Sailor Bob - Non duality spiel and discussion

Are you all familiar with each other? Max. Tony. Simon. Aidan. Terry. Robin. Cut. Once again, we're here. The same old, same old. The drugless drug. And understand we don't teach you anything here and we don't tell you anything. Continually point that out. But you've got that idea that you're going to get something or become something. Or be something. It's wrong. We point to it very simple. The simplicity is missed out on. There's all sorts of labels that got onto it over the ages. Most every different religion. And all the sidelines are from those different religions. All come about from it. But in the simplicity, in Hinduism, for instance, they call it Advaita.

Advaita meaning non-duality. And they try and describe non-duality by saying it's one without a second. Not two. So you take that statement that it's not two, for a start off. And you basically get the idea of what we're talking to. They try to describe Advaita by saying it's not two. They call it one without a second. And they put that label on this because even the idea of one implies there can be that there can be other than one. And they put that label on this because it can take that implication off. It's not. And have a look at that. Where does can two start off if there's not one beforehand?

Any count start off with two. It doesn't. It all starts off with that one. And isn't that duality? Duality as soon as they get to two. And they point out there is absolutely no duality in non-duality. So another simple statement if you see what that means. There's only this one essence patterning, shaping, forming, appearing and expressing as everything. That is all there is. It's not two. It never was two, never will be two, or never could be two. And as soon as there's a one and then comes the two, there are the many. But it's never ever been anything other than the one. Christianity or Buddhism will tell you the same thing.

This might be something you've never understood or seen or believed. When they'll say it's non-conceptual, ever-fresh presence awareness. And they add on to that just this, nothing else. They're basically pointing to this presence awareness as all there is. It's not just this, nothing else, other than that. There it is in its bare statement. Who listens to that? Who hears it? And we add all sorts of other concepts and ideas onto it. Anyone who's not present and aware right now? And you ask yourself that and you say, no, I'm present and I'm aware. So you didn't have to go anywhere to find that, did you? It wasn't a realisation right immediately.

That right here, right now, you are present and aware of that present. Christianity, talking about God, religion or whatever, they'll say it's omnipresence, omnipotence, omnipotence. Omnipresence is total presence. Again pointing out there's only this, only you see this total presence. Omnipotence, total power. So it's not mind power, thought power, higher power, lower power or any other sort of a power. But the one power that's patterning, shaping, forming and expressing is everything. And omniscience, another word for omniscience is pure intelligence, total intelligence. It's not your intellect or my intellect or any other, what this scientist or says or this philosopher or this whatever physicist said. It's omniscience, it's a total intelligence.

And they're all pointing, again, the basic start of those great traditions is pointing to the oneness of everything. It's only the one. But who sees that today? It's lost sight of. It's lost sight of and they're going to divide it up into this, that and everything else and move it away from its simplicity. And again, in Hinduism, they say it's put the label on the satchitananda, three of the five factors, breaking it down. Into different labels, I say there's five factors to it. Three of the five factors are satchitananda, being, existence, consciousness, bliss, or being, knowing and loving to be. And the other two factors, nama-rupa.

Nama meaning name and rupa, form. And I'll tell you that nama-rupa, the two other factors are maya. They're illusion. The name and the form are illusion. And then we got names on all these forms. We put labels on it and taken the label or the word to be the thing. And it's not seen, the name and the form is believed in and we don't see the reality of it. The nama-rupa, as they say, is maya. Maya meaning illusion. It's illusionary manifestation. It's illusionary manifestation. And expression and appearance. Illusionary. Or as they say, it's a phenomenal manifestation. Look your dictionary up and see the word phenomena is that which appears to be.

Seeing that all this manifestation, though it appears solid, substantial, and seems some static nature or some substantial nature of its own, is maya. It's illusion. It's a phenomenal manifestation. It's only appearance. And when you look into these things, they're seemingly so. They're seemingly so. But when you look at them, and investigate them, you'll see they'll fall apart under the investigation. That they haven't got any substance to them, or any independent nature. You start to recognize, looking to these things, that all we've been taught and all we've been pointed to, and all we believed in is a lot of bullshit. It's all this maya. It's all illusion, which has been taken to be real.

And then the investigation. They pull it apart and find that it's not real. it apart and find it or keep pulling it apart and pulling it apart and putting more concepts and ideas on it and get millions of different labels on it. The other way I pointed to it is I'm not talking to anybody. I'm not talking to any mind. I'm not talking to your body, mind, that entity you believe yourself to be, this body, mind entity. And have a look at it, isn't it? Unless you've looked at this that you believed in, I am this person, I am this individual, I am this body and I am this mind.

Why do we believe that? Because it's been put upon us when we were little children and we've reinforced it ever since then and never questioned it, never looked at it. So I'm not talking to your body. I'm not talking to your mind or that belief in you, that mental you that you believe that you are. I'm talking to that I am that I am. What I know is that I am. I know this I am to be the sense of presence. The sense of presence that translates through the mind as the thought I am. To label or say something about I am, you've got to put a word on it or a label.

And to recognise the sense of presence, the label is taken to be that sense of presence. There is an awareness of presence with each and every one of us right now. They call presence awareness or an awareness of presence. Anyone who is unaware in this room right now and you recognise no, I am aware. You can't negate, you can't say you are not. You can't say you are unaware. So if you can't say you are and you're not unaware, you must be aware. Isn't that simple? What this is awareness? You might have all sorts of questions. You might have all sorts of concepts and ideas.

Awareness is this and that and something else like that. And it's not there or anything. You see, is there any time you can ever say I am unaware? Has there been any time you can say I am unaware? Basically, how could you say anything at all if that awareness wasn't there? What statement could you make? So I'm talking to that I am, that sense of presence is what's being told. That I am. That's the sense of presence. The belief in. Well, the sense of presence, the knowing that I am, it's speaking to that knowingness. Just to this, nothing else. Now that's what needs to be broken down and looked at if we've got this idea that you are this individual, you are this person.

Question some of these things we've taken to believe to be real. Then you realise, wouldn't I say, that the false cannot stand up to investigation. We've got so many beliefs. We've got so many beliefs we've taken on. And so when you look into the belief and see if it's real or not, if it's not real, it will fall apart under the investigation. The false cannot stand up to an investigation. If you're recognising the false is false, and it's falling apart under the investigation, what are you left with? If the false is seen as false, then what must be seen? It must be recognised from its opposite, the truth.

And then you'll realise, oh, well, I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing it. I don't want to discover it. I will be creators. It's not going to come out of my head. It's not any false. It's not known. It's not determined. It's not the truth. Listen to yourself. Listen to yourself. Listen to yourself. You can be free of this false belief, of this false thought, of this false belief. You can be free of this false belief. You can be free of this false belief. But what can you be free of? You can only be free of this belief that you are this person. You are this separate entity.

You are this individual. Which everybody around you who have never questioned it, who have never looked at it, has taken to be real and reinforcing it. That's where you got this unquestioned belief from. We took it on as children and reinforced it every day at school. our society, our nation and everybody else around us reinforced it. And we've taken on the belief without questioning and believed it ourselves and stuck with it. And as I say, the belief is never the actual. It's very, very simple. It's the simplest thing you'll get in the war because there's nothing simpler than one. But very few come to question it, come to look at it and see for themselves.

