Sailor Bob's - Non duality spiel and discussion

Hello. I'd like to tell your names so everybody knows everybody. Terry. Tony. Bill. Tani. Robin. Cut. A couple of things we point out right from the start which you've probably heard a million times. We don't teach you anything here and we don't tell you anything. It's very important to understand. When you understand what we're pointing to you'll see nobody can ever teach you anything and nobody can ever tell you anything. What we do is point toward and ask you to look to where we're pointing to to see for yourself. No matter what you've read or no matter what you've understood or know. It's all about you.

It's all about you. No matter what you believe. There's nobody who can give you anything and there's nothing you can ever get. What we point to is I say you'll see it's the base of all the ancient scriptures if you look into them closely enough. Hinduism they call it Advaita. Advaita translated means non-duality. It's a non dual manifestation. You'll see the same thing in the Buddhist texts where they'll say it's non-conceptual ever-friendly. presence awareness. And they add on to that, just this, nothing else. Exactly nothing other than that, that non-conceptual ever fresh presence awareness, which you are right now. Buddhist will tell you the same thing, but I'll say it's non-conceptual ever fresh presence awareness, just this, nothing else.

Pointing out that that is all there is. Other traditions in Christianity or some of the others around us say it's omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, talking about God. Omnipresence is total presence. Omnipotence is total power. Not mind power, thought power, your power or higher power, or when you divide in power, but it's around power or intelligence or divine expression as evidence. Omniscience means total intelligence. That's what we're pointing to. And omniscience means total intelligence. That's what we're pointing to. And we try to stay along those lines of what we're pointing to until it's recognised, instead of going off into the stories in the different states, recognise that basically you are already that.

That's the Mahavaki or the great mantra, I am that. They are that, this is that, everything is that. And we know that in our language. We say that's a chair, that's a carpet, that's spilled, that's me, that's you. And we say, that's the chair, that's the carpet, that's spilled, that's me, that's you. And we say, that's the chair, that's me, that's you. And we say, that's the chair, that's me, that's you. And we say, that's me, that's you. And everyone sends Jian move and looks over to come and we there he is instead of that I'm that is not a chair, but he prepares the questions in front of him.

If you are a table of ideas of your ownこう that you any longer ask him to wear, but there's no further order. I'm not speaking to any mind. That body-mind entity or individual you might think you are, I'm not speaking to that. What I'm speaking to is that I am that I am. That I am is the sense of presence that expresses through your mind as the thought I am. Just this, nothing else. That's all of it. That sense of presence. I'm not in very good form tonight. I got a couple of teeth out yesterday and the fellow there after. I'll let Kat take over and carry on from there and I'll have a listen for a change.

Let's know what you've understood or what you've realized. Yeah, this cat, the red cat is taking over. Yeah, so I'll maybe start from highlighting the significance of the thing that Bob already repeated twice. Because that's really important to grasp right from the start that the whole spiel, the whole communication is not for the person. It's not for the body-mind. Because what we usually do when we first come across this sort of a teaching, we come with the only equipment that we have available and the only thing we know which is the translating services, the mind. So we translate everything we hear and try to fit it in with our beliefs.

Yeah. And we try to fit it in with our belief systems with whatever sounds familiar. Just try to squeeze it. Oh yeah, I heard it before. Oh yeah, that makes sense. And the inner commentary overlays the message. So really the paradox of these teachings, they are not being taught to the mind. The mind is to completely ignore it. Like Bob sometimes said when Tony has snooze, at least you're not thinking. At least the inner commentary is switched off. I'm not sneezing, I'm meditating. I thought you were sneezing. I'm not sneezing. I had one shit. Whatever. Anyway that's really essential for the start because what is it to hear the message is that presence awareness or that consciousness or that whatever way we want to call it.

Something is more like, again, every word is going to be wrong. But rather than listening with the head. we kind of try to relax and listen with the heart, with the core of our being. Listen with something that may find the resonance, that may find it, the sense of, the thing that is actually distracting us from that natural sense of well-being or the sense which Nisargadatta described as nothing is wrong, nothing is wrong anymore, is usually the story, is the head, is the fact that this moment as it is, is not good enough. We would like this moment to be different. We would like ourselves to be different, to be somewhere else, do something else.

Like normal, average, mundane life, washing dishes, cutting the water, chopping wood is no good. So that sort of resistance comes from comparing the situation with whatever the ideal is. And this is the translation that happens so subconsciously that we are not even aware of. And the same sort of translation and comparison goes on when we are not even aware of what is going on. When we listen to non-duality. And this is undesirable. So this is why this message sometimes has to be heard a thousand times before it really penetrates to that thick veil of translation, of interpreting. So it is really about listening with the heart and trying to find something that will make it feel home.

It's really about that basic feeling of, nothing's wrong anymore. Feeling of, this is okay. This moment as it is, is okay. This world, this body, this... Like Bob is calling it heart to heart. And you want to explain the heart to heart the way you do? Or you don't feel like... jump in. If you listen, listening from head to head, there is no communication. Because you'll have your concepts. And I'll have my concepts. And we won't be the... We'll be in the Kodiyatul, we just won't be. And when I say, listen from the heart, I'm not talking about your physical heart. I'm talking about the heart as the core of your being.

Or if you like to put it another way, as the centre of the spirit. There's a core or a heart essence in that. And everybody knows what a heart to heart is. Because you've had a one to one conversation. Or a contact with somebody who is in great pain or difficulty. And you'll say afterwards, I felt my heart open up and go out to them. You mightn't realise it, but that was a heart to heart. When you felt your heart go out to them. When that core goes out to the core that's expressing, then there's a natural communication. And there can be great healing in that.

Great love, great joy. So to cultivate it, if you can. You hear the story in the title instead of rubbish in it. Make that move to go out and see if you can take it in. With the core of your spirit. Yes, so if this one is actually understood this way through the resonance, now the message is really very, very simple. It says that whatever that heart or that core or that essence, whatever the mind is looking for, the mind is not going to find. The individual or the person or the entity that we believe ourselves, we may believe ourselves to be. They are not going to achieve anything.

They are not going to change. They are not going to find enlightenment. They can as well just give up. But the heart, the essence, the true nature of what we are, is already that. It's already fully developed. So there's really nothing to search. There's nothing to look. It's just to fall down into that relaxed, natural state, which is always and ever here. And has never, ever been here. It's never been obscured in any other way than by the belief. So it is really about starting. Bob starts, you are already that. Now see what stands in the way. So you are already that. Nothing's wrong anymore.

That relaxed, natural state. Now what's in the way? The idea, no, no, no. It's not this. Something's wrong. You know, this is not right. The world shouldn't be. You know, there's suffering in the world. There's problems. This one is the problem. This, those are ideas. Those are concepts. The thoughts. When I pause the thought and ask myself what's wrong with right now if I don't think about it, all the concepts disappear. The idea of eating right or wrong food or being healthy or unhealthy or worthy or unworthy, they all disappear when the thought is paused. So now nothing obscures the natural state. But it doesn't mean that we should stay thoughtless and forever and ever guard to have no thoughts.

