Sailor Bob - Non Duality in Melbourne

When are you coming out with the cane to whack Bob's legs? All things are possible. First is there. First you can't pull over. But you like handcuffs Bob. We started already. Okay. What do you use for handcuffs? Really? So say your name so everybody knows everybody. Nice small group. We'll run through it all. Again and again and again and again. Purely and simply. Because if you really get what we're pointing to, you wouldn't hear it again. And you wouldn't even need to come back. We don't hear it. We cannot teach you anything here and we can't tell you anything. Recognise that right from the start.

All we do is point toward. And we'll run through it all. And ask you to look to where we're pointing to. We point with the word. That's all we can point with. And see for yourself. That's the important thing. It needs to be recognised. What we're pointing to. Is exactly what we are pointing to. Is exactly it. Another way I put it, I can't tell you. I'm not speaking to anybody. I'm not speaking to any mind. I'm not speaking to that conceptual image. You have about yourself. The body mind. The personal entity. I'm speaking to that I am. That I am. What that thought. Not the thought I am.

But what that thought represents. The sense of presence. Which translates through the mind. As the thought I am. When you say I am. What are you talking about? Talking about me? Or I? Or the sense of presence? The presence. The knowing that you are. Which translates as the thought I am. Not speaking to your body. Because what is there in that body that can hear or understand or grasp anything at all? Or the mind. What is there such a thing as the mind? I'm not speaking to any mind. Don't just say my body. I'm speaking to the mind. And the other one we put on ourselves.

My self. And as soon as we say my self. You immediately jump on that conceptual image. You've got that egoic image. It's me. But my self. Is the one self. The only self. The soul self. Not S-O-U-L but S-O-L-E. It's all that one soul essence. Vibrating into different patterns, shapes and forms. And the shape and form, the name and form are what they call Nama, Rupa. In Hinduism. Nama is name and Rupa is form. And they say the Nama, Rupa, the name and form is Maya. It is illusionary. It's not real. It's not the actual. So that body mind you take yourself to be. Is an illusion.

And you know that when you look at it and see it's a phenomenal. They tell you. It's a phenomenal manifestation. It's a manifestation appearing phenomenally. Look up your dictionary and see the dictionary dictionary phenomena. Is that which appears to be. So that body mind entity you believe yourself to be. Is appearance only. When you investigate it and break it down. You'll see. That's all it is. There's nothing substantial or solid about it at all. Just the same as the rest of this manifestation. It's a phenomenal manifestation. That which appears to be. They're talking about the whole manifestation. So if the manifestation is phenomenal and not real.

And the body mind is part of the manifestation. The thoughts, feelings, emotions are part of the manifestation. Who or what are you? Is there such a thing as you? Or I or me or mine? Any of these conceptual terms. But they say it's such yet an ander. Existence, consciousness, bliss. Or another way of putting that is being, knowing and loving to be. Or another way of putting it is as Nisargadatta points out. Having affection. So an affectionate awareness of being. Now the awareness they're talking about is not something. Hasn't got any label, name or form. You can't grasp it with a concept. Because it's non-conceptual.

I tell you that in Buddhism. The great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. That awareness without any concept. The only way we can express that. We'll never get to taste that awareness. Is ask yourself. Am I unaware right now? Well are you? Ask yourself that. And can you say I am unaware? How could you say it? How could you say anything if you are unaware? But you recognise and know. That you are not unaware. But you can't grasp it as a concept. That's what awareness is. All you can do is recognise if I'm not unaware. I must be aware. So you see that awareness is already there.

It's not something you have to search for. And the next level of that is where it comes up as consciousness. Consciousness is the Nama River. The name and form we put on all this manifestation. Taking it to be something. Something real and solid. And it's one move away from awareness. So you cannot say. You are not being right now. Can you? Remember what we're looking for. Is your reality. Your actuality. Not something you're going to acquire as a concept. Or a belief. It's something you need to see. As the actuality. Again have a look at it. Is anybody who is not being right now. Can you say I am not?

You can't say I am not because the knowing. That I am is there. You can't say I am not at all. Who or what could say it? So you must be. That beingness. And that awareness. What is the beingness awareness of? The actuality. Which is the stillness. Or the silence. Or the emptiness. Different labels we put on it. There are all sorts of labels on these things. But the label or the word is not the thing. Being aware of stillness. Well. If you sit with that awareness. Without conceptualising it. What can you say about it? Can you say it's moving? Or is it empty? And is it still?

And silent? Without a concept. It is. Where further do you have to go? Where do you have to look? What do you need to do? Recognise I am that. And that's the Mahavacaya. The great mantra they've thrown at us down through the years. I am that. That is what I am. That. And you realise. In our language. Everything is that. Everything. That camera. Is that. It's a thing. It's that before we put the camera on it. The table it's sitting on. Is that. That's the table. The carpet you've got your feet on. That's that. The chair you're sitting on. Is that. The mirror. The room.

The trees. The flowers. Everything basically is that. And what do we mean by that? The one essence that's patterning, shaping, forming and expressing as all things and everything. They can only and ever be that. But what have we done? We've worked out labels or words. And put labels or words on all this manifestation. Again what are the labels and words? The nama rupa. The name and the form. The shape. The shape is appearing in on the name and put on it. Namarupa. Maya. Or illusion. We've put illusionary concepts on the absolute. Divided it up into all these different pattern, shapes and forms. Seeing it as the absolute.

As the totality. As the Great Perfection. We divided it up with concepts. Sat Chit Ananda. Name and form. labels on it. Now the name and form, the labels or the words, where do they come from? Ask yourself this, where do these words that I'm speaking come from? Was I born with any words? Or were you? Go back to when you were born if you can. And then you'll ask yourself, was I born? Can you remember your birth? And when you realise you can't even remember your birth. You can't say with a fact, with the truth that I was born. When did you come into existence?

Well have a look at that and see, when did you start? Go back and see, what we've learned through science, physics, history and all recent, and see that you are nine months in the womb forming that nama rupa, the pattern shape and form. without any labels was being formed then. Who by? Was it you? No, you were the little fetus, the little embryo and you didn't even have a brain at that stage. How could you say anything about it at all? How could you put any labels on this? This is when I began, this is how I grew, or anything at all on it. You can't.

Yet it was happening. And then after you came out of the womb, the next couple of years of your life, what were you thinking about it and doing about it then? Tell me that. And you realise, how could you tell me anything because you had no words? You hadn't learnt any words until you were about two, two and a half or something like that, in the capacity of reasoning, which is a useful capacity that these patterns, shapes and forms have, the capacity of reasoning. That reasoning started and in that capacity of reasoning, you learnt. And you learnt words. Fussing around your parents or your parents fussing around you, could tell you, you're little Johnny, you're a little child, you're a little baby, you're little Johnny.