And that's all that can be happening because nobody can do it for you because there is nobody other than that reality that you are. All these patterns, shapes and forms, as we pointed out before, are mire. They're all illusion. I hate to say it, but you and I are mire. We're illusionary. Seemingly solid and substantial and real. But investigate yourself and see how real you are. So that's what we do here. And I ask you to look for yourself and see for yourself. Well, take this person you believe yourself to be. You ask who you believe you are and say, I am this person. Bob or Bill or Harry or whatever your name might be.

I am this person. I am this individual. And have a look at that word individual for a start-up. What does it mean? Doesn't it mean undivided? When you call yourself an individual, you're dividing yourself from everything, constantly. And where does the word person come from? Well, you picked up that language when you were a little child, I'm a person. And you question it and have a look, you'll see it came from persona. The mask. I think it was a Greek or Latin language way back in the day. They called it the person, the persona. And persona, to them, in that ancient language, meant the mask.

It means, say, that we've got this conceptual image or a mental constructed mask that we've taken ourselves to be real. This person. And so that needs to be questioned too and seen. Are you this mask? Where does the word person come from? Does it come from that ancient language? Where does all the other words come from? They come from what we've been acquired or picked up along the way. Now it tells you in the Bible, in the original Old Testament, it tells you in the beginning it was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, by the Word.

By this Word God. We've got the Word God and we've put labels on from that. All things that were made were made by the Word. There was nothing made, nothing in this manifestation made. Have a look at that and you'll see there is nothing we haven't got words on. Everything we've got a word on. Nothing was made by Him. All things were made by Him. There was nothing made that was made. Without the Word. And this Word was taken to be real. And that's what we've done. Now have a look at that. Go back and do a simple bit of investigation. Where did you begin?

You'll say I was born. But can anyone of you actually remember your birth? Go back and have a look and you'll say no I can't remember my birth. I can't. Can you? I doubt whether you can. Nobody can. You didn't have any words in so you might postulate and think of something. Have a conceptual idea or image that you were born. But you can't actually say I was born. And where did you begin? Go back as far as your father and your mother and you'll see that that life energy that pattern shaped and formed your father and your mother. The label we put on, father and mother.

Life energy that formed them. Made up of words, father and mother. But have a look. Can't say you were born. And so when did you begin? And you realize you didn't begin until you learnt words at about two, two and a half. When the capacity of reasoning developed in you. Before that you had no words for the first two years of your life. So then you can understand look at that statement that you mightn't have understood in the Bible. You might read a different meaning into it. In the beginning it was the Word. Because you didn't begin until the words came upon you. Until you learnt words.

And realize if you look at that every word you've ever spoken and ever likely to speak has been learnt. You were not born with any words. And you didn't acquire any words until this capacity of reasoning which came upon you at about two, two and a half. Came upon you and you learnt words. Without that capacity of reasoning you wouldn't have had any words. And you didn't have. Go back to your father any minute and ask yourself how did you begin? And see that pattern you call your father brought about by the essence of food that he's eaten. That pattern that's been. And the Prana, the breath.

By the breath and the food eaten. Breathes that life essence into it and the food keeps it going. Enabled in that pattern a little microscopic particle called the sperm to form. It comes about through the essence of the food and the breath. A microscopic particle you can't see it with your naked eye. Now that sperm was suffused with a innate intelligence. Just wasn't a little sperm floating around willy nilly. It was suffused with that intelligence activity of knowing. Energy. Tell it what I call intelligence energy. The activity of knowing. Look at your mother. The same thing happened to the mother. That life form. The pattern shaped and formed with your mother.

Enabled in that pattern. Another little microscopic particle called an ovum or an egg to form in that pattern. You can't see that with your naked eye. But that little pattern was suffused with intelligence. That knew what to do. And you look at it and you follow it down and the science and that will tell you that the sperm swims to the ovum. Implying it's suffused with the innate intelligence. It knew what to do. It swam to the ovum. And the ovum knew what to do. It fastened itself onto the wall of the uterus. It knew what to do. And the sperm knew what to do.

To swim to the ovum and to penetrate the ovum. And in that intelligence functioning. Those two coming together enabled that cell to double. Redouble. And the intelligence in it began to form the little embryo. The little fetus. Now that was the beginning of what you call you today. What were you doing about it then? If you think you're running to show. We've taken on the idea we're running to show. And believe until this is. If you question this you'll see it's not. But if you haven't questioned it look at it. You'll still believe then. And have a look and see. What were you doing about it then if you think you're running to show.

You'd be starting off well. I'd better grow a brain. I didn't have one then. Better grow a heart or a lung. Or breathe. Could hearts, lungs, kidneys and all these organs in the body. There was no entity or nothing there doing any of that. But it was happening naturally, effortlessly and spontaneously by that innate intelligence. It was living it. The living essence that was there then. That knew what to do. And that pattern that you are today. The shape and the form that you are today. Was formed by that innate intelligence. So what can you say about it then when you didn't have any words?

You couldn't say anything at all. But about the two, two and a half, the capacity of reasoning developed. Now that's a capacity these human patterns have that's more developed than what it is in other animals and birds and insects. Have a look around you and see. A lot of the animals can't reason the same way we do. A lot of the insects and a lot of things, you know, are functioning spontaneously, naturally and effortlessly. But they haven't got the capacity of reasoning or thinking that we have. So that's the use for the capacity these humans have which is more developed in these human patterns than what it is in other animals and birds and insects.

But they have different capacities. Like I was going to say, they're not just dull or stupid. They have other capacities that we can't do. A bird, for instance, has got better eyesight than yours and mine will ever be. That's a capacity of seeing. We can't do that. But through the capacity of reasoning we've learned to build ourselves eyeglasses if our eyes are failing, binoculars, telescopes and things like that that enable us to see better. A bird has a capacity of flying. We can't do that. That's a capacity more developed than what our capacity is. But through the capacity of reasoning again we've learned to build ourselves airplanes, helicopters, balloons, things like that.

And kites and things like that that enable us to fly. So this capacity of reasoning is a very useful capacity. Very useful. But it's also self-destructive. Because you look at this reasoning capacity and the thinking capacity and you'll see it's a vibration. Like all this manifestation it's a vibrating pattern of energy. An intelligence energy. I call intelligence energy one of the terms. Intelligence, another term for intelligence is knowing. Just ordinary knowing. Anyone who's not knowing right now. You realize, yeah, I'm knowing. And energy is a movement. It's an activity. And you realize all these activities that are going on in your body. You move your fingers, you breathe, take a breath, all these things are activities.

They're intelligence activities. Intelligence. The activity of knowing. It's breathing you. Pulsating your heart. Growing hair in your fingernail. So that activity of knowing is vibrating through these human patterns and every other living pattern. Your lungs are filling right now and empty in. Heart beating and contracting. Hair and fingernails growing. Food being digested. All sorts of ways it's functioning. But it's functioning intelligence in an intelligent way. So it's that same intelligence that's forming galaxies out there. Look in nature. Get your cue from nature and see that nature, the way it's functioning implies that it's suffused with a innate intelligence. It's not just a, what would you call it?

I can't think of the terms now. I'm losing my mind. The way of functioning. It's functioning intelligently. It's that same intelligence that's functioning this universe. Forming galaxies to form. Earth to move around the sun. Planets to move around. Tides to come in and out. Seasons coming out. Doesn't imply that nature itself is suffused with that intelligence. Now, can you separate yourself from nature? Do you think you're anything separate and apart from nature? Can you separate yourself from life and this earth and everything that's in it? As a separate entity, as an individual, as a person? Try it and see. Believe you would be. And when you recognise that you are no different from nature, you realise it's that same intelligence that's beating your heart.