Because who would be doing it? There would be a conceptual image trying to be a fascist and stay away from thoughts. That's impossible. Thoughts is natural functioning. Just like objects are part of the seeing, thoughts are part of the thinking, sounds are part of the hearing. So they will be showing up. It's just to let them, let them appear and disappear, move on, just like sounds move on or clouds move over the sky. And rather than have the habit of relating those thoughts as ultimate truth that is happening to me, the person, and now I have the evaluation over the thoughts, that overlay of interpretation is the problem.

Because that creates the uneasiness, that creates the resistance. The idea that something's wrong, something should be changed. And that in that moment I'm at war with the reality. I don't love what is. I'm not happy to be. I have the idea that I have to do something or be something or become something or gain something or get enlightened or whatever. So the real problem, the only distance that is seemingly created between the me, the person, and so-called arriving at the state of relaxation is one thought that I'm separate. If that thought doesn't arise, there's nothing wrong anymore. I'm part of happening. This is my speaker, this is my car, this is my coat, and this is my environment, and nothing's wrong anymore.

This is just this. Life appearing at this moment at that shape. So not speaking to anybody, not speaking to any mind. Looking for the resonance, for that sense of naturalness and relaxation that kind of sensation that comes from the heart. Because down deep inside, all of us, we actually know it. Because before we learn words and before we started identifying as a person, as a human, a man or woman or whatever, we were children. We didn't have words. And we were leaving natural state just like this cat. We were spontaneously functioning. We were attracted to something maybe colorful. Something nice and repulsed from something smelly.

Just like every animal in nature. So it was the natural state. And every one of us has been there. So deep down, this is the essence. This is what we naturally are. Throughout the conditioning, we created the separate entity for a reason. How would we wake up to the beauty of our true nature if we didn't fall asleep to it? So now, if the idea of being a person, relating the world to the person is still happening, this is also part of the beauty, part of the appearance. So it's good to actually have patience with it. It's good to embrace it as something natural, as something sweet.

Oh yeah, selfing is happening. Okay. See how long it lasts. Because if I have resistance towards my selfing or towards my reactions or responses, or whatever, then it's actually the ego is paling the layers over the layers. Like the basic word I remember, Terry, you used as an acceptance. It's kind of suggested there's somebody there who is agreeing for the reality to be the way it is. And of course it isn't. It isn't. It's just a natural state of absence of resistance. Acceptance is not an action. It's absence of its opposite, of resistance. So in that moment, it's which every one of us had hundreds of or millions of, thousands of, whatever moments when nothing was wrong anymore.

Starting from the fact that we all sleep at night and there is nothing wrong when we sleep. And then also moments when we are doing something. Wi-Fi is playing. Yes, so those moments are very familiar. And now another obstacle into realizing that our true nature is always ever there is is the idea that it should be something very flashy or it shouldn't be just a boring ordinary state. Like the cat is in natural state. It has never ever developed the idea of being separate and being apart and being lonely and unworthy. So it has never needed to wake up from it. But when we had this sense of contraction and then there is a moment of nothing is wrong anymore, it feels like, yeah, but come on, that's not worth it.

Like I'm looking for a great place. I'm looking for a final enlightenment to be a huge like Jesus or Buddha. You know, it's ordinary states. It's boring. Yet who says that? Again, this is the person who has the evaluation of the natural state. It is an idea of working in a way. It's if I have a judgment about this moment, then obviously there is already the resistance going on in this moment. There's already something wrong. When there is nothing wrong, there is nobody to say that our ordinary state is not enough. I want eternal bliss. If there is nobody there to have any judgment about this moment as it is, that's what they call ordinary awareness.

That's what they call a great awakening. And there is nobody to be awakened. So if there is nobody to have a judgment about this moment or nobody to be awakened or wanting something else than what is, the life comes back to its natural flow. It means that it flows like a river. It flows through some debunks or... You want to explain the river, Bob? You say it. Nobody says it as good as you do. Well, it's a simple problem. Usually it's called an end to the trench of the being. An individual, a person. We've taken on that belief from our parents, our school, our society, our nation, of all reinforcement, and we've fallen into it quite naturally and naturally.

But down through the ages there have been people who have questioned that and seen the truth. And that's the old scriptural saying, Know the truth, the truth will set you free. And what must you be free from? You must be free from some of these beliefs we've taken along. And never question it. This belief that I am a separate entity, an individual, a person. Is it a fact? Where did that word person come from? Doesn't it come from an ancient language? Persona? A mask? Pointing out, you think you're a person, you've got this persona, they've got this mask, this conceptual image about yourselves. It's been reinforcing day in, day out, week in, week out, for years, and everybody around you, schools, your parents, society, everybody else has been reinforced before you.

So it becomes actual, real, seemingly so. But if you question the belief, now look up your dictionary, look up the word belief, question it. Definition of belief is an unquestioned acceptance of something in the absence of reason. Acceptance of an alleged fact without positive knowledge or proof. Put your beliefs to that test and see how many of them stand up for you. And that's what Kat and everybody else along those lines are pointing out. We've got to be rid of this concept or idea that we are separate entities, individuals, persons. And it's only a matter of looking, a little bit of investigating, and you'll see for yourself, it's not hard.

As Shakespeare told you a couple of hundred years ago, he says, there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Pointing out, it's the way the thinking operates. The thinking operates dualistically. Dualistically. Good, bad, pleasant, painful, happy, sad, loving, holy. Watch your mind and see if it functions any other way. And when we're relating to one of those dualistic ideas, good or bad, we're dividing it and so getting caught up with it. But without the division, what is it? Just as it is. And what's what is? I'll tell you in the scriptures, what is is unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. Left as it is. And it will resolve itself.

And he tells us that about, it's related to Bankey, a Zen monk in the 16th century, who made the statement, everything is perfectly resolved in the unborn mind. And when you investigate that and have a look, you'll see it's true. Nature is constantly resolving itself. Always resolving itself. When day is not fighting with night, silence is not fighting with sound, winter is not fighting with summer, each are taking their turn. The happening has come about. Naturally and effortlessly. But it's in the seeming division that we get locked up in it. And that's what's being pointed to, to see for yourself that there is no separate entity, there is no individual, there is no person.

It's all just a natural, spontaneous functioning of this life energy. Vibrating in the interrelated opposites. And the Mahāvekā, the great mantra is, I am that. Well, you are that life energy. You can't be anything else. You always have been. The easy way actually to show it, and my favourite way of, when Bob is talking about it, is presenting it as one essence that is animating the whole appearance. And we've been, he had a gift of the Bowen therapy today. And a guy was asking, what, what is he talking about? And how you tell to the person who never ever heard about non-duality, what are you talking about?

So I just summarise it in a way like, in a base of all the traditions, it's really, it's said that everything is coming, is steaming from one source. And that one power in Christianity is omnipotence. In, in Buddhism is cognising emptiness, or emptiness that becomes a form. And that very power is, is breathing the body, right? Now is beating the heart, is making seeing possible. So that, that one power we are trying to find. But how can we lose it? How can we move away from it? How can we move away from the force that is breathing the body right now? We can't. So it is really the matter of recognising that we could have never ever been separate from it.