And you're a good boy, you're a bad boy, or do this or don't do that. And we begin to learn words. We've learnt words from our parents. And when you go into the Bible and you see it tells you that in the beginning was the word. You didn't begin until you learnt words. And they tell you that the word was the word of God. And you say, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well, I tell you that the word was with God. If you like to use that term. The word was God. That's all that so-called God is, a word.

Nothing was made without him, the Word. All things were made by him, the Word. So everything was made by the Word, and nothing was made without the Word. So all these words we've learnt, have been useful to some extent. The labels, shapes and forms we put upon them to give them some conceptual and imagined meaning. But who was doing that? When you recognise that every word you've ever spoken, and you're speaking a lot of words now, and you've learnt a lot of words. You've got a dictionary full of words, you don't remember them all in the dictionary. But you're picking up new ones occasionally, every time now and again, so the word is not just something that you know immediately, you know all of, it's something that we're learning all the time.

But realise the word we've learnt is not the thing. Have a look at a word, see if the word is real. Take the word water, can you drink the word? Can you swim in the word? Will you drown in the word? Can you wash in the word? You can't do anything in the word water. It's not going to quench your thirst, it's not a bit of good to you, the word. You've got to get the actual H2O, the water. Which is nothing but a couple of gases coming together and combining, and forming what we call a liquid. Water. So the word is not the thing, it's not the real.

But we put meaning and label, or words, or meaning into all these words we speak. Take the meaning, or the concepts and ideas we've got about it, take it to be real. Look at any other word too, does the word fire burn your mouth? Can you cook with it? Can you eat yourself? What is this word I, or me? We've taken ourselves to believe. I am Bob. We've put other concepts on it to give it a meaning. The Australian, the good fella. But I am, basically I am. The word, I am. What does it express? Isn't it nothing other than the sense of presence? The knowing that you are, which translates into a thought, or a word, I am.

Now the thought, I am, is not the word I am. It is the sense of presence. You're sitting there, right now, isn't there a sense of presence, or a being, a knowing that you are? Can you negate that being knowing, and loving to be that that's such and as you are? Does it need the word I, or me? It's a good concept to get along with in our language, to convey things to other people and all the rest of it. But can that word I, or me, do anything at all? Can any word do anything? It can't. We've formed myriads of words, taken the words to be real, and lived by the word.

And it tells you that in Hensing Ming, where it finishes it off. It goes through all their pairs of ostens and do everything. It's interesting to read and grasp what it's saying. But it finishes off by saying words. The way is beyond language. If it's beyond language, what do you need words for? What use are words? For in it there's no yesterday, no tomorrow, and no today. If it's beyond language, you don't need yesterday. You don't need tomorrow, and you don't need today. You can't discriminate those words. You can't divide them. There's only this ever-fresh presence awareness here. Awareness of being present. Right here, right now.

And the ever-fresh means it's not time-bound. It didn't start at some particular time and ending at some particular time. It's a spontaneous movement. And have a look at these words you've got in your mind now, speaking or thinking. Have they any static point, any starting point? Can you find a static point for any word? Or a self-nature to any word? You see, there's nothing static anywhere at all. So it's not static. There's no yesterday, no tomorrow, and no today. There's no tomorrow, no today. There's no tomorrow, no today. There's no tomorrow, no today. What is there? You can't even say there's an hour. What's happening in this spontaneous immediacy?

Aren't there thoughts coming up? They might be saying, this is a lot of crap, and I don't want to hear this, or this is so and so, or resonating with something I'm hearing. But the words will be spontaneously arising. Is there a thinker there saying, I better think this, or I need to think this, or I need to think something else? Or is every thought that arises a spontaneous immediacy? And have a look at all the words you've spoken today. Where are they now? How many words are still there? I guarantee there wouldn't be any words still there that didn't need to be recalled. Because being spontaneous is never fresh.

They're constantly changing. And they can't label, say, with us yesterday. Or tomorrow, or today. Any static point. Though we try and keep them there, try and hold them onto some static point, to give them some seeming credentials or some meaning. But wouldn't it be necessary, as we say, to recognise that the word is not the thing? The word is not the real? Then does it really matter what you say, what you think, or what you do? Because you're going to get... If you say something you shouldn't think you'd be saying, and you don't like saying it, if you know it's not the actual, it's not the real, is it going to matter?

When you let it matter, you're bound into the word again. Words come up here and I couldn't give a shit what comes out of the mouth. Because I know they have no substance, no independent nature. I don't have to be spiritually or politically correct all the time. And I'm not. I don't need to be and I don't want to be. That's for a fact. It doesn't matter. What I say, what I think, or what I do, the saying, thinking, and doing happen. It mightn't be in a politically correct way or idea, but there's no word that is binding. Have a look and see what word you've got there that's binding, that's staying with you.

When we put the energy of belief into this word, I or me, but is it the same concept you've got about that I or me all day? Or does the concept you have about yourself constantly change? But are they anything other than concepts? What is a concept? Going back to it, it's just nothing but a mental concept. And again, it's mind or thinking. And Shakespeare told you that nothing either good or bad but thinking gets you there. And Mindas Agadda tells you nothing can trouble you except in your own imagination. What you are imaging in, forming conceptual and mental. Images. Holding those images to be real, taking the pattern, shape and form they so many appear in them, adding on to them and taking off them.

But put the energy of belief in them that the word is the thing. Thinking that the word is not the thing, it's not the real. Are you going to stop thinking? Well, have a look at that. Who ever thought. Who is there, or what is there ever, that thought a thought? Comes up, I think a thought. Who is this I again that thinks a thought? Is there anything substantial, solid there that you can say this is I or this is me? But doesn't thoughts, thinking happen, thoughts arise? What's your next thought going to be? None of you can tell me what your next thought is going to be.

But a thought will come up, come up and say I think that thought. And the minute you say I think that thought, you've formed a thinker. You've given some conceptual image to that. You've given some conceptual image to that I thought and made it into a thinker. A subject. Now there's a subject, a thinker, that's thinking these thoughts. And the next thought that comes up is what I'm thinking, that becomes the object. So thinking is then divided conceptually into subject, object. Dualism. That's all dualism is. Subject, object, two, not one, two. Now the thinking is divided into dualism. And the I has become the subject, the believed in entity or person, and the thought I'm thinking, this or that, has become the object.

Subject, object, dualism. But if you ask yourself can there be a thinker, a me or an I, a thinker, without thinking? Well have a look at that. Can there be a thinker without thinking? Without thinking what can you say about it? Can you say there's a thinker or a thought or anything at all? You can't say anything at all about it. So you recognise no, there can't be a thinker without thinking. In the same way, can there be the thought, the object, without thinking? This is good or this bad. If I'm not thinking that, can there be an object? So subject, object, dualism are dissolved immediately in the pure thinking.