It's growing air in your fingernails. It's replacing cells in your body. Digesting your food. Doing all those things naturally, spontaneously and ethically. So tell me, where's it coming from? Where did it come into it? What is it? You've taken it to be real, to be all. And you've taken this way of thinking you have, why intellect is smarter than everybody else's, or I know more, or I know less, or I'm not good enough, or I'm fearful. All the concepts we put upon ourselves. And putting those concepts on, we're keeping ourselves separate from our natural state. This is what we point to. The non-duality is the natural state.

And what he tells us is a natural state. He means as in nature. Not anywhere else. As in nature. Just as happening in nature right now. Watch yourself. Take it. If you haven't seen how nature's functioning, have another look at it. Question it and have a look. And see how it's functioning. Naturally, effortlessly, and spontaneously. It's not functioning to some time clock. It doesn't know any time clock. It's spontaneous. There's no beginning and no end to it. And really, I'd go back again to what we were looking at. You were born, you came into existence, you didn't learn any words until you were two years old.

So you're getting on quite alright without the word. Your parents were looking after you, giving you a system to feed. You were seeing, you're hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, and beginning to learn concepts, ideas, and images, and words. But you were doing alright without them, reasonably well. To move along to a better grade of functioning, you had to learn choir words and learn them, because you couldn't be a little child all the time. So we learnt the words. But the thing with the word is, the word is a sound. It's a vibration. And it vibrates dualistically. And have a look. Then you might understand when Shakespeare or somebody like that tells you there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

How could that be? Well, you realise that's the word. It vibrates dualistically. It's either good or bad. And have a look and see. Investigate yourself. It's pleasant, it's painful, it's happy, it's sad, it's loving, it's hating, it's positive, negative. Always vibrating dualistically. And that's what we're doing all our life when we're using these words. We're putting the dualistic concepts and ideas on ourselves and it's all vibrating dualistically all the time. So the word is very useful when it's understood and recognised. But it's self-destructed when it vibrates in its opposite. You either like it, what's your mind, this thing you call mind, and we'll question your mind in a minute and have a look and see how real that is, and see how it's functioning.

And you see this thing called mind is always vibrating dualistically. And have a look and see you'll be really, really, either in the past, which is your memory, or you'll be in the future, which is anticipation, imagination. And within that range it's constantly vibrating dualistically. Whether it's good or bad, it's pleasant or painful, happy, sad, loving, hating, positive, negative. So that's the natural functioning of this thing we call mind, to vibrate in a dualistic form. We need to question these things. Are you this body? Because we've taken on this conceptual pattern which we call a body. And that which is functioning in it called the mind.

We've taken on this idea we are this body-mind entity. We've given it some substance and seeming independent nature and it's believed this separate entity is what I am. And that's what the label person goes on. That's the label or the mask we put on it. The conceptual image. The conceptual image made up of past events, experiences and conditioning. We add on to it. Look at these words. I am Bob, the Australian, the good fella. I had a bad childhood. I'm unhappy. Can't do this or I'm not good enough or I'm fearful. All these words added on to it. And that's how the mask is formed out of concepts.

And what's a concept? Again, grab your dictionary and look up the word concept. And you'll see the concept's nothing but a mental construct. A mind-made thing. A mental construct. Which we've acquired or picked up. You've got to have a look at this word. And you'll realise that the word's not the thing. The word is not the real. Take the word water. Can you drink that word? Can you swim in the word? Can you wash in the word? You can't. Does the word fire burn your mouth? Can you burn yourself? Can you cook with it? You can't. So you realise this word is not the thing.

We take it to be believed real and take it to be real and believe it to be real but it's not the actual. It's just like a signpost and we say the map is not the territory. You can look at your mailways and see where Bourke Road and Whitehorse Road is but that's not the territory. But it's the label or the word we put on it. We put the label on it and realise that every word you've ever spoken or ever learned to speak, and you're probably learning new words to this day, there's a dictionary full of words we haven't learnt yet. You'll probably pick them up somewhere along the line.

And some you know that I don't know and some I know that you don't know. But words are there for everybody too. But the word is not the thing. The label is not what it actually is. As I say the map's not the territory, it's the label we put on it. If you go into Woolworths to buy a shirt you don't come out with a label and think you've got a shirt. When you go and get a car you won't come out with the word car, the label. You come out with a thing. That's why you need to look at this and come out with the thing, the actuality that you are.

And I can tell you right here right now, whether you believe it or not, you're not a word. You're not this body, you're not this mind. There's no poor you that's suffering or unhappy or depressed or irritable or not good enough or fearful. They're all labels we put on the I or the you or the me, which are different ways of saying putting a word on yourself. These are the lines we are to look along, see for yourself. Because it's been pointed out down through the scriptures and only a few have ever looked at it and really understood it. And that's what I say. It needs to be looked at because it's been there when you look deeply enough into the scriptures, and the people down through the ages have pointed it out.

It's been there all the time. But how many have looked at it or bothered to look at it or even question it, unless we come across some teaching somewhere or some pointing that attracts us. Or as, what do you call it? I can't think of the word now. A resonation with the word. A recognising. Or something has moved you to have a look and investigate and see for yourself. And that's the only way it can come about. Otherwise, look at the picture. You've got a population around you. They're locked in the words from the time they're born to the time they die. They can get some, what they might call better concepts and seemingly better understanding.

But does it relieve any of the psychological suffering, any unhappiness, depression, or the guilt that goes on? When you've got those labels on these things, this is guilt, this is fear, this is depression, this is unhappiness. I am this, I am that, I am something else. Taking the word to be real, you're in bondage to the word. And that bondage is a bondage of belief. Because we believed in the words. Look up the dictionary and again look up the word belief. And you'll see the definition of belief is an unquestioned acceptance. Take that, an unquestioned acceptance of something in the absence of reason. We've got this concept, idea, or image, and we haven't questioned it.

We haven't reasoned it out. And so it goes on day and out. Parents, schools, and the person around it told us, and we take it to be real. Without investigating ourselves and questioning it. An unquestioned acceptance of something in the absence of reason. Acceptance of an alleged fact. And there's so many of these facts alleged, are alleged to be true. Accepting an alleged fact without positive knowledge of proof. Question your beliefs. Question these alleged facts. See whether they will stand up to the investigation. Because that's a very important thing they tell you. The false cannot stand up to the investigation. It'll fall apart. Just a simple matter of questioning it and reasoning it.

No use just taking it for granted. Have a look along yourself. You get the taste of it, you'll go back and look again and again. Even though it might seemingly come up and get into bondage again to it. But that habit was formed and reinforced over the years. Day in, day out. It wasn't just a thing that came upon you. That somebody told you and that was it. We've reinforced it constantly. Day in, day out for years. So the habit pattern can seem fairly strong and certainly solid and substantial. But every time it's looked at, it must be, if you really look at it, it must be recognised to be false and you can no longer believe it again.

And then the energy of belief can no longer go into it in its full force. What must you be left with? It must fade away till there's nothing solid there at all. Can no longer be believed in. So have a look at this. You've got this conceptual image and how it functions. Something comes up and you'll say, I like it. How do you know? Well it's an experience you've had before. And you like the experiences we've had before which were good. And the ones we like, we don't want them to go. Not realising that they are transient. This manifestation we told you earlier is Maya.