We're not separate from the air. We're not separate from the water we're drinking, and the body that is mostly water, and the earth or matter of food that we're eating. It all is interchanging, is flowing, is, is all the time, is part of the appearance. And the body, and being that life, and being that life appearing as electricity in the lamps, as the flowers on the, on the trees, and blood pumping the cat. And so, being that life, actually having a glimpse of itself, I, the life, have given myself the vehicle, the body. Which Bob sometimes explains as, am I my body? No, I say my body the same way as I say my coat, my car, and my house.

So I could take my body to be my coat, or my car, the vehicle, or my speaker. I, life, want to speak, so I need the speaker. I, life, want to see, so I need the little cameras, so the seeing's happening. So the life is giving itself different points through which it has a glimpse of itself as the other. But really, what the Buddhists are telling us, that emptiness is form, and form is emptiness. So all that manifestation is really just a vibrating pattern of energy, and it vibrates into sound, very easy, we know that sound is vibration. The light is also vibration, different frequency.

The matter, matter is vibration. It's made of subatomic particles or atoms vibrating very, very quickly to make it seemingly solid. And of course, the interpreting device that actually interacts with so-called forms and is taught from early childhood to recognize certain forms as solid, liquid, or vapor. So it is all interconnected. It's all manifestation of the same life essence, going itself to itself in myriads of forms. And now, it's just one idea that separates me from that life essence, and that's the belief that the separation is a fact, that I am inside the body, or I am the body. If I'm inside the body, I consider myself the mind.

If I am the body, a body-mind, people have different, all sorts of different connections, because, like, they're all connected, there is, every manifestation is uniquely different. Like, there are no two blades of grass or two snowflakes that are the same. In the same way, there is no two ways in which it actually fools itself to be something else. So the whole experiences that I gathered throughout my life may actually prompt me to believe that I am the body-mind, the person. And identification will be subtly different to the identification of everybody else. It may be more kind of deep-rooted, seated with the emotional structure. One thing is in common, this is the resistance, the sense that as it is, it's wrong, that I'm unworthy, world is not good enough, this is all not right, this moment is not right.

So, if I believe that, then of course, from that, the whole world appears as, as the support for the belief. Because the manifestation seems to operate in the framework of beliefs. So something is labeled or named as the world, and it is believed as separate. And that very belief holds it real. So it is kind of, because it's all one, it kind of feeds off itself. The mind gives reality to objects, seeming reality, because it can't do it, it's the dream. It's just like the dream at night. When we go to sleep, Bob was having a snooze yesterday by the computer, and suddenly he woke up and he says, whose husband, whose husband?

He got busted. I said, no, you must be dreaming. He was dreaming that somebody's husband got sober and then busted. Obviously got drunk and he was worried about it. But it never happened. It's the dream. And in the dream, when we are dreaming, the world seems so real, that sometimes we wake up with the feelings, emotions, with the responses. Sometimes the heartbeat or sweat comes out on the body, because it feels so real. The same way the reality that we are looking around right now, it feels so real. Because the life essence which Bob calls intelligence energy is the omnipotence. Omnipotence. It has absolute, complete, total power to make real anything.

Anything it pleases. So when it creates a piece of art, like this moment, with a content of this moment, it will be so beautiful and so real and so perfect, that everything else will be easier to question. But this will be standing before our eyes. That's the mystery of it. That's the magic of it. But doesn't mean that it is real. Doesn't mean, because it can't stand to investigation. And the investigation can be done in few different ways. It can go the way Rai Bukita, which is Bob's favourite, suggests. Showing up that everything we see is actually a thought formation. Like would I see that lamp, if I wasn't taught right from childhood to actually see it?

To distinguish it from the space. How the eyes and the mind were trained to actually distinguish the objects, to see them, to recognise them, repeatedly give them reality and give them solidity, give them permanence. Little babies, they can't see objects as permanent. They actually float in and out in the ocean or river of different sensations. But we trained, we learned the solidity of things and validity of things. So now, those are thought formations that are being believed and agreed upon and they are fed. And they are being taught. And then thought, what is thought? Thought is a vibration. It's a subtle vibration, just like a sound.

So Rai Bukita shows everything as a thought formation being believed, being fuelled by that, assured by the life essence. And then recognising it as thought shape or thought form. You know that thought form is just an image, it's just a vibration. It's really a shadow picture, it's nothing. Or it can be done from the other way. Every sense can be separately investigated. Sense objects are inseparable from the sense perception. The way Bob's suggesting, the seeing is happening. And now the mind creates the seer and the seeing. So mind splits the process of seeing into seer and the seeing. And that's impossible. Because when I take the seeing away, the seer makes no sense.

And when I take seer away, the seeing is not being even perceived. So everything is a part of a seeing. Or if seeing is impossible, the seer can't be called seer anymore and the seeing can't be a seeing. So it really is completely artificial split that again has been learned with the conditioning. Because without that split, we wouldn't be able to make up anything of the approach. And we wouldn't be able to appreciate it the way we do. So it happens, it doesn't matter why. It is as it is. So in the same way, the hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, all the senses is as if whatever I'm seeing is part of the seeing.

So the object and the whole seeing, I am whatever is within my gaze, whatever I can see, that is what I am. Whatever I can hear, that's what I am. Whatever I can think, that's what I am. And again, at the same time, this is what I am not. Because it can't be only pointed, it can't be explained. So I can say I am everything, without exclusion. Or I am a basic screen on which everything, the Maya, appears. So from that screen, from that standpoint, I am nothing. I will say netty netty, I am not the body, I am not the object of perception, I am not the perceiver, I am not the hearing, I am not any of the patterns that appear on the basic screen.

But here we have duality. The screen and the objects. So when I am nothing, now the next step is to recognize that the objects that originally through the investigation I deselected and removed and rejected as not me. So I am not the seeing, I am not the hearing, I am not the forms, I am not the thoughts. They are also nothing. So I am nothing. And everything else is also nothing. So there isn't any separation between me and everything else. But this is again, if that is being heard with the mind, that is going to be a really really complicated technical operation to go through and try to work it out.

And that's completely wrong. If there is any trying to grasp it or understand or follow the words and make this combination, equilibris, whatever, the calculation in the mind, it should be dropped right away because it cannot be resolved in the mind. Because as Bob was showing and I was just quoting, the splitting the mind between thinker and the thought, seer and the seen, is precisely what we are doing. That's what the duality is. The life as a singular, natural one expression is beyond the duality. And now the mind comes and it creates the person and the world, the sound and the ear. So trying to work it with the mind, again we are splitting the one natural presence awareness or the plain being into two.

So it can't be done really. When the mind starts processing and starts to make noise, the only thing that can be done is just to recognize it. Because the moment I recognize the noise that my mind is producing, I'm already recognizing it from the space beyond the mind. When I see the mind trying to work something out, that itself is an object in consciousness. So I'm the consciousness, the space like awareness, in which that processing is going on. And the next step, if there is any step, it may or may not happen spontaneously and naturally, is when I recognize that thought process going on in the mind, it's usually already, it's already enough.

That light of attention or the life essence is not fueling that anymore that much. So it will kind of dissolve in itself. But then the curiosity might arise. And the question may come up, who is looking? Who is recognizing? Who is aware of the content of the mind? And now pointing out, I am the space, I am the light. When I'm pointing out it myself, I can't locate anything. And that's another practical way of investigating. Look who's looking. See where is the sound, because this is, I think this is the most basic. Trying to point out the location of the one who is looking, like locate the one who is looking.