Spontaneous. Functioning. Without the thinking there's neither subject nor object. There's no me or this or that. No personal entity whatsoever. And that goes for all the functioning, for the seeing, the hearing, the tasting, the touching, the smelling, the feeling. The ING on all these sensations give them something that's happening. Happening, another ING. In this immediacy. It's not happening a moment ago or a moment in the future. It's happening right now. Any thinking that's going on, any seeing that's happening, any tasting. It's all in this immediacy. So it's all spontaneous and immediate. What's this idea of a seeker searching for something? The seeker is that which is seeking.

And the seeking is the subject. And what is sought. Becomes the object. So you see that all this seeking is a total fiction. If you think you're going to acquire something, become something or get somewhere. It's never going to happen. It never can happen. Because where would it take place? It would have to take place in time. Some future time. Is there a past or a future if I don't think about it? Look at that. Can you say there's a past without a thought? You can't. Can you say there's a future without a thought? You can't. So you start to realise that even time itself is a mental concept.

There is no such thing as time. If there's no such thing as time, where does that leave you? Has anyone moved away from this presence awareness at the time you've been sitting here? But away from it at all. There's still an awareness of presence here. Or a presence awareness. There's still a beingness here. There's still a knowingness there. And there's still a lovingness there. And there's still a lovingness there. And a so happening to be. There's a such and an and there. There's a thatness there. In which thoughts are appearing, playing around and disappearing. Which activities are following the thoughts or patterning with the thoughts taking place out there.

Have a look out in nature. And you'll see there's leaves moving on the tree. Beaches moving on. Insects, animals, birds and everything moving around. constantly transient, constantly changing activities are going on. Do you think the little insects think, I've got to do this or I've got to do that or relating to a me? Or is it just a spontaneous happening that's going on there? Livingness is being and what must you be? If you are not the personal, if you are not the entity, the individual, what must you be? Well can you divide yourself from this life that you call yourself? This livingness that's going on right now.

You can't say I am not, so you must be. That being is life, life essence. Can you separate yourself from that or divide yourself from it? No, I can't divide myself from that life. Then you might understand what the Christ said when he says, I am the life. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. He probably put the is in it, but they've changed it over the years. Things on it. I am is the way. I am is the truth. I am is the life. So you are that life. There is nobody who lives a life. There's no entity or individual or person who lives a life.

And you realize life lives itself, on itself. Out of life, more life, ever fresh and ever new is coming. So you're not the person. And so you'll be, in fact, a matter of life. But you're an entity. You are the one who lives a life. So you're an entity. You are a matter of life. You are a matter of life. You don't live life. I think there's a difference in nature than there is in nature. Nature is the matter of life. It's patterned, shaped and formed, playing around, being re-absorbed back into itself, appearing again, and the pattern being formed for a while and dissolving back into itself.

But there's nobody who is living a life, nobody or entity that's doing anything. Have a look at nature and recognize that you are no different from nature. Nature is the intelligence energy. It's patterned, shaping and forming, expressing as everything. Intelligence is knowing. In the end, everything is knowledge. is knowing. And I don't mean your intellects, not knowing this or knowing that, but a basic awareness or knowing or beingness that you are. And you can't negate that knowingness. I am. And know that as the truth. That is the way. That knowing is the way, the truth. That is the life. And it's ever fresh and ever new.

So you never were a person, never ever could be, or never ever will be. The person is not the reality. The person comes from persona, the mask. The mask again is a conceptual image we've got about ourselves. We've added to ourselves a conceptual image based on past events, experience and conditioning. And have a look at this egoic image you've got about yourself and see if it's not based on past events, experience and conditioning. When you realise it is based on past events, experience, and the past is a mental concept of time, you're going to keep relating to the past and with the actuality of the beingness.

Investigate these things and see for yourself. That's basically what we're pointing to here. And I ask you to investigate that. Question along those lines and see for yourself. for yourself. Because this is what needs to happen. You don't need to be coming here forever and ever, ah men. Get what we're really pointing to, take it away with you and see if it grows. Once you get the taste of it, it must grow, because you can't leave it alone. Naturally, you'll naturally come back to where the great sense of well-being or peace that passes all understanding is. You'll never ever get peace of mind. We look for peace of mind trying to make the mind at peace, but you'll never ever get it because the nature of the mind is to vibrate.

All it is is a vibration of energy that's constantly vibrating. So how can it ever be still? How can it ever be at peace? It never can, it never has been, it never will. And that's why the ancients put that on it. They say it's the peace that passes all understanding. And what are they saying with that? Without understanding, it's not being grasped by a concept or some mental functioning or mental intelligence. It's being grasped without a concept. That's where the peace is. In the silence, in the stillness, in the presence, awareness, whatever you like to call it. And you are that. So there it is.

Any doubts? Any arguments? If you've got doubts, arguments, or you've got some understanding, bring it out. Bring it out, let it come in. And you'll be happy. Just bring it out, and see if it'll stand up to the investigation, or see if it needs anything added to it. So all sitting there is your mind all being shut off, or… Have a look at nature. Do you think you'll ever find the end of space? You can fly on forever and ever. You'll never come to the end of space. Now do you think that all the content, seeming content of space, has totally filtered at any time ever, or ever will?

Well, What does every sound appear on? Must appear on that basic screen of silence, stillness, emptiness. The Buddha told us a couple of centuries ago, he called it a cognizing emptiness. Put another term on that, cognizing, a knowing emptiness. Cognizing or knowing, you know. Knowing, emptiness is doing the knowing. It's not a personal knowing that's knowing it. It's knowing itself. And that's cognizing emptiness. Don't you know that you are right now without even putting that label on it. You can't deny your existence. There's a knowing that you are existing or being. And he made the statement then, emptiness is form. That all these forms, you, me, and everything else in this manifestation.

All the different patterns of planets, stars, and everything like that, are emptiness appearing as form. Sat, chit, and and. Being aware of the stillness of the silence. Emptiness is form. And he turned around the utterance and said, form can be nothing other than emptiness. Though we all seem solid, substantial, and real, we are nothing but emptiness. Can you put any beginning on emptiness? Or any end to it? Any middle? Any static shape or form? Did it begin? Did it end? Does it need to reincarnate or come back? Does it suffer from any karma? Or any of these other concepts we put upon ourselves. Cognizing emptiness.

Emptiness that knows or cognizes. And what have we done? We've lost sight of it. We've lost sight of it by taking on the concepts. And it's no longer cognized. So what needs to happen? And that word we've got in our language, recognize, recognize. That's what it's saying. Recognize your own true nature. Recognize it. It's there. It's always been there. Seemingly obscured, covered over. That's the simplest of it. Recognize it. And recognize it again, and again, and again. Until you're doing nothing but abiding as that. Anyone have any doubts about being that? If you have, ask yourself, what is the doubt? And we come up with some big story of what the doubt is.

But if you realize the simplicity of it, the doubt's just another thought. So if you see that, you're going to drop the big story about what the doubt is. And you go back into the silence again. The great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. That awareness, without putting any concepts or label on it, is the great perfection. Another word for the great perfection is the absolute. They talk about the absolute. People search around. Just like they search for a thing called awareness, they search around for this thing called the absolute. But what is absolute? It is the absolute totality. Anybody or anything's separate from that totality right now.