I also told you it's transient. It's constantly changing. There's nothing static whatsoever about it. The manifestation. The base and stillness which it all appears in has never changed. But what the appearance the content that appears on it, which is nothing other than that. Anyway, appearing is different. And the appearance is not the reality. So that's static. Nothing static in the manifestation. So something comes up and I like it. We know where the things to, we like to go. Not realising that they're transient, no matter how much you love them. No matter how much you want to keep them there. Or want to hang on to it.

It's going to change. And have a look at that in your life. What is static about that life you call you? Have you got the same body you walked in this room with? It's not. It's changed. All the other concepts you've had. You've done this and done that. Aren't they constantly changing? That's the way of it. It's constantly transient. But we don't want the good things to go. We take it to be real. We like the good things we want to keep in there. So what do we do? Well try to keep something there that you don't like. What have you got to do? If I try to keep these caps downstairs when they want to run upstairs, what are they going to do?

They're going to resist it. And find a way upstairs around me, over me, or through me, or whatever way. They'll find their way. So that's what we do. Try to keep this good thing there. We don't want it to go, so we resist it. Mentally or conceptually, take a grasp of it and try to keep it there. And have a look at that. What is resistance? You realise that any resistance you are in, you are in conflict. Resistance is conflict. If you're in an argument with somebody, you're in conflict with them. And if you're, you know, something that's so any good, if you're resisting it in any way, shape or form, you are in conflict with it.

Now what's conflict? You realise it's a conflict. All the conflicts you've had that have made you unhappy, depressed, guilty, fearful, anxious, depressed, or whatever. Conflict is uneasiness. It's anxiety. It's stress. It's guilt. It's shame. It's remorse. Another word for that uneasiness is dis-ease. So there's a resistant conflict and dis-ease going on with us constantly. Something comes up that I don't like. Well, what do we do with the things we don't like? We try to get rid of them. To the leaving as it is. We try to get rid of them. Again, we resist them. We resist them, try to keep them there before. Now we resist them and try to push them away now.

Again, conflict and dis-ease. Now you might get the idea that where all your psychological suffering comes about from. The constant resistance that's going on with us. Constant resistance. Because the happiness doesn't last for very long. Because it will vibrate to its opposite. So you see that me, resistance, that leads into when I'm resisting it's some conceptual idea or me that's resisting it. Believed in conceptual image. Me is the cause of all my psychological suffering. And the effects of that cause are anxiety, stress, guilt, shame, remorse, depression. Have a look at it. Whatever psychological problems you've got are the results of relating to that cause, me.

And then go back to your scriptures. What is that called? Cause and effect. Isn't it karma? You hear so much my karma, this and karma have it to me, this and that. Well that's all that karma is. Cause and effect. Now ask yourself, now if you see that, that's cause and effect, what happens if I wasn't relating anything to a cause? If me is the cause of all my psychological suffering. Where can the psychological suffering lodge if I'm not being related to the cause, me? And you don't have to be a Rhodes Scholar to work that out. If I'm not relating to a cause, where can the effect lodge?

Well you see, you know where there's no cause that you're relating to, there can be no effect to lodge on. So you can be free of all your psychological suffering, just recognizing it for what it is. And people carry on with this belief, karma, without questioning it, without looking into the cause and effect. Cause I've been told it's there, and another new fangled idea that somebody brought about years ago, and they keep reinforcing it and believing it, believing it's just a fiction. Have a look and see for yourself. And I ask you to do it the way I'm looking along those lines. Everybody is seeing right now.

Everybody is hearing right now. Isn't that a fact? Anyone in the room who's not seeing and not hearing? Then you realize, yeah that's a fact, I'm seeing and I'm hearing. But ask yourself this, what are you seeing? Does my eye tell me I see? Well my eye, my physical eye is not saying look at this, Bob, look at that, that's good or that's bad. My eye can't say anything at all. Can yours? Is your eye saying look at this or look at this? Again, not hard to do. See it's there before your very eyes and ears and reasoning. Been there all the time. My eye can't say I'm seeing this or seeing that.

But the seeing is happening through the eye. It is the instrument through which the seeing is happening. If I haven't got that eye, what can I see around me? Can't see anything. That instrument, the seeing itself, can't say anything at all. But it's translated through the thought. I see. So it's just thinking, it's conceptual imaging, it's thinking that comes up as thought. The thought I see. Isn't that a word we've learnt? I see. So the same thing with the hearing. Hearing is happening through the ears but my ear is not saying listen to this Bob, that's a good sound, I like this one, I don't like that.

My ear can't say anything at all. It never has, never could or never will be, but I believed it could. Oh I'm hearing this, I'm hearing that. The ear's not saying I hear anything, it can't. But again, it's the instrument through which the hearing is happening. And again it's translated by the thought. The thought I hear. The thought I see. The thought I hear. We'll go back and have another look. That thought I see. Can a thought see? We'll have a look. Shut your eyes. Close your eyes. Look around the room and see what you're actually seeing without a thought. With the thought I see.

I should say. In the room with your eyes closed. And you realise you can't see anything at all with your eyes closed, with the thought. So you realise this thought I see can't see. The same with the hearing. Put your hands over your ears and see if you can hear with the thought. And you realise the thought I hear can't hear. Yet this thought I see and the thought I hear have been with us constantly. And what do we do? We've formed a conceptual picture of what we think it's me, Bob the Australian. We think that's seeing and hearing. When you realise it's just a thought.

And the thought can't see. The thought can't hear. Take it a little bit further. The thought I see can't see. The thought I hear can't hear. The thought I see can't see. Is this thought I am aware? Is that my awareness? Well ask myself, am I unaware right now? No. Haven't I been unaware all the time? What's been going on unless you've gone to sleep on me? You say yes, no I haven't been unaware. I've been aware all the time. Was I thinking I am aware, I am aware, I am aware? No I wasn't. But the awareness was there all the time. So the thought I am aware is not your awareness.

What about this thought I choose? That's another one. We all think we choose our thoughts. If you could choose a thought, why would you ever choose an unhappy or miserable thought? Do you choose to be fearful? Do you choose to be angry? Do you choose to be unhappy? You don't. So you're riddled with choices. The thought I choose can't choose. So what have you learnt from that? The thought I see can't see. The thought I hear can't hear. The thought I am aware can't be aware. The thought I choose can't choose. So this thought up entity, me Bob the Australian, the good fellow, the labels I put on this thought, me Bob, can't see, can't hear, can't be aware, can't hear.

And that's what the ego is. It's all of the ego is a thought up image. It has no power or any independent nature to stand on its own. Because how many thoughts or feelings or emotions can a corpse have? A corpse can't do any of those things. That life essence out of the body, it can't do anything. So that thought up conceptual image, it's got the brain, it's got the heart, it's got the lungs, it's all there. Without that life essence, corpse and soul, it's not a bit of good to you. And the thought up image cannot do a thing. It's that life essence that we're not even noticing, that pure intelligence, its energy, the beingness, the life essence, the pure, ever fresh presence, awareness, whatever concept you like to put in, is doing everything.

Not only is it forming this universe and everything in it, and any other universe you might like to postulate or think of or think at all. It's forming this pattern, shape and form this body you call you. And it's living it. And that's all that's ever happened. It's never been separate, it's never been divided, there's never been any you, or any separate entity. Are you going to continue to stay in this bound belief that you are an individual, a person? You can if you like. But if it had been so wonderful, you wouldn't be here questioning this. It's still out there trying to live it to its fullest or doing whatever you do.