And then it feels like there is something behind the eyes there. Okay, but where am I looking from to know there is something behind the eyes? So who is the knower? Where am I knowing it from? So obviously there would have to be some more kind of broader space locating this location. And then step back, step back to the point where there is absolutely no location. With sounds it's even easier because we can point out that sounds of the street are perhaps few hundred meters away. But am I few hundred meters away? No, it feels that I'm here and the sound is there. But where am I hearing it?

Am I hearing it here or out there? And now if I take couple of different sounds from different directions and suddenly I try to locate where is the hearing happening? It's obviously happening in all the space. Because I can hear something couple of hundred meters this way and couple of hundred meters that way. So it is all space of hearing. It's not here, it's everywhere. So the location collapses. When the location collapses and I'm not reestablishing it again conceptually as being here as a person, I walk as a space. I walk as a space as a space of hearing, a space of seeing. And I'm immobile and everything else comes and goes.

I'm the space, I'm not moving. And the sounds are coming and going. And the scenes, like Bob is pointing out, when you wake up in the morning the seeing is already there but the content is different. Now you come here, seeing is the same but the content is different. So it's space of seeing, capacity of seeing is always the same. And now the content is moving. I, the space, I'm permanent, I'm still, I'm the stillness. And now the content comes and goes. So this is basic ways of investigating and a way of remembering throughout the day also. Because really it is enough to go back to the basic living from the senses, like really seeing, like instead of commenting or being engaged in the inner dialogue in the head, just look around.

What's there? Look for something new. Look for something, because everything is fresh and new moment to moment. Even the plant that is here, the orchids that Bob got on his birthday, they dropped a few flowers, they're different. But we kind of got used to using the mind, we got desensitized to the senses because mind can offer so much more kind of extreme experiences, extreme dramas, extreme pleasures. So going back and getting the sensitivity back, being able to see and appreciate what is seen, hear and appreciate what is heard, taste, touch, smell, feel the body, feel the breathing, feel the back of the chair on the back.

This is all that is happening here in the moment. So this is really practical way of, well they call it mindfulness. And it's not, it's just really simple basic living from the senses. But to know, to know who is doing it, is another question. And if that question keeps arising, that question of location is very helpful. At some point that question may stop arising. And if there is no resistance and nothing is wrong anymore, that question, who wants to know, the question who is there to be enlightened, or who am I, it just doesn't arise anymore because there is nobody to ask it. As Bob is saying, Questioner is the question.

If I have burning desire to find out who I am or how to become something, that very question, I'm identifying myself as it. So I am the question now. If the I or the identification drop the question drops off automatically with it. Because who is there to ask it? If there is nobody to ask the questions, there is no problem anymore. There is nothing wrong anymore. There is nothing that needs to be figured out or resolved. And it doesn't mean that this is the grand or great awakening or eternal bliss. Some call it ordinary awareness. Just an ordinary awareness. Bob had this big book with, I don't know how many different names of great liberation, I don't know, that was just like 12 different names for cognizing emptiness, ever fresh presence awareness, or just ordinary awareness.

And then, when there is nobody who would protest, oh yeah, but I want something special, I want something bigger, better, more pleasurable. I don't want ordinary. Ordinary is boring. That's still the person, that's still the mind evaluating and having ideas about it. Because what's beautiful about this natural state, when there is nobody to object it, every moment becomes holy, becomes sane, becomes beautiful, becomes much, much more alive. Everything kind of, everything is precious. Everything is holy. It's the mind that says, no, this is boring. No, this is ordinary. No, I don't, bleh. That gives me something more pleasurable or intense. If that commentary is not there, life is surprising.

And Bob has it for 45 years, I think now, from 75, it's 43, whatever. And it's ever fresh. It's ever fresh. He's got ever fresh insights, insights every day, where that beauty, that beauty of that brilliant, creative life essence that he is, is showing itself from different angles. And it never ends. It never stops. For me, it's only a couple of years, two, three years, but I believe him after 40 years, it doesn't get boring. It doesn't get ordinary, even though it's called ordinary awareness, it's ever fresh. And the way life presents itself, when last couple of months were hectic for him, with the operation, with extreme pain, with extreme hardship, hospitals, and then two teeth pulled out yesterday, bleeding face, there is no complaint.

There is no suffering. There is pain. Of course there is pain. But there is no suffering, because there is no resistance. There is no idea, oh, it should have happened to somebody else, not to me. Oh, why? Okay, you can speak now. Tell us all about it. Tell us all about it. No, you go on. That's all. It's available to everybody. Everybody has to, has to re-cognize your natural state. They call it the cognizing, of cognizing, of knowing. But the Buddha told you what that meant when he said that the emptiness is formed. Meaning that all these patterns, shapes, and forms, pretty you, me, and everything else, are emptiness.

So, you are not a form, you are a form. You are not a form, you are a form. You are not a form, you are a form. You are a form. You are a form. You are a form. You are a form. You are an unless. Emptiness, he says emptiness is form and the form can be nothing other than the emptiness. And that sounds like a big word all the time you're looking for. Like all these other things out there, the simplicity it, is understood when you investigate it. Have a look at some of it. The emptiness is formed or the form can be nothing other than it.

That means you, me, and everybody else around us, is empty, empty form. Have a look at that and see what's out there. Can you see the form? Can't you see? Can you see something like that? Can you find a centre in that body you call you? Can you say a spot where it all starts? Where it all begins? Tell me if you can. When you look at your card say there's a spot where it all begins. You say, your card says not beginning. And beginning means it's not static. It's happening right in this moment. Ever freshly beginning. It's all that emptiness happening, shaping, forming. In reality nothing has ever happened.

They point that out in the Ayurveda when they say there's no creator, no God when you're creating, no creation. All this pattern, shape and form including you and me that appeared creation. And there's no creature. We are all creatures, creatures. But as a creator and a creation you can't find one. It all spontaneously vibrates and happens. It's spontaneous in function. It happens by itself. And when you look at it, when does now begin? Well you've got to say your card. You can't label it and say it all began there or somewhere else. It only says beginning right now. You can't put any spot where it all begins.

And when is it ending? You'll say it's ending right now. So you see this thing we call time has really got no duration. That's all time is, is duration. Duration has a start, a finish, an ending to it, you know. A middle, middle and ending. But there's no duration to this functioning intelligence energy right now. It's spontaneously ever fresh. Happening, shaping and forming. Amazing things are happening. You can't just flavor that with a lot of stupid things. You can't do it by itself. You can't do it by yourself. It's a way of life. That's life. That is life. You can do it in any way you want.

You can do anything you want. You can do whatever you want. You can do anything in life and in our life. It's all life. There's nothing more. No world can be like this. Please don't do it. Think about it. Think about it. Think about what you were. Think about the universe. Think about yourself. single thing from that we know it in our language. That's a chair, that's a garment, that's Bill, that's Tony, that's me, that's you, that's me. We're all that and that is what we are without the label Tony, chair, carpet, that's right. They're the words we've learnt. Every word you have ever spoken or ever liked to speak has been learnt.