Investigators say you're not separate. They say you must be the totality, whether you recognize it at this moment or not. Trying to take something from the absolute, which can't happen. All this seems to be at the moment. All there is is the cars driving down the road, and the good wind, the vapor generated. That's it. If you don't label it, then are they troubling you? You're not labeling them? No. They disturb anything. Don't disturb anything. You can't say anything, can you? Well, what have you ever left it? You haven't. Right. I know that for certain. Another way you sometimes put it, I like that way, when you talk about the true nature, which is peace that passes all understanding, and if there is anything standing in the way of that peace, just see what obscures it.

Because usually, you know, there is satchitananda, which is being conscious, that is bliss. Bliss is kind of, yeah, peace, bliss, whatever. But sometimes there is a sense of that there's nothing wrong, but there is no bliss. Let's say, like, I'm sitting right here right now, there's nothing wrong, apart from the fact that I can smell it, I can smell the kitty litter. And, yeah, I just didn't really have much time today. Is that resistance? No. Actually, there is an appreciation to the fact that my sense of smell is working well. There's also appreciation that there are cats running around the house, so there is somebody to do that, to produce that smell.

Yet, the attention travels there. It travels there. It doesn't mean there is something wrong. It doesn't mean there is a resistance, unhappiness, or anything. It may actually mature to the action sort and put me there and clean it. It probably will. The question is when, it doesn't matter. But the sense of peace, the being is there, the knowing, at least knowing about the senses, the smells and everything, the knowing of being also. And there is that stillness. And smell appears on it. So is it really obscuring the being? No, it's not. Is it obscuring the bliss? Well, yeah. Yeah, because when there is no distraction, when there is pure awareness of being only, the bliss of being becomes very prominent.

And when something, when attention travels somewhere, to the car or Google, as you said, or to the smell or to anything else, that attention is basically, that life essence is powering the appearance instead of powering the bliss of being. And what's wrong about that? Well, it's nothing. It is also for the expression, for love, for appreciation. I do really, I love that we do have those cats running around the house, even though it costs us sometimes a little bit of an extra work and a little bit of an extra smell that, even though I have no preferences, I do actually find it unpleasant. But now what we usually do when we look at what obscures it, is that a thought of a doubt, or is that an appearance in the immediacy of the senses, a smell, we bring it back to their true nature, which is nothing.

Like when the thought appears, oh, I'm not there, I have to keep looking, searching or whatever. What is it? It's a thought. And a thought is a vibration. It's nothing. It's just a vibration of energy. So what's the smell? It's also just a vibration, just the movement of the air, which, you know, the diffusion, if not for the movement, it wouldn't be there. So in essence, it's still nothing. It's just an appearance. So as I understand that this is nothing, the attention kind of withdraws from it. It leaves it alone. Everything understands for what it is. It doesn't need that much extra attention anymore. Thinking, you know, the functional attention, of course, the thinking might be required.

And the expression, art expression, all kind of thinking is employed for it. And that's wonderful. But to clarify, when you mean action, what you probably just mean, something that's just seen as an independent bunch of, probably not even words, just a movement, or sometimes some independent words, where there's really already, as soon as they come up, there's already no, they're just seen as that, just energy. Yeah, basically movement. It doesn't have to, it may or may not be a commentary going on, but it's completely irrelevant. It doesn't really matter, because who pays attention to the commentary? There's never a doubt that it's an important thing.

It's something different from, yeah, just some kind of movement, yeah. Yeah. That word bliss can get a lot of people into trouble. I think it's some aesthetic joy. They wake up in the morning and say, I had a blissful sleep. What was going on then? That was very blissful for them. That's what people often say, where's the bliss, where's the bliss? They think it's some lovey-dovey compassionate natural thing. It's just that. And the lovey-dovey blissful moments of heart opening or recognising the insights of the nature of everything being nothing, like beauty of the flower or night sky, they come, but they are experiences because they have beginning and an end.

So they're just passing phenomena. If the moment of ecstasy comes up because whatever, the morning sun is touching the dewdrops and is shining like a million diamonds on the grass, and oh, beauty, it's still coming and going and it's still appearance dependent. So it is beautiful and it's valuable and it's to be loved and appreciated, but there is no truth in it. It's an appearance. And when it runs with the concept of knowledge, or if you want to follow, correct it, make something, instead of leaving it as it is. I don't know if it's something I've noticed sometimes, or maybe it's there all the time, but I've really noticed it's just the actual bliss in those moments is the realisation that the nothing, nothing, nothing just popping in there, as well as the experience.

So that's actually triggered in the middle of it, so it actually is a separate nothing, the real deep nothing that's blissful, pops in. And that, so in some ways, you're getting the appearance, bliss appearance, it's sort of snuck in there. I don't know, so maybe that's always in that too, in a way, I don't know, because I think things are always just, you know? Absence of disturbance. Yeah, it's just, and that's where the smell is so joyful. It's like, wow, there's that, there's, well, it's just really a nothing. It can be so damn quick in there. It just seems like the overall thing is very, there's a little suspicion that's just formed.

Isn't bliss and joy really a side effect though? Like it's not the main thing, it's... It is, it is a main thing. I mean, yes, they, we could argue over definitions. One say that bliss is nothing, it's just emptiness, it's just stillness. Because, and then another one, like Buddha says, joy is your natural state. The natural state is a state of joy. Satchitananda says, loving to be, the element of loving to be. There is a warmth in the being. Like even the fact that loving to be, even the fact that, if there is really nothing, and am I really nothing? What Terry was saying last time, as the answer, be or not to be.

Yeah, why bother? Like just shoot yourself. Who cares? Doesn't matter. But there is that warmth. There is that joy of being. And it is a natural state. If it's not experienced, and of course one could argue, if it's natural, then of course it will go to the background. That's why disturbance goes all the time. Like it's not an ecstasy. And yet it is. If you are tormented all your life, and suddenly that torment, that torture is being lifted, that painful contraction of being separate is being lifted. In contrast, it is experienced as, expansion that goes indefinitely. You were that small here, contracted, and now you're like whole space, whole universe.

It does feel like ecstasy. Yet very, very quickly it goes to the background because it's happening all the time. So now it is unnoticeable. But the distractions come all the time. Attention travels to whatever, the traffic, traffic of thoughts, traffic of cars, sounds, whatever. And returns to itself, to that, to absence. And the absence of any disturbance or any contraction, because every form is form of contraction. The moment of joy comes back. So it kind of like, Buddha says joy is your natural state. But can you feel it 24-7? With the body that is wired to actually see something on the background of nothing. So if you could see it all the time, it's just like when you smell the same smell all the time.