But you've recognised a little bit more to it. So have a look, investigate and see for yourself. And recognise if there's nothing there, what must be left? The life itself. And then you can understand what Christ said when he said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. He wasn't talking about himself as that sense I am. He was talking about that I am, that sense of presence that all the Tharkadas say with the I am-ness. That's all he's pointing out. Not staying with the thought I am. Staying with the sense of presence that translates as the thought I am. And that I am, we're using that thought that's been translated, is the way.

That is the truth. That I am-ness is the way. It is the truth. It is the life. And realise and recognise you are that. So there you are. That's all in it. Get into it. Tell us all about it. Argue. Question it. Do what you like. Who you're applauding must be yourself. That is all there is. And that's good. Why not applaud yourself? Speak up, Adrian. Eventually my doctor, just before he was retiring and he was going through all the paperwork and that sort of thing and I was going to go to another doctor. He said something to me. He said in all the time I've been a doctor, I have never had another patient like you.

And of course I never questioned that it wasn't an ego trip or it was just, you know, I let it go. But recently, about six weeks ago, I had this massive hemorrhage from the kidney and I was passing pure blood and I was in a lot of pain and everything. And I finished up my partner and she runs around like a chook with her head up, you know, and my daughter's carrying on, you know. Anyway, I finished up in the hospital, you know. And they eventually stuck me down and gave me an x-ray and found out what was there and came in and said to me, are you aware that you've got this whatever in the kidney, you know.

And I said, oh yeah, I'm aware of it and I've been aware of it for some time. And we've got to take it out, we've got to take your kidney out, you know, and carry it on. And I'm just saying, no, no, no, no, thank you. It's alright, you know. And they're getting very upset and angry with me because this is the way they are. Anyway, when I, you know, I just left the hospital, you know, they said, well you've got to go. But the point I'm sort of saying is that years ago, of course, before I came in contact with any of these people or any of this teaching, but more so before I started to do what they said and question everything, go with the thing, you know, don't run away, look at it and question it and realise that you're not anything but yourself and you're the seer, you're yourself.

Anything you can see is not yourself and all the rest of it, you know. And I never gave it any more much thought but I followed that and I questioned all that. And the whole thing was that I can realise now that I wasn't afraid of death. One of them said to me, aren't you scared, aren't you frightened, don't you want to be like this? And I said, I'm not afraid of death. And I'm not really afraid of death. And I don't identify with the body anymore, I don't identify with any of that stuff. But that's why they think that they don't see somebody like me.

Because they haven't had anybody like me because they haven't been in touch with this sort of thing, they haven't done the work that, you know, I've been encouraged to do by people like Bob and my sponsor, you know. And it's not just a theory, it's something that comes about through the work. And the constant question, the constant investigation, the constant looking. And you don't, you don't think you're somebody different or somebody special, you're just different. You're just not in that same space, that same head space because that has left you, that's left me that concept of I'm the body, I'm the mind, you know, I'm going to die you know, what I am is always here and it'll always be here.

And I know that today, you know, it's just a part of me and it's not a theory. If it was a theory it wouldn't work in those circumstances. And those people wouldn't notice it. So, this is a practical thing, it's a thing that's of huge advantage. And, um, you know, it's just a matter of not seeing the illusion, you know. See this pussycat? I'm allergic to her and they make me eye, eyes water, you know. That's just a reality too. Yeah, so, anyway, um, if that's I hope that might help somebody, that's all. That's the only reason why I'm saying that. I'm not saying that Bob's been talking about it all the time, trying to put it into words, trying to encourage us to to actually try to get that insight and observation and then it will leave us you know.

It's only through that observation of those words, of those concepts, of those images or whatever you want to call them that they leave you. And when they leave you, it's a freedom. It's not something that, uh, doesn't give you any sort of a ego. Even this is a part of the ego and that's why it's not an ego trip for me. But it's, it's just something that's happened. I tell you what, if I, um, if I was like most people, I can't understand, you know, that I'm not saying, yes, doctor, yes, doctor, quickly do your thing, whatever you want to do, you do it, you take my kidney out, you know, I'll, I'll, it's all over to you.

They feel as if I'm, they're out of place or if, um, they're not doing their job or or whatever, I don't know what it is, but they can't cope with it very well. Um, I had to rush to, uh, just to add on that, I had to rush to Melbourne. Um, I got a call from my, from my, my mother that, you know, dad, he's doing dialysis three times a week and that I had to, um, that he's been, um, he was shaking in the, he had a urethra put on, you know, because of his prostate as well. He wasn't able to pee. And, um, so he was going through that and then they took it off and, um, he started shaking in the, in the dialysis and so they're ringing up, you know, you've got to come down here because, you know, I live up near the Gold Coast.

And I'm going, well, you know, is he dead yet? You know, what's happening? And, um, because, you know, like, doctors can work things out, you know, but in their emotional state, come on, you've got to come down and support everyone. And so shaking, they took him to the hospital and, um, uh, he got an infection with, um, whatever was going on into the, into the, into the bag, you know, it came back into the blood, so he got an infection with blood and it was quite serious at that stage. So, at that point I came down and, uh, you know, went into the hospital scene where you can see everything going on there, life and death.

And... he was very happy to see me, of course, but you could see his fear, you know, and as soon as you know, we came, the family came there to see him, you know, he started crying and, um, his acceptance of his own, um, self felt better and, you know, and slowly he got better. And then yesterday, um, we got him out of hospital, so he got cleared up, his blood got cleared up and and then we went back home and, um, he becomes the same old grumpy old man again, you know, sitting there with my mom and they're yelling and they're screaming at each other and they're, you know, and I'm just watching the whole lila, the whole play, how he's turning back into that robot again, you know, so at one point he was next to death, you know, and the doctor said, you know, look, at this point you gotta tell us what to do because if he goes the wrong way we may have to, you know, take off his life support.

But you see how you faced it and how other people face it is very different and then you're given that chance again and you go back to the same old yelling at each other, right? They go home and they're like you didn't buy the milk, you know, I don't know. The habit patterns don't change. Yeah, you know, like you go, you know, but at that point, it's a very defining point. It may be transformational or it may not and it's up to life really. For some people, some people do get transformed. He was back in his own usual self-talent, you know, like, same pattern, same habits, the same.

You didn't put the rubbish out, you know, like. It has to, you notice little ones as they lose their strength over you, but you don't notice the over, that this is, if it's constantly goes. Yeah, kind of like turned way back 40 years ago, innit? Yeah. Yeah, 40 years ago. I'll tell them what I was talking about. They called it the Irish Bill that Adrian was a listen to the Irish Bill talk and he was a wild Irishman. One of the first that came to hear me years ago. He used to be crooked on the world. He was an Irish bloke and he brought up a Catholic and I think he had a bad handle on the priests and all the rest of it.

Crooked on the world, everybody in there. He said, assholes, he says, they told me about souls, he says. I got three of them. The soul of each of me shows me asshole, he'd say. Anyhow, he got the cancer in the... You got the same thing I got. In the, where was it, in the kidneys? Yeah, I was in the... Where did he get the cancer, in the kidneys was it? He got it in the kidneys, yeah. He killed him, yeah. And he, living on the board now, he said, I stay here, the board of the house will kick me out because, you know, they don't want to keep any sick person here.

