyaranya Swami on the Vedantic Idea about Who Really Witnesses

The light in the dancing hall uniformly reveals the person who presides over the concert, the audience and the dancer. Even when they are absent, the light continues.

The unchangeable witness is ever present as selfluminous consciousness; the intellect functions under its light and dances in a variety of ways.

The patron is the ego, the various sense-objects are the audience, the intellect is the dancer, the musicians playing on their instruments are the sense-organs, and the light illumining them all is the witness-consciousness.

The streak of sunlight coming into the room through an opening is motionless; but if one dances one’s hand in the rays, the light appears to be dancing.

Sri Vidyaranya Swami
(Source: Sri Vidyaranya Swami’s book Panchadashi, Chapter X verses 11, 13, 14, 15 and 18.)