After a moment you smell nothing. So if you feel the same sort of an elation all the time, after a moment it's unrecognizable. It becomes a background. I guess what I meant is when you're not there, it just arises. Yeah. Like it's not something to seek, is what I mean. No, no. It can't be sought. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And if you look at the animals also, if you look the way, because they have all the answers. Like you look at the cats, how they just gladly lie down. If there is no pain, distracting or hunger or anything, or little babies, they're just there. They just, you know, yeah, you could say they're nothing or they're happy or whatever.

They, you know, there is this deep, profound state of ease, of relaxation, of like, rest in it. And, yeah, absence of contract, of any sort of contraction or disturbance. That from, say, I've got a son and a daughter and they come and they say, look what I've done in school or something great or they say I love you. Mm. You get a spontaneous, what do you call it, feeling of joy or bliss. Yeah, pleasure. Pleasure. Mm. But that is there because... Yeah. We're not talking about that, right? No. That's a very good and very important distinction, yeah. We are also wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

And animals are wired for that too. It's the survival instinct that helps the body to be able to live. So, gaining pleasure, being attracted to pleasure and having the individual identity as, so to speak, when we actually form it, as, you know, when the child is identified with that body-mind and this is me and I've done something pretty or something good and I want approval, I want acknowledgement, I want people to like me or love me. That's just another layer of gaining pleasure. Animals don't have it in the same way, although you can see the animals in a pack fighting for the position. They also want to be recognised.

You know, alpha male, if there is a capacity and skill to become a leader, it will fight for the leadership. So there is... But this is just... Because we have the mind, we have the more complicated and complex stories about it. And also, this is just another way that has developed socially to give us the ability to give us, you know, before, like animals, they only kind of rely on their looks and on their strength. We also rely on the talents and skills and intellect for gaining pleasure. But that's, you know, the pleasure that comes and goes is something different. It's like even the pleasure of eating a yummy food.

So animals have it, people have it also and they will be craving it, they will get addicted on it. But the natural joy of being is absence, is absence of everything. When the pleasures are absent, when the sense of insecurity is absent, when the attention is not attracted to any disturbances, like even smells, you know, like when the attention rests on itself, like purely on the knowing of being, just being aware of its own existence. And it doesn't really go anywhere else. It doesn't even go to the sensory, to, you know, like analysing or, because senses are kind of wired to the mind. When you hear the sound, you instinctively know by the years of conditioning that what sound is, whether it is a bird or it's a truck or it's a train or whatever.

So they operate it by the mind. So if even these distractions are absent, that state of, that deeply relaxed state, you know, when you don't even know what you are, you just know that you are. Because to know what you are, you need the thought that I am the body, I'm in the room, whatever. If there is just attention resting purely on the sense of being without even projecting any mental shape of what you are, there is a warmth in that. There is a love in that. And now it is there, it is there. But because the mind is, you know, the mind works the same way as the skin works, you know.

When it's hot, the skin starts sweating. When it's cold, the skin starts shivering. So it responds to the environment. Same with the mind. It throws thoughts, negative thoughts, positive thoughts, judgmental thoughts. It just does it. As every organ, as long as they know to expand and contract, mind knows to comment. That's what it does. So if the attention is there, if the attention is not distracted by it, the warmth and loving to be is very kind of, is prominent, is experiencing, is experiential. But because the mind throws thoughts all the time, it's not going to last. The distraction will come. Because that's the nature of the machine.

Same as, you know, there is no space when your eyes are closed. When you open your eyes, suddenly the world appears. And naturally, the mind operating the eyes recognizes things there and gets distracted. And then the functioning follows. So now, part of the attention, instead of being on loving to be, goes into the world, goes into the objects. And that's fine. That's beauty. That's how it wants to wake up from itself all the time. To appreciate the appearance, the way it manifests. But that's how the distractions come. But that state of loving to be is like a basic screen. Being, knowing, loving to be. It's a basic screen.

It's always there. It's not dependent on pleasures that you gain from outside. It's rather dependent on the absence of obstructions. That's why when they say about investigation, they say start from what you are not. You are not this body. You are not this mind. You are not the world. You are not the appearance. You are not your thinking. You are not your feelings. What's left? Nothing. But that nothing that is left is very alive. That nothing is being. And it knows that it exists. And there is warmth in that knowing of being. So this natural state is absence of distraction. But because the way the dualistic world works and the way the senses are working, the distractions are bound to come.

And that's okay too. And then the loving to be is going to be covered up with the senses, smells or thoughts about tomorrow or yesterday or thoughts about me being inferior or whatever. And that's perfect. That's how it comes. It doesn't mean that loving to be is not there. It's just buried under the distractions. It's like we can even distract ourselves from pain. Like if the body is aching and you watch the movie, you forget about the pain. You forget about the pain. Because the attention goes somewhere else. So it is all just a game of, just a movement of attention. When attention rests at home, like the home is the sense of being, the knowing that you are, there is, yeah, everything shows up.

That has to be experienced. It can't really be expressed. I see Terry is laughing because, yeah, it can't be expressed. It's ridiculous. The world is too big and too small and too inadequate because words are language, words are duality, and words have the opposites. Yeah, that's what we don't understand. Words have the opposites. What if you're neither in either one of the opposites? Yeah. Come back to the immediate. Like down at the South Pole, how further south can you go? You can't go any further south. Next step will be north. Go to the North Pole, can you take any further steps north? You can't. south, where do they meet?

At the equator. And they've got that word on it, equator, where they're equal. When your thoughts are in an equilibrium state, where they're neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. In that equilibrium, what problem is it then? In the moment of the shared pleasure, like when you finally get there, there's actually like the home is just sandwiched in, and little moments within it. So you've got like, say you're mindfully eating and you forgot, you just came out to mindfully eat for a bit, and doesn't normally, and it's like, whoa, and you get the taste sensation's quite strong, but there'll be some real pleasure, and I think that's when it does reset back to nought, just very briefly, in a microburst, and then you get the enjoyment is in joy, you know, because you're in that nought moment.

It's just in there as well, it's packed in with the pleasure. But it's so short. Yeah. It's so short lives. That's obviously not buying. But I think, yeah, it might be. Yeah, it's a good point actually. Pleasure is as close to the bliss of being in the world of senses as it can ever get in the dualistic appearance. And now pain is as far away, and suffering is as far away. See, they're polar opposites. Pleasure is, you can even get ecstasy . You can get orgasm. You can get absolute pleasure that is unthinkable pleasure that drugs can offer or sex or even food. But then it, think of suffering, of really of emotional suffering, which is apparently it can be more, it can be much worse than physical suffering because more people kill themselves because of emotional suffering that they do when they suffer physically.

Yeah, I guess in pain people go to story and a lot of mental disorders cause pain. And then you have it. And then, I mean, I'm not sure, you know, there's an issue with mental a lot, whereas in pleasure they just enjoy it. Yeah. If I have it briefly, it's probably like a sensation, a sharp sensation, or relaxation, like some of the biggest joy for me might be a really good air crash accident program. But I think the enjoyed pieces are just a rest, because it matches the way the system works, and it just loves it, and relaxes. And so they'll just be a little sandwiched, microburst probably, and they're just back to the home, and they're not the rest.