There were no words that you were born with. Can you tell me when you were born? You can't because there were no words when you were born you don't know. You were told you were born at such and such a time. And we learnt words at about the age of two, two and a half. We've taken on these words but have a look, every word you've ever spoken or ever liked to speak has been picked up along the way. Because there are no words you were born with. And have a look at that again. Is the word the thing? When you investigate the word water, can you drink the word?

Can you swim in the word? Can you wash in the word? Can you dry yourself in the word? Can the word fire burn your mouth in the spring? Can you heat yourself with it? Can you cook with it? So what's this word I or me? When you investigate it. Investigate it in the same way and see what power that's got. And there is nothing but a word we've learnt. Put the label on it and take it to be real. I'm Bob, the Australian, the good fellow. I'm happy, I'm unhappy, I'm fearful, I'm anxious. People don't like me, people love me. All these conceptual images I put upon myself.

Take it to be real and believe in them. And function from that position. So no wonder I'm happy, miserable, fearful and anxious. When I'm functioning from a conceptual image of dead label based on past events. Based on past events. Based on past events. So seeing everything fresh and new. If it's fresh and new, it's appearing right in this immediacy. Right here and right now. And the appearance is constantly changing. Look in this manifestation again. And see there's nothing static in it. That body you've got is changing right now. Every breath you take is changing. It's constantly changing. All the ideas and concepts and images in the head are changing.

The patterns are changing. So you can't say there's anything static there. That you can relate to. That I am this or I am that. No, it's not. It's all static. Let it be. Let it be as it appears. See what happens then. When you're not taking thought for it. Christ told you take no thought for your life. What you shall live in. What you shall drink. What you shall wear. He said look at the lilies in the field. Solomon was always gory working to raid like one of these. Solomon couldn't make a lily in the field. It was a beauty. And he says which of you by taking thought can add one cube or two to his stature?

Try and make yourself an instrument by taking thought. You'll realize you can't. And then you start to realize the thought is not the thing. It's not the real. It's not the actual. But we've believed in it. Taken it on. I can do this. I'm aware of this. Someone can go on this. And I can do worse when we put it on ourself. But after all I'm only human. You call yourself human beings. And if you believe in a God you're called God's supreme being. What happens if you take that label human off? And take that label supreme off? Where are you going to come from then?

Without the label? Isn't there just pure beingness left? Now can anyone in this room negate that being? Can anyone say I am not? You can't because the knowing that you are is the reality. It's the actuality. So you can't negate the being. You can't take it. You stand there in that being. With the confidence. The confidence that I am that. That is what I am. And if anything appears on that because it usually feels like, okay, but I am not life. I am limited. I am inside the body. So what is it that I am inside the body? That's another object in consciousness. If I feel the sensations on the body, I can't be the sensations.

I'm the knowing of it. If I feel there is a contraction like a sense of lack or sense of unworthiness, that's again an object in consciousness. Sense of lack or sense of unworthiness is the vibration that plays out on the basic screen. So I am the screen on which the body appears. The sensations appear. The thoughts, the ideas appear. So I am the pure knowing or pure presence of awareness or awareness of being. And on this, the sensation of the body, sensation of unworthiness, and other content, maybe sensation of pleasure. Anyway, they are passing, moving sensations. Nobody feels equally depressed or unworthy 24-7. Those are completely...

constantly changing, fluctuating, up and down. So I can't be this. I can't be my unworthiness if it goes up and down. And sometimes when I'm drunk or asleep, it goes away completely. So it is again the passing phenomena. So whatever I think I am, if I think I am the body or I think I am inside the body, whatever it is, is going to be a passing phenomena. So I can't be a passing phenomena. I am the awareness, the knowing of the phenomena. And the phenomena, it doesn't matter whether I have the concept of being smart or being stupid. It's just a concept. I am the screen or the nothing or the alive, awakened, fully blown presence of being on which that passing phenomena, the ideas, thoughts, feelings, sensations, contractions, resistances, everything, just plays out.

So temporarily I may kind of identify or embody the resistance. But that's the impossibility. That's the dream. I'm dreaming to be the other. Just like an actor going on the stage and dreaming themselves to be whatever, the hero, the villain, whatever in the story. It is a dream. It's not the reality. So if I embody any object, passing phenomena, I'm dreaming. I can dream myself to be a person. I can dream myself to be a mother or wife or whatever. But that's not who I am because that comes and goes. That has the beginning and the end. And what I am is the pure awareness that doesn't have beginning or an end.

But it's already, we were talking for almost an hour and there are other people in this room who recognize it and lived from it. So jump on board, Jamie. Jump on board. Jump on board. Will, tell us something. Terry, come on. People who actually abide us that for years and you can share it in your own words and people can hear it. Because we have a couple of people in Europe watching and they may hear it. The idea of people wanting to get their head around ordinary awareness or presence or enlightenment or this wakeful state or this non-dual state, this blissful state. I would just encourage people to close your eyes just for a minute.

Literally, just close your eyes for a minute. And imagine you were born. This is going to be very difficult. And I must acknowledge this is just a pointer. Okay? Just imagine that at your birth you had no senses. See, you couldn't hear, couldn't see, couldn't smell, couldn't taste, couldn't touch. You couldn't feel anything. It's going to be very difficult to do. Just try and go into that state for a moment if you can. Now open your eyes. This is it. This is it. Now, could you say, even though there were no senses experienced in the body of that baby, if it's you or another baby that you're aware of that happens to be like that, the baby's still alive.

It's still there. There's still a presence there. But it's not aware of it. Could it be aware of itself without any of those senses? It's these senses that we're born with, if you like, that enables the separation or the duality to manifest. And it does that. It does that. So is it. As it can experience itself. Because if it didn't do that, it would just be like the baby, coming into the world, absolutely no senses. It's there, but it wouldn't know it was. It wouldn't know anything. There'd be nothing. But it would still be. So some people call it God. That's okay. You know? If God didn't divide itself, if you like, it couldn't know itself.

Absolutely couldn't know itself. If it was just one complete, absolute singularity, like that baby, if you like, one singularity, it couldn't know anything. It couldn't be anything. It couldn't feel anything. It couldn't see anything. There'd just be nothing. But it still is. It still is. And for it, Kat was touching on it beautifully, you know. We are, non-duality is about singularity. And that's what I'm talking about now. Just singularity. And for that singularity to know itself, it seems to split off. So as it can experience itself in a myriad of different ways. As a tree, as an insect, as a person, as Hitler, as Gandhi, as Bob, Kat, the cat, you know, whatever.

But it's still that one life essence. So it's a real, it's a tricky game that's getting played here. You know, it does it so well, it doesn't even know that it's doing it. See how tricky it is? It doesn't know. It's just, that's what's manifesting, you know. And some of the manifestations, for whatever reason, you know, end up in a room like this, or end up being exposed to non-duality, or even other teachings can point to this. It doesn't have to be strictly non-duality, but even other teachings can point to this, you know. They find themselves, and it's got nothing to do with themselves, they also find themselves just turning.

