The witness of all in this world is neither in saṃsāra nor is liberated

The sākṣī — witness, consciousness that perceives without participating — is the concept that unites the Vāsiṣṭha with the Yoga Sūtras and the Aṣṭāvakra Gītā. It is not in saṃsāra because it does not identify with what it witnesses. It is not liberated because it was never bound. It is like the cinema screen: movies play, stories unfold, characters suffer and rejoice, but the screen remains unaffected. It does not need to be liberated from the movie because it was never part of it.