So we put him up upstairs and above the shop and the doctor used to come and see him. And he died on you there? Yeah, he died. The doctor kept coming on, the doctor... Tell him how it happened when you had the health food shop here and the people were all in the health food shop, so they got Billy and put him on the stretcher and covered him up, they did. They'd taken him, you have to take him to the morgue and he was walked out through the shop. People didn't even take any notice. Anyhow, he wasn't afraid of death and the doctor used to come and see him and the doctor was so amazed at the way he was handling death that the doctor came along to the groups for a while, didn't he?

With what? He came along to the groups for a while. He came for the non-duality? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Living by demonstration, that's the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a long story. It'll kind of go down. It's strange, isn't it, really, it's a negation of identification, but you're saying we are it. It's the negation process and it takes away that illusory unreal exaggerated damaging fear that we have as individuals in when we really need it. That's a good word, unrelated. Is there a taste of it in you? Tell us about it. I'm getting a taste of it, but I switch back in and out. I just want to refer to the grappling that Terry confused me with.

If you're aware of something, if you're aware of your thoughts, if you're aware of... I just get stuck at that point. That's a good point, to get stuck. Question everything until you're left with nothing, because what's real is the nothing. You have to interrogate at that point. It's a contemplation. When you get into these intellectual arguments with yourself, there's only one way you can... You just say, full stop. You just say, I'm not going there, because any form of intellectual argument you get into with yourself is just going to keep going. The more you plunder something, the more energy you give it, and so it will tend to go on.

If you just say, full stop, I'm not going there, then you're not going there. Where are you left? You're left there in the moment. And so the conceptualising will stop. The ego wants to justify the cause and the roots of its existence. Is there such a thing as an ego? You've got to come back and question that, you see. You can't get rid of something that never existed in the first place. You draw a picture of the ego and it's... People say, I've got to get rid of the ego. Well, how can you get rid of something that doesn't exist? And you point that out to them and they say, oh, hang on.

It doesn't make sense to try and get rid of something that doesn't exist. But what Terry was saying, if you're aware, like, we're aware, but you're saying it's not real. What I'm saying is if you can be aware of it, how can it be you? Because who's becoming aware of it? Well, if you can be aware of it, you've got to be separate from it. Yeah, but all the movement of the mind has to be seen from something that's not moving. See, time can only be seen from a point of timelessness. How else can you make a start, a duration and a finish other than conceptually?

You create a conceptual start, right, and a conceptual duration and a conceptual ending. Where else can that be done except in thought? And it can only be done from a point of non-thought, of nothingness, of emptiness. And it appears... as a paradigm within you. Beginning, duration, end. But the beginning and the ending is still now. So that's why when I get on a plane now, I have this really weird way of getting rid of jet lag of sitting in a departure lounge and I say, right, it's now. Sitting on the plane, it's now. So that eight-hour flight, when you get to the other end, you say it's now.

That eight hours I just sat on the plane is now. It didn't really happen. And all of a sudden, you feel, well, why would I be tired? Because that was just imaginary anyway. You might feel tired, but it's hard to explain. It's just you don't get caught up in that linear paradigm anymore. You extricate yourself. No, it's not that you don't get caught up in it. You see it for what it is. But the riddle that Terry gave to Simon is actually... It's interesting because the way you, Simon, you remembered it is that this is not real. It's correct. It is unreal. Everything in the manifestation is Maya, is illusion, is the emptiness creating a form out of itself.

It's like ocean waving. It isn't real. But the way Terry gave you a riddle, it is the who am I investigation. It is not really about recognising forms as emptiness, which is also a correct way, but it's kind of more advanced, more to question your own identity. It's kind of closer. It's easier. It's more personal. If you see that everything you are aware of cannot be who you are, you are aware of your body. So you are the awareness and the body is the object in awareness. You are aware of your thinking. So you are the awareness and the thinking or the thoughts are actually objects in the awareness.

Also the emotions, the feelings, the sensations, everything. And then the scenes that you are looking at, they are sensations in the field of seeing. The sounds are sensations. So they are not who you are. You are the awareness or the knowingness. It is correct to say they are all unreal. That's true. But that's really, that is the contemplation which takes you somewhere else. And if you start from investigating your own identity, who am I, that part of everything is nothing comes out naturally because when you really discover that everything is nothing, everything that you can be aware of is not who you are. So you kind of neti neti, you negate every single thing that is an object.

And you will remain as pure subjectivity that cannot be grasped. So you basically cognizing nothing, cognizing emptiness like Buddhists call it. So this, when you recognize yourself as the intelligent nothing, you also recognize everything else as nothing. But that's kind of a second. There are no steps or stages. But that's a natural consequence of realizing your true nature as the cognizing emptiness. It's just easier this way. Yeah. Okay. What is aware? You are aware, but what is aware of being aware? See, you can say, well, who am I? Right? Which for some people, you bring in a personal pronoun. So take away the personal pronoun and you say, well, what am I?

Or what is aware? Because you're aware. What is aware? And the only answer is, awareness is aware of being aware. Like I said to you the other night, like if you listen to a hypnosis tape, it's like being in deep sleep. You'll drift off. But you're still aware. How do you know you're still aware? Because at the end of the hypnosis tape, the guy will say something like, well, now you're going to wake up. And then you wake up. Well, how do you know to wake up? How do you hear that voice? Because you're aware all the time. It's just you stop conceptualizing. So you think you're unaware.

You're not unaware. You've just stopped conceptualizing. But awareness is listening to everything. Because if a car door slams or your security light goes on or, you know. If the alarm clock goes off. Yeah, something stirs you, you'll immediately, well, see, who's aware? So you're aware of being unaware. Is a good way to put it. Yeah, there is awareness. Because that's not really you being aware. But yeah, sure. Awareness is there 24-7. That's what I'm saying. It's there 24-7. See, as I said to you the other day, right? The awake part of you. Now, this is a fact. This is a scientific fact. You're flat out remembering 10 bits of information.

Someone gives you a phone number. You go, I don't know, 5, 5, 5, 5. You're flat out remembering your passport number, right? You go, what is it? You ought to get your passport out to double check. But that unconscious part of you or that awareness part of you, they reckon it's something like 2.3 million bits of information it can process. So in other words, you're at the airport. You go, what's my passport number again? But you're looking around the airport and there might be 100 people of different races. And you're knowing it will be an Indian, Filipino, Asian. You know what I mean? You're not labelling them.

But you just know. And as you're scanning around the airport, you can scan maybe a thousand bits of information and know what it is without labelling it. See, that's the intelligence, energy. The acquired intellect, what you've learned, no match for it. Can't match for it because that's secondhand information. As I said to you and Darren there, it was Darren or you, what we call history doesn't exist. It doesn't exist what we call history. All we've got is some person's version of it. The people who won the war. Or the people who were sitting beside the Prime Minister who made all the decisions, writes a book about it.

You never hear a guy who was cleaning the bog out, and oh jeez, bombs dropped and killed my whole family. He doesn't write a book. You don't hear about the man in the street back in the 17th century who maybe cleaned the horse shit up or something. No. You don't hear about that. We just hear one version of history. And it's usually the winners who killed all the other people and rewrote history saying they were a bunch of assholes, we had to get rid of them. We never hear the other side of the story because they all got killed. Yes. And if you do, it makes you laugh.