So that singularity, not only does it have the capacity to split off and not be, to split off in a myriad of different ways, but it also has the capacity to turn and get, and know itself, and know that it is. It just does. And it's completely impersonal. You know, it's got nothing to do with the seeming me, that seeming me that is here. You know, and that's why Bob, you know, has been talking for years about investigating, investigating that. Is there a me? He keeps saying there's not. And a lot of the other teachings keep saying there's not. And we're going to believe that's the case, and that's why Bob also says, start from there.

Start from that you are that one. Start from there, that you are that livingness, that beingness. Start from there. Be there. Start from there. You know. And unfortunately, I don't know too many people that have the capacity to do that, but it's a great pointer. You know, generally we start in our head. That's what Kat was talking about. Conceptual, everything's a concept, you know, and you have to come to see that, and Bob says it beautifully. The word is not the thing. Terry, my name, does not describe who or what I am. My age certainly doesn't describe, if I told you my age, doesn't describe who or what I am.

Where I went to school doesn't describe who or what I am. The fact that I was married, that also doesn't describe who or what I am. I'm a father. That still doesn't describe who or what I am. All those things that I've just listed, everyone's experienced that. Mostly. Most people have been a dad or a son or been to school. Still doesn't describe who I am. It's not until we get into what Kat was talking about, that sense of separation. I'm separate. Then a huge self-description comes into play. I'm scared. I'm not worthy. I'm different. I'll never be as good as that person. Or that person will never be as good as me.

Just all these, you know, or I'm a bad person, I'm carrying shame and guilt, I wish this was me. I wish this was me. I wish this was me. I wish this was me. I wish this didn't happen or that didn't happen. What's wrong with me? Oh my God, the world is so tough and so wrong. What's going on with the global environment? What the fuck is going on? You know, that's just all a description of, let's say, my perception. Everyone's going to have their own little perception going on or their own little concepts going on in relation to who they think they are and what the world is.

And all those concepts are nothing but words. And we give meaning to a word. If you want to take a step back from that, we give meaning to a sound. It's just a sound. A word is just a sound. And we give meaning to a certain sound. You can have somebody sitting opposite me that might be speaking in a completely different tongue, a language that I don't know. And they could be saying some dreadful things that I don't know. And they could be saying some dreadful things to me. And if I have no idea what those sounds mean, it's not going to impact me at all.

It's just like nothing is going to happen. I might still... Then again, I might even have a judgement and the judgement might be, come on, mate, you're in Australia, speak English. You know? Like, it just goes on and on and on and on. But it's just a sound and we give meaning to a sound. You just say, who am I? What the fuck? Really? Like, if you really break it down, if you really break it down to trying to really describe who I am, you know, you go, I'm a sound. Or you could take it up a couple of levels and go, well, look, the reality is when I try and search for who I am or what I am, all I really discover is I am memory.

Because if you take that away completely, I'm sitting here and I'm nothing. I have no history. I have no memory. I have no sense of who I am. I have no history. If I have no history, no history whatsoever, I'm just sitting here. It's all gone. The whole concept of Terry goes. My whole life goes. All those experiences, all that data input that's happened over my life goes. There's another way of looking at it. At best, when I go looking for my self, I can say, I am memory. Whoa. And that's gone. And memory is only a description of what I was, not what I am now.

Just what I was. I don't know if that's helped anybody. And the order of importance also. What's more important than the other? For some people, the relationships, the jobs, they all get such an importance that you become a slave of the order of importance or meanings that you give to things in life. While life, as it flows as a river, it doesn't really give any meaning to anything. Whatever shows up is being addressed. Whatever doesn't is not. The question I have is, while I can understand what Terry and you're saying, but the only tool I have to process what you have is exactly the same mind which is getting away.

Well... Look, that's okay. Initially, we all start there. We just do. Initially, we do start there. There is a question. Who am I? Even that question, who am I, arises in the mind. Yeah? So it's... Bob used to use the analogy and it was beautiful, you know. The mind is something that gets used like if you get a thorn stuck in your arm. How do you get the thorn out? You find another thorn and dig it out and then once you've dug them out, you throw them both away. So for a while, or for a moment, however long, yes, the mind does get engaged. But if you really, really, really look deeply, deeply into yourself, not so much into what other people are saying or what I'm saying.

The whole invitation is about for you to look for yourself. Look. Like literally, look. If you look deeply enough, eventually what happens is that you just come to see or you come to realize the answer is not in there. It's not. But you have to come to that. You know, and if you haven't, if you're not there yet, that'll still be used. And it's okay. It's totally okay. That's what I wanted to hear. Yeah, it's totally okay. It really is. I mean, that's all you got. To investigate. To investigate as such. Initially to investigate. That's what you've got. Yeah. It takes thinking and mind to even question, am I the body?

Doesn't it? Am I this? Am I that? It's still a thought process. So, yeah. Here is an interesting way to go about it. If you are walking in the bush and you see some smoke in the distance, you deduct that there is a fire. You might even smell the smoke. So you can learn or experience something through a variety of methods. You deduce, ah, there is a fire. That's like a deduction. Then you trudge the mile towards where the fire is and that is the investigation. And you say, ah, I was right. It's a fire. And then you go and stick your finger in the fire.

And you have direct experience of the fire. So, with this discussion, you can deduce that your essential nature is prior to experience. Because if you are not experiencing, you can sort of deduct that. You can say, well, if I'm not experiencing, I'm not having any thoughts, then you say, ah, yeah, I can, I can, I can sort of deduce that. I can deduct that. I can figure that. Then you do the investigation as Bob suggests. And Bob says, is seeing happening? And it certainly is. It's not a trick question and you can't deny it. Here the investigation starts. Here is walking towards the fire. The investigation, when you say, is seeing happening, what I see, as Katrina very nicely said before, is, comes up after the seeing.

So the seeing is already happening before the I see. And the eyes, which are responsible, so to speak, or result in seeing, are just simply prisms, which, you know, reflect light in and out and leave a picture in the brain. So what the hell is seeing? It's not the body and it's not the mind. So seeing is just happening. What is seeing? So now we've made the deduction. We've done the investigation. And when you say, what is seeing? Well, it must be something apart from the body and the mind. You immediately have, albeit only for a moment, a direct experience that you are that open space in which everything appears.

You must be, because you've just done the investigation. You can't escape it. You can't summon that space. And you can't banish it. You can't alter it. You can't add to it. You can't dismiss it. Everything is just accepted by that open space, including the I and the notion of an I or a me or a reference point. It just accepts everything. It cannot not accept everything. It has no defenses. It has no filters. It has absolutely no resistance to anything. Everything just appears on it. In it or how ever it is realized. But it must be that way. Now, that's sort of only half way.

If you separate that very empty open like space from what appears in it, it's obviously still a mental construct because there's that space and everything appearing into it. If that space has absolutely no attributes or no qualities, or is no thing that the mind can grasp, what can it be except this? Just this, as Terry was saying. What can it be except just this? Because you wouldn't see yourself in a sense because it's got no qualities. So it must be this. All that's left is this. There is just this. And that's it. In this this-ness, you can't be a second ahead of it. You can't be a second behind it.