But the beauty of what Bob was just saying about equilibrium, that place between the pleasure and pain, when you don't desire pleasure anymore, and you don't move away from pain anymore. And there's a guiding of what I'm talking about, a guiding more than, you know, and then, you know what? It tells you, just please. And then, yeah, there's then this... Describing that, which is indescribable, and it's really paradoxical, would be to say that that emptiness is fullness, and in that fullness is absolute emptiness. Now that's going to be impossible for a dualistic thought to be able to get its head around. That's the actual experience.

And how wonderful. That's the knowing. That's... How wonderful that it is indescribable, and it is paradoxical. You really can't. Because instead of trying to experience it, mind would try to imagine it and make mental representation of that state, which is just... Further away you can't go. It's as far as you can move away from the pure experiencing. And in that fullness, nothing is lacking. Nothing is lacking. And in that emptiness is the full potential. The absolute full potential. I think, I don't know, I keep saying that we, most of us, you can't turn off your sense inputs, you know, even if you're not thinking of the past or the present, but even if you're at the moment and seeing what's happening right now, if you take a bite of something very nice, it is something you don't control, it's just the moment of pleasure erupts automatically because your sense data is telling you it is something you need to appreciate.

Same thing goes with, I think, a beauty or all those things. So... But see how conditional it is. When you bite on something wonderful, but you are busy thinking about something very important that is about to happen to you tomorrow, you will miss the smell, the taste. Yes. But you're not doing it. You're right. Yes. You're not doing that, whatever. So my question is, and that could happen with pain as well, you know, you do something, you know, eat something unpleasant or something happens to you, is whilst you're always being engaged by your senses with whatever's happening, with eating, looking, seeing... Habit. Yeah, it's habit.

And how do you get to recognize the thing which is not there, you know, the one? Yeah. You've got to look for yourself. You really have to look for yourself. What you get told is there is no me. What you get told is it's an absolute fiction. What you get told is when you really look at it, the me is nothing but word. Just word. That's all it is. That you need to look for yourself. No one can give that to you. And at best, all we can do is just keep pointing. Pointing. Actually you turn and you just go looking for yourself, but it can be hard because this self-identity that's been there all our life and we think that without it, we're almost going to die.

Like there's a fear of impending doom if it's going to go and it's designed that way. That's why we're constantly in a state of survival and our mes want to survive. you know and that's what keeps the body going and we do we survive we don't walk out in front of a car because we know that's gonna that's gonna kill us but you need to act you need to absolutely look for yourself and and see it gets said time and time again that the me is nothing but a construct of words or sentences and i kind of drop underneath that and go yep and sounds and meanings get put on sounds but all those words or all those sentences or all those sounds are describing something that we feel is here and we call it a me if you were if you were able to take away all those words all those sentences all those sounds it wouldn't even be a concern as to where we are whether there's a me here or not.

You would just be. So I get it? No, so I get it. And it puts it quite simply, it's just a sense of well-being, being well, nothing wrong. And don't get distracted and discouraged. Mm-hmm. That's actually all a part of it. Yeah. There will be distraction. There will be discouragement. You can kind of sometimes get to a place of, ah, I look and I look and I still don't get this. Yeah. That's part of it. Yeah, and it's okay. It really is. Okay, don't get discouraged by that. Oh, okay. And then just keep looking. Yeah, and the important part is when it happens this way, that, oh my gosh, I'm looking, I spent so many years and I'm still not getting it, I'm not getting, you know.

That thought is very important to be recognized as a thought also. Because the I who doesn't get it is just another thought making appearance on that basic screen of being, knowing, and being. And this is the sneaky one. Because every thought that contain I is the sneaky one, is the one that invites you to identify, oh yes, this is me. Because it has the word I and it happens kind of in my head, so I believe it to be true. But it's not. It's just, it's taken for granted that when I say, oh, I am hungry, it means there is someone, some entity inside that is governing the body and that is interpreting the signal from the brain that comes from the stomach and bringing it as a message, I am hungry.

Really, who's hungry? There is just a sensation happening on the screen. There is no I there who would be hungry. It is very useful for the communication, for the language. But using the language and knowing that it only, the symbolic language, it only represents certain ideas for the sake of communication. And it doesn't speak the truth. It's just a sensation or something. And it's kind of prevalent when you sit around this, one way or another, whatever works. Nature, videos, transmissions, whatever. I think in a real practical sense it's just, you've got to remember to be that, because you can get quite sucked into whatever is happening in your life.

You get distracted. Because it's not just you. The whole world. The whole world is trying to pull you. Tell us about it. And at some point you just need to be centered thinking. All this is happening, I'm still going to be looking at what's really going on. And is that, you know, is that having that, probably you said that there is an expression they say, you know, you can, when you're on the dance floor, you also need to be on the balcony and see what's going on. You just have that, not twin, but a sense of being on top of your own thinking all the time.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like the way, the way you actually knowing about it is you embrace in your knowing the whole scene. The balcony, the stage, the directors, your own body is also being part of the world. Like you say, this is me, this is the world. No, this is one inseparable appearance. Everything is an appearance. But the sensation that, ah, there is a contraction here, I'm not getting it, is part of the appearance. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It is, it is all just a movie on the screen and you are the screen. So it is really, whatever shows up on the screen, whatever frustration, or whatever self-hatred or low self-esteem or being crooked at the world or feeling separated, isolated, those are all just appearances on the screen.

And really recognizing it moment to moment, oh, I feel separate and isolated. Nope. It's just a vibration, sensation, which I labeled. And I didn't label. The label came upon them. And that makes the impression because it is all coming from that brilliant intelligence of life. So that intelligence of life kind of believes itself, it fools itself into believing of being separate, of being the other. And it is to be appreciated, the way, the meisterschtick, the way how brilliant it is, how well done it is. So you can actually look at it, shit, I thought I was separate. I thought there was a me that is different than the world.

Wow, how smart is that? How brilliant is that? It's totally impossible. Because the I, the sense of separation, the world, everything is being known. And you are the knowing. So you can never ask the pure knowing that doesn't have any location and any subject to it. There is knowing, not the nowhere, knowing the content, but the knowing, the activity of knowing. The cognising emptiness. It doesn't really matter what is the content, whether the ego is the content, or sense of separation is the content, or the world versus myself is the content. It doesn't matter. But only when it is recognised. Because when it is not recognised, of course, it is excruciatingly painful.

And it seemingly matters very much because nothing else is known. Time to time when I go for a walk, I constantly suddenly let go of my thoughts. And just, it almost feels like something which has been draining your battery has stopped. Yeah. Of course, when you get back into work, the whole thing starts again. But those moments when you really just don't do anything, and you are just walking, and you are just immersed in whatever is there, you are not actively doing anything other than not bumping into things. Yeah. That feeling was something which is draining your battery has stopped. You just feel lighter. It is just like...