Because I did, when I was working around the world and driving ships, I would hear American version of a history of Second World War, and then I would hear Russian version of the Cold War. And it was just hilarious. What is it though? It's all relativity. Absolutely. Relative. Everything is relative to your... See, the acquired intellect is basically what you were told when you were a kid, what your parents told you, what your schools told you, what you studied, what books you read. That's about it. That's what becomes normal. And that has nothing to do with what really happened. Absolutely. You just have a relative version of what happened, or what you think happened.

And that's what you're talking about. Yes. And that's what you're talking about. Or what you think happened. And then you take it personally and you think this is your opinion and you're entitled to it and you want to defend it. It's all those conservatives. Like at the moment... It's no opinion is yours. At the moment, it's like Trump. I mean, Trump, you've got to blame him for every single problem in the world now. It's just lobbed at him, you know. It's Trump. All the racism, all this, Trump, Trump, Trump. Just pick out somebody and just blame it on them, you know what I mean? Like in the Second World War, you'd swear that it was Hitler, by himself, who created all the shit.

Right? It wasn't a whole group of people or a whole country of people. It was just the one guy, according to history, you know? It's a good thing to recognise that no opinion that you ever have is really your opinion. That everything that you ever learned, that's what Bob says in a spiel, everything that you ever knew, you learned. You learned from somebody else. The one that annoys me is when people say, oh, you're prejudiced. I always say, of course I'm prejudiced. That's what you learn. Not but be prejudiced. Every word that comes out of my mouth is prejudiced because all I can do is refer to some prior experience I had, which is prejudiced.

I'm going to have a version of what I think. It's prejudiced. And people will say, oh, you're prejudiced. Or, you know, of course I'm prejudiced. And also, you will make sense, you know. You've got the experience. And the way you assign the meaning to experience will be totally according to your conditioning. If you are predominantly fear-oriented, your story about what happened will be about the security. If you are anger-oriented, your story will be about the violence, whatever. Whatever the conditioning, you know, you can say the fact happened this way or the other, but the meaning assigned is absolutely mechanically taken, made up in the computer there, according to what the computer, what information is stored.

You look at historical records or records written by army commanders and that, it's all about warfare and strategy. Oh, we did this and we did that. It's their version of how they won the war. You never hear from the man in the street who was going about his daily business and living a . It's like they say, the old saying, history doesn't record the peaceful man. It makes no record of him. History is just littered with despots, warmongers, and arseholes, right, who left their mark. But the guy who got up every day, Yeah, the silent majority. the peaceful man, he's not recorded. There's no record of him.

The guy who went to work every day, had a few kids, raised his family, then died. There's no record of him, and there's billions of them. History is just a whole group of people who just left the mark because of what they did. And it's usually violent. Can we just, I just want to come back to what it is that, what have you actually seen? What have you seen so far? What are you aware of so far? A lot of, there's a lot of noise. You're aware of that, that there's thoughts that just come and go and... Yeah, and they're, so by becoming aware of it, attached to them.

Can I ask, because you touched on something before, so, you see that, you're starting to see that. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. What's the ego in reference to that? The ego doesn't want to let go. What's in reference to that? So I've got, yeah, there's the mind, there's the ego. Can we give another name to the ego? Can you call it something else? Or not? Is there something that, is there anything else you could call that? Because you said the ego doesn't want to let go. Yeah. Can you give it another name other than ego? Control, fear, fear. Okay. So, there's the thoughts that go on, that you're aware of.

There's also an ego. Yeah. And there's also you. Is that right? And feelings, yeah. And there's you in there somewhere. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. So there's, can you see what I'm doing? There's an ego. Yeah. There's the thoughts that you're becoming aware of. Yeah. And yet there's still this self-identified me there that this is all happening to. Yep. Yeah? Yeah. Do you think the ego just might be you? Instead of it being an appendage attached to a me? I call it the mego. A mego. Because it's one and the same thing. Mego. Yeah. Just that what we do, and we're taught to do this. We're really taught to do this.

I have an ego. There's me and my pet ego that sits on my ego. My pet ego that sits on my shoulder that does all this. You go looking for the ego, you can't actually find it. No. You can't. No. But there's, that that won't let go is you, not the ego. The persona, the story. Yeah. So the first part of that awareness that you're currently experiencing, being able to watch thoughts come and go. Fantastic. Okay? But you've yet to see that the identified self, you that you believe yourself to be, is also in that that you're watching. It's not separate from it. It's like, there's part of me saying, I'm going to watch those thoughts and I'm not going to.

Yeah. But it's thoughts saying, I'm going to watch those thoughts. It's real. It's one on the, it's one on the same thing. Do you understand? Yeah, no, I get that. Yeah. Okay. So really the first part's easy. Yeah, I can become aware that thoughts come and go. The second part is a lot more difficult seeing that you, your self identity is also in there. It's not separate from it. We think it's separate from it because we say, I can be aware of thoughts. So we think, and here's the trap. Yeah. We think that that that is aware of thoughts is me and it's not. It's awareness.

So another way, let me try this. Are you conscious right now? Yeah. Are you aware right now? Yeah. Okay. This is only a trick question. It's a really direct question given the answers that you just gave me. Okay. Who is it that's conscious and who is it? That's aware. The body. The body. The body. The eye. The. So the body's aware of thoughts and it's the body that's aware of the room and space and other people and, and so on. It's the body. Which bit of it? The eye. Try, try, look, look, try and talk from your direct actual experience from what you actually know, not what you think is going to be the correct answer.

Just from what you know. Yeah. Just from what you know. So you say, I am aware or I am conscious. Who's owning that awareness and who's owning that consciousness? Who's the mind that's saying my consciousness, my awareness. It's gotta be something that's not those two things. Yeah. It is, it is, but it isn't. That illusory self identity that we have, that we're trying to see through, actually trying to see, is that the right way to put it? But I'm going to use, I'm going to say that, that we're trying to see. Yeah. Yeah. That illusory self is not conscious. It is not aware. Okay. It's not real.

I get it. Yeah. It's not real. So there is just awareness. There is just consciousness, but it's not yours. You're in that stuff that you're seeing. You're in there. Okay. And you feel, so what, what that false sense of self does, it identifies with that sense of presence or it identifies with that sense of awareness and thinks it's that, it thinks it's that sense of awareness. Bobby says often in his spiel, you know, are you aware? Is there anybody in the room that's not aware right now? And I would, you know, unless one has awoken to this, you know, this is the right way to look at it.

The person who has awoken to their true nature, absolutely awoken to their true nature. No one is aware in this room right now, if they're coming from their me, no one cause the me that self identified me cannot be aware the awareness of the consciousness is prior to the me, but aren't you aware of the me? Yeah. Who's aware of the me? So does the awareness? world, which it means it's prior. Do you appear in the world? If you like, it's awareness. That's a serious question. It's awareness that's manifesting that me. Yeah, it's me. It's the awareness that owns that illusory concept of me. But we think it's the other way around.

It's my awareness. It's my consciousness. And it's that self identity. There's two awarenesses, right? Like, as kept, there's not to me. It's not to don't even try and go there. There's not to but look, you're on the right track. You're totally on the right track. Just observing that totally on the right track. You need to also start to see that this self identity, this me, or the ego, the mego, whatever you want to call it, is also contained in that that you're aware of. It's not separate from that. It's not this that that you're aware of, a me and awareness. It's not. Let me try and use Bob's analogy of the computer because this one kind of clears up the idea of the body being aware because it feels like the body using the eyes is aware of the content.