You can only be in here right now. You can have a thought about this morning or a projection about tomorrow. But that is just appearing in this. So there is only this ever present, ever fresh this-ness. And that's what you are. And if you are not the person, then even if the mind kicks in and rolls the story, you can't even feel guilty about it. You can't take credit for it. Like you say, you are only, only the mind is, that's the only instrument you have right now. That's not true. You have your heart. You have your resonance. You have, everyone has that deep inner essence that has always been there.

And everyone has been a baby. But if the thinking is happening, you are not doing it. Life does it. If the interpreting is happening, you are not doing it. Life does it. So if you give credit where credit is due, like Bob says it, give credit where credit is due. You are not doing the seeing. You are not doing the breathing. You are not doing the thinking. You are not even doing the identification with the body-mind. None is of your doing. So you don't really have to worry about it. The only thing you can do is just to wake up to what life is doing.

Okay, life is doing the saving, saving right now. Or life is doing the judgment right now. So let it do what it does. If you really leave everything as it is, whatever is happening, the content of this moment, okay, the judgment is happening, the resistance is happening, the body is contracted, maybe the hatred is being exhibited. But this is what life does. This is the pattern, the pattern that has formed throughout life. Every experience that I had since early childhood has formed that pattern of personality. And now life is expressing through whatever is available. And it's not exactly expressing through, it's also expressing us, that personality.

But who am I to take credit? So from that standpoint, if the person is a person, if it's really a fiction, I can never be guilty of anything. This is leading to one other point which I need some help with. In most, what I hear in this room, Yes. it's not like saying, do this as a first step and then... No, because the one who is a doer is a fiction. Correct. But something where we for our entire life have been conditioned towards trying to find what is the step one. I'm not hearing the step one here. I'm hearing the destination. Yeah, that's positive. You already did.

I think what helps is understanding what's meant by this self, this entity. And that was what was sort of confusing for a lot of people and for me especially. Who is this self? Of course I exist. I am real. I am. There's a sense of, and what is this? And the self for me, what helped me to understand it was the sense of self was the sense, the feeling in the body that I'm the thinker, I'm the feeler, I'm the doer. So when thinking is happening or choosing or decisions, there's a sense that there's a me, an entity that's doing the thinking, that's making the choices and the decisions, that's doing the actions, that's feeling the feelings.

It's not the actual thoughts themselves that create the sense of self. It's a feeling that there's me doing it. So therefore there's all the guilt and shame and pride that comes with the actions that happen through this body. For me it was that clear seeing that I can't, there's no thinker there, there's no feeler, there's no doer. Everything's just happening. Everything's just verbing. There's no noun in there. The mind is a wonderful tool. It shouldn't be discounted. But the tool has taken itself to be The birth. Well, the mind has taken itself like it's running the show. The mind's not running the show. But it's a very useful tool.

We use our mind every day. It's a very creative instrument. But it thinks it's running the show. It's like the hammer that we use to build the house feels like it thinks it's building the house. It's being used. The mind is used as part of the functioning. There's no entity in there that you find. But when you take yourself to be the thinker of the thoughts, if you think you're, if there's a sense that I'm creating these thoughts and the thoughts can own you, and that's when the thought, you'd start to beat yourself up with the thoughts, there's a sense that I'm the thinker, so therefore, I, these thoughts, they'll turn around and they'll own you and they'll create suffering.

But if there's a sense that thinking is just happening, the thoughts are allowed to just come and go. It doesn't even matter what the content of the thoughts are. If there's no ownership, if you believe you own the thoughts, then the thoughts will own you. If there's no ownership, the thoughts are free to, and the feelings as well, everything's just free to move and as part of the normal functioning of the body. But that's what for me helps a lot, was to see that there's no noun, there's no entity in there that's thinking or feeling. Everything's just happening like that. And that was what was helpful for me, actually, to see that.

That's what Kat was saying, you know, thoughts, having thoughts and feelings is okay. Well, that's a part of the process. There's no problem with any thought, and no thought has a power. It's like Bob says, can the word fire burn your mouth? Can you drown in the word water? And it's the same with thoughts. Yet we're given these powers, you know, but the thoughts actually have, the only power that thoughts have are the thoughts that are given to them by awareness. And it's through that belief. It's only a belief, it's not a reality, it's only seeming they say. The power of belief from awareness that can harm us.

Yeah, for me, step one, three, seven and ten are all the same step. Especially, Bob says a bit that it's the same step. It's, you know, what's wrong with right now if you're not thinking about it? What comes to mind? What's there? Yes. Exactly. And the other one is pause and thought. What do you have? I like that exercise of really thinking you're a baby and you're having no senses. And then I, as soon as it opened, everything was fresh. Yeah. Because I've been just watching it for the last, an hour plus. You see them seeing everything for the first time. It was kind of a very surreal experience.

And at some point you'll just see it's popping up by itself. Whenever it pops up, there's never a you. Yeah. I must say that was beautifully put, what you said. Beautifully put. Yes. Can I just add one little thing to it? How many languages do you speak? Three. Three. Okay. Tell me a language that you have absolutely no idea what it meant. No idea of. That you don't speak, don't understand. Anyone. Mandarin. Okay. So can you just imagine for a moment, just like you did with the baby scenario. Try and imagine for a moment that from this point forward, every single soldier he thought that manifested in your mind, all of it was in Mandarin.

Seriously. . You lose total interest. Well, there's two things. Number one, you would. That's Polish Mandarin. . Don't. Two things. Number one, you would absolutely know that you're not the thinker of that, wouldn't you? Absolutely, yes. You would know that. Yeah. And number two, in knowing that you're not the thinker of that, you'd just be aware of it, wouldn't you? Yes. And all you'd be aware of is sound. Just sound. And you can't give any meaning to it because you have absolutely no understanding of what those sounds are. So, I was really lovely to, you know, all the stuff that's manifesting and all the thoughts that happen for you, they just constantly spontaneously manifest.

They just spontaneously spontaneously appear. You can't find, well, I challenge you to find somebody that's separate from the thoughts that are going on that is saying to itself, okay, now I'm going to have this thought and boom, that thought gets created. You can't find anyone that doesn't. It's purely spontaneous. So, there's no you sitting there creating all the thoughts that are happening. Thoughts just speaking. . Yeah, that's right. Because it's all spontaneous. It's all just purely spontaneous. I have no idea what's going to come out of my mouth the next second. I don't. I had no idea, you know, that I was going to say anything here tonight.

That baby thing just popped into my head whilst I was sitting here. I went, oh, that's interesting. Because I could see it. I could sense it, you know. So, everything that happens for you is completely spontaneous. Where we get into problems is when we take ownership of it. Ownership, yeah. I'm the one doing the thinking. It's me doing the thinking. So, it's about the belief. Yeah, yeah. And all you need to do is just, it's not hard to do, just sit there for a few minutes and... I think that's what Krishna said when he said that... If the thought comes up, then there's a, if you feel like you own the thoughts, then there's a feeling like I've got to work this out.

Yeah. Because I'm thinking and you sit there, that's why you sit there ruminating, trying to work out the... It's just a thought. It could have been any other thought that appeared. For some reason, this thought about whatever appeared, and you might spend the next hour ruminating, trying to work it out in the mind. And if you realize... It's the word I use on my day. Yeah. But if you, if you see, you see the thought from who you are, you see the problem from the solution. So, you are the solution. And the problem is appearing in you. And the problem is this rumination that's being identified with.