It comes back again. And I have really been noticing how energy draining thoughts can be. Totally. They can drive you to suicide. Yes, that's the way. Yeah. Or it can just... Even if it is both happy thoughts, I don't know, your boss said you have done a good job or something, it can really occupy your mind for a long period of time. Totally. Yeah. And blind you. Yeah. And you will be a blue. The thing is to watch the mind and don't let it go to the end of the road. That is what it is constantly doing. See the good, bang, bang, bang at the end.

When does it go to the end of the line? You stop it before it gets out. It is like that middle step. Because I spent my life up on the balcony looking down and then what popped up for me in that metaphor is the other way is to be down in the dance floor and not be thinking about it. And Bob starts his talk by saying I am not talking to any body mind. Looking to that I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am.

I am. I am. I am. I am. mine into that I am that I am so it's not that's gonna wake up it's not a you I'm talking about your sense of meanness if you like it's not a me that's gonna come to understand it's not a me that's gonna wake up there is no such thing so how can how can it wake up but what cat was just pointing pointing to was beautiful what wakes up is the oneness is use the word God I'm gonna use the word God I don't know where that what or that one that that one intelligence energy is as Bob refers to it it's that that wakes up it's that that is responsible for all the vibrations that are going on over there creating an illusory identity hmm so all that stuff that that happens for you thoughts experiences whatever the case may be has got nothing to do with you not not yet not in yet you're pure you're pure state yeah they're just vibrations so it's all impersonal and we take them to be my thoughts or you know and then there's another thought in here that says you know I went for a walk and you know sort of calm the thoughts down and feel happy and that's also the me saying that or believing that but one minute there's calm thoughts or no thoughts and then there's some thoughts and and and I'm going to express that and I'm gonna talk about that's also the me saying one minute there's not this in one minute theory Group can see more and so on it's so for that pure intelligence it's so then for that pure intelligence to wake up it is a wake up it is a tree it plays an absolute trick on the It does, and for a good reason.

You can discover that later. For a good reason. What you are is that. That's actually your true nature. That's what you are. But to see that, that has got to wake up to the fact that it's not this. There's not you there waking up to that fact. Do you understand? So it's completely, completely impersonal. And all you're left with in the end is go looking for yourself. Go looking, go looking, go looking, go looking. And it just, the more you look, the more it kind of drops away. And then, lo and behold, you know where you end up? Right here. It sounds to me that's what that battery drain experience was.

There was no location of self in it. And it just happened. It's also, I don't know if that would be an appropriate analogy, but that kind of came to mind. You know, when, when you watch the movie or you read a good book and it's really so good that you kind of have developed some sort of an affection for the hero in the movie or in the book, and you kind of feel the fear when they feel the fear on, you feel the elation, you wish them to get that girl or whatever, you know, like whatever you just completely forget that you are the viewer, you have absolutely nothing to do with that fictitious character that have absolutely no existence.

It's not at all because your heart is completely with it with him or whatever. And now the movie ends, it stops. And it was so good that you come out of the cinema and you do still kind of that character. You're still leaving the victories of the hero that eventually overcome everything. And then it's slowly identity goes back to myself like, ah, and we love the break that we have from our own self, from the identification of this. This one. And if we think about it, we also love the way we wake up from that complete identification with the movie character too. Otherwise, why would we want to watch the movies?

Because it's such a ride. And now that the consciousness or, or the nothingness, the cognizing emptiness is having a ride. I am Sri. I have the family. I am a seeker. This is a ride. The consciousness. The consciousness or cognizing emptiness is watching that movie and it's loving every bit of it. And it's wishing Sri to get, you know, whatever he wants and it's loving it and it's looking after it. It's yeah, it's, it's having a ride. So in a way when it has arrived and you have the heart for it, you love that God in absence of better words. And you know, you're not alone.

You know, it wants to have a ride. Fine. I'm good even with that. Okay. God, you want to pretend you were Sri or Kat or whoever. Thy will, not mine. I'm happy. In that moment, the ego surrenders and it gives up and it doesn't even want to fight God. Okay. Thy will. You don't want to wake up. Fine. And it completely melts down in that love for thy will. And it realizes, oh shit, I am that. Oh my God. The moment I give up the idea of waking up and fighting and struggling. Shit. I've never been separate. But when your heart is in it, how could you even imagine not giving it up and not wanting to investigate or wake up?

And, and ultimately it's not even you having any saying or any choice whether you will give it up or not, because if there was a you that could. So. So. So. So. That could surrender the separation would be real and it isn't, there is no you who can surrender surrender may or may not happen and who is surrendering. It's a dream is Maya? Is that is the is is that character in the movie? And I've heard even better analogy which was like a COAN. There was a book and there was a characters in the book and these characters were obviously written by the office. Okay.

who knew right from the beginning how the book is going to end, what the character is going to do. And when the book was written and was accomplished and was finished, you start reading and you only read the first page, you don't know the next one. But you are not the reader, you are the author. To realize that, ultimately, that you are the author, you're not the reader and you're not the character. That is something that the character in the book can never, ever realize. It's impossible. It is locked in the book, on the pages, between the covers. Trying as a character to get out of the book and become the author is absolute ridiculous impossibility.

So as the character in the book, what can you do? Well, you obviously can't do anything because you're just reading the book. You can't write written words on the page. But if you had any doing, it would be just completely surrender and trust the author that he'll get you out of it. Because you can't. And the only way out of it is to actually die as a character. You have to stop being you to experience the ultimate freedom. Because the being you is the obscuration, is what stands in the way. And some slept quietly into the night. Because that might all sound like it's just big wham, wham, wham, bang.

And that's just some, you know. And then there's slow, and it is those realizations that you had in your walks and more and more, and they're clearer and clearer. And for some it is that 30 years of that, for some shorter, you know. So there's all the ways. It's only always moment to moment. Yes. Because even people who had bang, bang, bang, their attention or the awareness doesn't rest, in their heart all the time, doesn't really sit. Like, you know, Bob is 40 plus years of knowing there is no self. But it doesn't mean that he will be sitting in samadhi for 42 years. He'll be watching the computer, answering emails, helping to cook or clean or whatever.

And in that moment, the functioning is going on. There is no interpretation of I am doing it. But there is also not sitting in the bliss of Satchitananda. It's just being the same way. And that's the way that the animals are. And in that, the moments of withdrawing attention from the external world and disappearing that external world in a way, recognizing as illusion, will happen moment to moment. Like not every moment, because obviously there is a time for functioning. And the time is a mental construct, of course. But yeah, it is a paradox, as you say, it's different for everyone. The people who are... I don't see it as paradox, of course, just continuing.