So if you take the computer, you have the camera and the camera is viewing looking at the room. Is really the computer aware of what the camera is seeing? Now you have the speaker, the computer is hearing all the sounds, but is the computer aware? Even if you have, let's say you log yourself to Gmail or whatever, and you've got your avatar with your name, your sex, everything. Is that little icon there created as your avatar, is that aware of what is going on inside the computer? No, you've got to have someone who is completely outside of the computer, to be aware of the content.

So now your body is the computer. Your eyes are cameras. They are registering things. Your software in the brain is translating the impulses into the pictures that are being compared with the memory. That's why you recognize everything. So this is the software going on. This is the hardware, the computer. So is the computer and its software aware of itself? Can't. It's dead. The computer and the software is dead. So if there is an awareness, like you know, in the computer there is a power going through the computer enabling it to function. With the body there is a power going through your body enabling it to function.

But what is awareness? Awareness will be prior to the computer and prior to the power that is powering it. So the awareness is something that is completely ungraspable. Because if you can grasp it, if you make it to something, okay, there is someone who sits in front of the computer and is watching it. Or maybe that's, you know. No, there someone who's sitting in front of the computer is also being a content in the awareness. Awareness is a no-thing that is intelligent with the capacity of cognizing. Everything that is in it is not aware. It's just an expression of it. So it's not the body being.

Yeah, you can call it consciousness as a product. Awareness is something. But there's a thing about electricity is the power that runs the computer. You can't see it either. No, totally. It doesn't exist. It's just another expression. No, it exists only when it's reflected against something else. Like awareness is pure until something is reflected. The effect can be seen. It is the wave. It is an expression. It is a form. It's like when you turn on that Tesla machine, right, you can't see any electricity until you put your hand up against it. Right? Like the mirror, right? Yeah, you can't see the wind either. It's just pure and clean until something walks in front of it and reflects it.

It's like your awareness. Your awareness is fresh and empty. Then somebody will appear within it. Right? Then they'll maybe walk away. Then the emptiness is still there again. So everything is just an appearance. Even when it's measured, it means it's already an expression. Well, that's what the word phenomena means. Yes. It means something that's appearing. That's right. It's just appearing. Yeah. So it has no reality. That's right. So in that analogy, there is a distinction. I've got a good one for you about language too. You know the word passion or compassion? Yeah. You know what the real meaning of that is? I was telling you about it the other day.

We were talking about these woes with women, right? Now, the word compassion, right, com means with, of course. Passion means to suffer. Yeah. In Latin, passio, to suffer. So compassion means you're suffering with somebody. You go and suffer with them. I see. You apply that to a relationship. When someone says, I'm really passionate about her, I'm really passionate about, or he's a passionate person, that word means to suffer. Wow. So you suffer because, especially you're in a, remember what we were talking about? You're in a passionate relationship. That was the old me. That's the old me. What happens when you're in a relationship? What happens when you're in a passionate relationship and you think, oh, I'm so passionate about that person?

What happens if they're suddenly not there? Yeah. You suffer. That passion, you know? Yeah. Because it's relative then. It becomes a relativity, a duality. Uh-huh. I need that other person to feel complete and whole. I don't feel complete and whole unless I'm sleeping with her or whatever, right? Yes. So they're suddenly gone. You think you're empty. I'm only half a person again. Mm-hmm. That's why Tantra and all these things don't work. You know, there's yogas and that. They talk about Tantra and sex and all that. They don't work. They're dualistic. What happens if that tantric partner all of a sudden gives you the boot? You're left feeling separate again.

Oh, shit. Got to find another one to feel whole again. Isn't that just about pleasure? Chasing pleasure? Of course. So it is effective. Gratification. Yeah. The aim is to gain pleasure. And if the pleasure is delivered... Well, there's nothing wrong with pleasure, is there? We're not going to go down the church's road, are we, and demonize pleasure. No. No. As long as you realize it's duality and the other side of it's pain. I bet it is. As long as you realize that. We've seen enough of it. There's nothing wrong with it. It's neither right or wrong. Look, someone brought up homosexuality the other day. And they're going on about how better we treat gay people and how we've evolved.

I'm thinking, hang on a minute. Hang on a minute. I said, hang on a minute. I used to live in Dixon Street down by the beach. And all the gay guys would gather in the car park. This is in the 60s, right? And they're obviously added in the toilets and all that. Nobody discriminated against them. Nobody went down there and beat the shit out of them. Nobody went down there and chased them away, right? It was a case of, look, don't go down there. Leave them alone. Out of sight, out of mind, right? So your average person was ambivalent. They just sort of, you know, don't worry about it.

Let them do what they want to do. Who demonized it? Who demonized all those things? Churches. They were the ones that made into an abomination and they're evil or whatever. It's got to be man and woman, blah, blah, blah. They're bad people and all that. So it wasn't your average person that did that. Your average person just said, look, don't worry about it. My mum always just said, oh, don't go down there. But the truth of the matter is that even church is just another way life exists. Of course. Yeah, and it's a painful way, but it is just another way because the duality, you have day and night, you have pleasure, pain.

So you have church, you have angels and devils. And it's passed on. My point is it's passed on. The people will pass it on. As you were saying before, as you said before, your father's 85, never really learned anything, never really changed. Now at your brother's funeral, the priest got up and he quoted a few scriptural sayings. And I just automatically knew what the real meaning of that scripture was. And I was going to tell people later, you know what he was saying? I thought, no, I'm not going to say that. But I thought, this poor old bastard, he doesn't even understand his own scripture.

He's probably been talking it for 40 years. Often the case. And then, you know, the fact that the church inflicts so much suffering on them, it may actually in the long run, be a little bit of a problem. Yeah. But it's not the water on the river of their own awakening. Because life is mysterious. Sometimes the more pain is the more kind of, it prompts you to investigate. Do you know the story? Do you tell her the, you know the story about someone left Bob's book in the church up in Queensland? Yes. And the priest rang Bob up? Yeah. Know that story? No. Someone left Bob's book, What's Wrong With Right Now, in a church.

And the priest picked it up and read it. And he ended up calling Bob up saying, Listen, you're onto something here. What did he say to you, Bob? He said, I can't remember the story. They sacked him out of the church. They sacked him. And he started handling them around him. So they kicked him and defrocked him, did they? He took the congregation with him. They didn't defrock him, but they kicked him out. But he took the congregation away with him. So he was better off than ever was. He was getting all the take and that church wasn't getting him. I know what I forgot to bring tonight.

Did Darren send you that thing? I should have bought it and read it to everyone. It's really good. It's from Sufism. You know Sufism, which is the mystic form of Islam? It's explaining one of their slokas in Arabic. And it was just beautiful. It was the perfect version of non-duality. And I thought, see, it's in every religion somewhere. And Darren sent it to me on Skype. I'll send it to you. It's this quote from Sufism. And it's just beautiful. It's almost perfect non-duality. Slightly different words, but it's just perfect. And I thought, see, they know. Oh yeah. A lot of the sages in India were Muslims.

Yeah, Sufis. Mystic Sufis. My mum came here and she was, I just wanted to blend with Jesus. So even in the order she got it, you know, that order seemed to get what it was about. And eventually I think she left the church and was coming here. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. She didn't come here, but, you know. She must have been here a long time ago. She understood. Okay. Thank you. That's the old joke.