The first is the path to the last...

His role is to play witness of what he is, how he behaves, the thoughts he admits, just as if he were witnessing someone else.

This move-over from the actively-engaged person to the watcher who is impersonal and disengaged even in the midst of action, is one from drift to control. He must begin by putting the ego, his own ego, forward as an object of observation.

He will not succeed fully in doing so, because he is involved on both sides--as subject and object--but the direction can be fixed and the work can be started. With time and practice, study and reflection, help and sincerity, some sort of impersonality and neutrality can be established.

When inner stillness is fully reached, the work becomes much easier until it is completed by the grace of the higher Self, Overself. Of course, outside of meditation, he is conscious of his commonplace body; but he is also conscious of his awe-inspiring Overself. He sees the first as part of a passing show, himself as an uninvolved observer, and behind both the eternal Overself.

-Paul Brunton