Yeah, but you have different people. One will have much more time. Massive awakening, after which there will be no doubt coming out on the surface ever again. Another one will sit and teach for 10 years and then they will just completely deny non-duality and go back to the cave. And another one will walk the walk for 30 years and will be still struggling with the... Well, they'll go for 30 years and they'll suddenly realize there's no reactions anymore. Yeah. You know, it's very occasional. Are there people who are dying? Having doubts. Coming up, realization, doubt, realization, doubt, realization, doubt. Who knows? It's like ultimately this is how the life expresses.

It has so many bodies, it has so many ways to express. As it expresses as every snowflake in a different way. So it expresses as everybody. And the fear of self-dying, I don't really have that one. Fear of what? Self-dying. There's really not... There's not a fear of self-dying. That seems to be a predominant one everybody talks about, but I don't really have it. So it's not there for everyone. No, absolutely not. But there is an urge to protect the physical body. There's a fear of that dying, but not really a me. The me doesn't really bother. But there is a whole lot of behavior to...

A lot of reactions to insecure bodies. You know, their body's insecure. But the whole thing about, oh my god, if there's no identity, you know, it's not really in the picture. It might have been a few years ago before I ever knew about non-dialogy, I'm not sure. I can't remember. There might have been something there once or... Yeah, what was that story? You feel like your... Fear of your identity. I don't have like a thing around identity. And I think like early on, like the first year or so that I was here, I was like, oh, I'm not going to be able to do this.

And then after a year or so that I was here, like Kat used to say a lot about, you know, just the pattern coming up and she visually showed it. The energy coming up. And so very early on it's like, yeah, ego stuff, non-existence, it's just... And I've seen the thoughts pop up by themselves as words. And then I could surmise that's energy, but I haven't really seen that. So mind is not really there either, it's just a few words pop up here and there. And then like you look in a mirror, you might see a nose and a zit. and is it you don't see an identity but you never ever to see the identity and as we sit here and oh yes I want to think on identity and also if I do it's probably got like a database and you know we might sit and construct reconstruct a little identity but ultimately that whole not being attached to that type of stuff like not believing in the first place when people bring it up I tend to be fairly abstract like that so that was just enough I think we have the media yeah yeah convention I guess and um and it just helped when I found the new non-duality people because I was already quite abstract so then they really showed how abstract some of that stuff is it just locked in quite as strictly here for me and it's not identified with really it's like what's the point of and then I noticed that it gets put in after first you have just a memory of some sensations and then I think if people say oh there's a sense of self never I've never spotted that one because when I look there's just that snapshot of the sensations visual way that and and it's like yeah they just have different labels for it I have to put it in after I have to put it in but other people swear they have a feeling like we're a sensation of it yeah but they don't there is no there is you yeah they believe it they believe it but I don't think I do that's the difference because every time I look it's not there difference is only in the language that's it kind of but there's a belief going on yeah but you don't know what they feel you only hear what they say so they feel sensations and they call them sense of self and you feel sensations and you call them sensations everybody is only aware of sensations that's all there isn't sensation unless you label it sense of self but if you break it down it's always going to be a sensation that particular label or that particular beef doesn't happen to you other ones do you agree firmly locked in but that particular one so it's just I'm just trying to break things down even further yeah you're breaking it further that's it you know and sometimes you can get trapped thinking oh I know that's a thing you know you think I stuck really the difference only always lies in the language in the way we define things because ultimately there is just one there is no difference it's it's there is no separation so people seemingly assume yes it appeared a bit but if we're not careful about how we explain it we don't perhaps say enough of the differences yeah because we still need to use language to even explain differences and we just drive further away by using words to explain words no not really sometimes it opens it up to you really but how do you know you only I've experienced it myself I can only say from my own experience and it's happened a lot here if the right thing just gets hit at the right time then the belief gets dropped yeah but you know what sometimes you can get magnificent experience by listening to somebody else's description and he meant something completely different.

Yeah, I know that happens too. I noticed that all the time too. Yeah, beautiful. That's what I'm saying, that's why I'm giving it a different one that's not often given. That's why sometimes I have one of these ones because I can hear one kind of thing. Generally, maybe most generally that is a big thing everywhere else. Yeah. But there might be, but it also might be solidifying it a bit too. I don't know, I just suspect that the more you open up stuff it can help. Yeah. Because I have so much hair. Sometimes you just stress on differences, how other people have different views. Just like the Doc Chantoni, he thinks that he knows that we are different because he knows what we feel inside and what we defined the way we defined it.

There is no way he can know it. There's no way. Also the differences. Yeah. If you, yeah. And I don't think I'm obsessed with difference as a thing. I'm not really that big on that. It's just. But see how they're all conceptual. I love, if I'm obsessing anywhere, it's on being stuff that's not even there in the first place. Because it would be so fucking well here. And you know, and the way you described often you do that quite well it's abstract stuff out. And so I just would hate it if not that I'm even attached to the say that word. But it would be, you know, whatever the words, but it's such a gift for me that when people abstract things out to nothing.

Yeah, yeah I think yeah, that it seems I just spent sometimes things that I haven't seen, that are even there. Which is why I think that's a big one for me and I think are getting solidified in people's minds. It can be, there might be, I can't, of course I don't know, I can't guess, but the sort of emptying out version I always prefer. Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn't really to discard the fact that there are differences, because of course, you know, everyone is a different pattern. Well, you were talking about the same, yeah. Everyone is a different pattern. As you pointed earlier, there are people who experience the huge fear of annihilation, the idea of dying ego.

I don't know nothing about it either. I know. I heard it, yeah. Yeah, I don't remember that type of fear. I actually remember longing to disappear as an individual. Ah, right, so you never really had that. Yeah, and I hear other people also express sometimes longing, like a hard longing, oh my gosh, give me relief from that sense of self, I just don't want to have it. So this is, you know, and for others it is terrifying, paralyzing. I haven't actually really heard that catch exactly in that way, so that I understood it before. So that's really nice to hear, too, that there's experience there.

Yeah, so subtle differences in different patterns, you know, like some people are more conditioned to be doubters, and some people are more kind of driven to different experiences, adventures. Some are more driven to knowledge, whatever, as you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so there will be different sort of patterns showing up, but ultimately it doesn't really matter, because they're all just appearance. Yeah, they're all what's on the screen. Make-up, you don't know what's what, but they're all make-up. But isn't it all the character in the story trying to rewrite the dialogue? Yes. I'm just saying, all of this is, well, it's relevant to all. Yeah, absolutely.

It's character in the story, like character coming here trying to wake up. Yeah, the character disagreeing with the plot. But this is on the... No, that's what it is, isn't it? Yes. The character disagreeing with the plot. Yeah, yeah. Saying I know better than life. But ultimately... There's a life coming here pointing at life. Exactly. Ultimately, it's only life expressing us a character. And sometimes the life is not even expressing us a character that much. It's just life showing things and pointing. Yeah. You know, it can be taken too much. It can be thingized so much all the time. The filter of, oh, you know, there's no expansion there.

It's just all heady. It's just all... That's the one that I think can actually thingize things more. Can, you know, it's just something that's a bit of a...