When it, when it's seen through the investigation that there's no thinker in there to be found, there's no entity, there's no reference point to be found, then you're kind of left with just what is, which is reality, which is who you are. Then the thoughts are free to appear. They can appear and the mind is a wonderful tool. And it's very creative. But if, if we're not identified as this false reference point and we're just being who we are, you can, you can see when an unhelpful thought, it appears in you. And it, and it's just witnessed and noticed. And it's just left alone. It's just, it's not touched.

And it just evaporates like a puff of smoke. It has no effect on you. Just like the, the word fire. The thought fire is not going to burn your brain, is it? One very important point that Bob's got, and I think it has to be mentioned, and people are sick of it. And that's the blue seat. Now, Bob gives us the story about the blue seat. He says, go down to the water with a glass, scoop up the water and you see it's clear. So you've done the investigation. The blue water is actually clear. You've done the investigation. It's clear. And you put the water back in, walk up, up to the sand dew and lo and behold, you look back at the sea, it's blue.

So what, why does Bob give us that? It's like, you do the investigation, you can clearly see that the eye is a phantom, or doesn't exist. It's just a wisp. Um, and everything happens just like you haven't even done the investigation. Because I'm sitting here, I think I'm waving my arms around, I think I'm waving, er, talking. I can feel the sea, my bum on the sea. I'm hungry. I mean, it feels like it's all happening here, in this location. And I know that that's never going to change. And I know with every humanoid sitting here, that that's the same case. You do the investigation, you see that the eye is a phantom, you see that it's just a construction, you really are the empty space in which all those constructions are held.

And then, you just leave it. And the truth sets you free. And there's a, there's a, um, there's a comfort in that, you know. Mm. Yeah. And that's the old Zen saying, you know, first, first there is, first there is the rivers and the mountains, then there's no rivers and the mountains, then there's no rivers and the mountains again. And then there's rivers and mountains again. Because the appearance comes back, but there's no longer the belief, the investment in this sense, in this sense of, of, of self. Mm. So you just, you just live your life exactly as you always have, except you're no longer troubled and trapped by the sense.

Which is a big, which is a big revelation for me, because until Kat mentioned this, I thought the whole way to do this is try to become thoughtless, which is impossible. No. No. So. Not necessary. Just seeing the mess, blah, blah, and not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, sense of ease and lightness in the body because there's that sense of a feeling that contracted individual that separate individual is suffering in itself it's just that suffering just evaporates and there's a sense of you just open up but you go on you live exactly the same but there's nobody there doing anything like you said the hammer started thinking it is a carpenter which is what for most of the thoughts become ourselves because we call the thinking me there's me i'm thinking i'm doing i'm feeling you just see like they've got the life their own like this morning i was just really noticing how like a notion flashes in and then it's verbalized and sometimes verbalized three times in a row and it's just but the notion flashed in i know it did before that's that's the duality the duality this all is all about non-duality non-duality means not to doesn't really mean one i mean it's not two and the duality that we we've created imagine in our mind is the thinker and the thought the feeler and the feeling subject object that's the false sense of duality that we're imagining which is not the case that's the negation there is not two there is there is just seeing thinking feeling tasting touching doing happening there's no see ya feeler taster right they're not two right up to the point of you know until you see it for yourself you actually believe that is that it is you doing the thinking if there's no ifs or buts about that all human beings believe that yeah i'm responsible for i think i'm i'm doing after all it's happening here you know that's generally yeah but when you actually but if you truly really investigate that and it's so easy to do it's so unbelievably easy to do and it amazes me that human beings walk around on this planet and don't realize this total suffering yeah just sit there for a minute two minutes five minutes anybody should see it to think nothing if you're the arbitrary if you're the creator of all the thoughts that are made up of all the thoughts and if human beings rather and I'm not just pointing to you but if human beings really believe that they're responsible for all their thinking and they're choosing to think and act and react according to whatever it is it's bubbled up in their minds and and after all they're the ones of creating what's bubbling up in their minds if that was absolutely true they'd be able to turn it off the simple simple realization of the simple seeing of the that automatically eliminates a me there that's doing that.

Automatically. But that's so profound when you see that. Then you can kind of sit back a little bit in your everyday life, just going on with your life as you ordinarily would, and just watch it. Watch it. Instead of being it, and it gets all thick and sticky, and it's awful. Just watch it. Okay. There it goes. Can't stop it anyway. There it goes. Whatever. There's a big difference between hearing thinking and listening to thinking. Yeah. There's a certain attention. That's a good point. That happens. So when thinking's happening, if you hear a conversation in the next room, what's your name? Sri. Sri. Okay. You hear a conversation, and all of a sudden you hear your name, Sri.

They're talking, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Sri. And you go, ooh, they're talking about me. And then your attention goes to that conversation, because they're talking about me. So there's a natural attention, and you're kind of listening in to what they're saying. And then you go, they're talking about another Sri that's not you. Then your interest automatically just goes back. It leaves that conversation. It's the sound. So if they're not talking about you, then you're just kind of hearing them. Yeah. But if you think that, they're talking about you. And that's the same thing, because you think I'm the thinker. The thoughts are about me.

So the interest and attention goes into the thought process and kind of fuels it. So there's more of a listening rather than a hearing. And what happens when you realize that there's no thinker, that thinking's just happening? There's a hearing, constant hearing of judging, whatever, coming up. And it just moves on. And you know that there's no, you don't know the thoughts are just happening. They're just coming out of, you know, the brain. You know, like you see a bus goes past and there's a shampoo commercial on the side and it reminds you of your ex-girlfriend. All of a sudden, I thought your ex-girlfriend pops in your head.

Or whatever, there's no control. It's just, it's all spontaneous. But the interest and attention goes, when you realize that you're not the thinker, interest and attention and belief is kind of withdrawn from the thoughts. And there's just a relaxation. And the thoughts are allowed to come and go. As they please. But if you think that I'm the thinker, that there's the me, my thoughts attached to it, then there's a lot more weight given to them and the interest and attention is focused on there. And that's the repetitive rumination that goes on and on and doesn't stop. It's easy to see how impersonal thoughts are when you try to think an original thought that nobody else had.

Think of a thought that nobody else would have. Think of a thought that, you know, like a problem. Like, I have not enough money, or I'm not healthy, or my girlfriend doesn't love me. How many thousands or millions of people were going off around the same set of thoughts? They're completely mechanical. They're completely dead. They're just like, they are, you know, like a software, like little bits of a program finding a way to express. Just like waves going through different radios. So they're not really your thoughts. If they're judgments, oh, this one is too fat or too slim, or whatever, that goes on. Just, yeah, as Jamie said...

It's humorous. After a while, it's almost comical. Yeah, it is. It's like some of the thoughts that arise. Taking credit for it or feeling guilty for it is actually, it's just unnecessary suffering. It's just like really the transmission of electromagnetic waves through different TVs on different channels. And they're all TVs and channels. Completely impersonal. Completely mechanical. We are out of time. Bob was just pointing it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Really enjoyed that.