Non Duality with Sailor Bob - No questionner, no questions. 4 Nov 18

Can you say your names so we know each other? Tony. Dane. Tony. Dave. Tom. Tony. Gary. Justin. Barry. Jen. Bob and Kat. Well, there's a few newbies here, but Kat will give you a brief enlightenment what it's all about, a bit of a spell. I can add to it later on. But what we want to just basically point out, we can't teach you anything, and here we can't tell you anything. All we do is point toward and ask you to look and see for yourself. Because no matter what you've understood or what you believe, nobody's ever going to give it to you. You're not going to get any pat on the head or thumb between the eyes or any of that sort of thing to give you anything.

Because what you already are cannot be given. It needs to be recognised. Because we've taken on the conceptual image, which we all do when we learn words. And it's not that conceptual. It's that conceptual image. That's the way I put it. Can't teach you anything. Can't teach you anything. The other thing I put it, pointed, I'm not talking to anybody. I'm not talking to any mind. I'm talking to that I am that I am. The same I am that you say, but you probably haven't recognised that I am as a personal concept you've taken on. But that's why Christ could tell you that sense of presence expresses the thought I am.

And the psychedelic could tell you, stay with the I am-ness, not with the thought of the word, but that sense of presence. And Moses told you on the mountain, I am that I am. And when I say I am, I'm not talking about this personal entity. And there are no personal entities. So you take over from there, and we come into it. Yeah, he will speak more. It's been a hectic time, last few months for him. And not only he hit 90, but he got the art of artificial hip and a couple of teeth and a couple of colds. So he kind of assigned a role of a backup for me.

So I'm just backing up. I'll be saying the same things because there is really only about the one thing. It's really nothing else to talk about in the whole appearance. So we are just saying one thing in many different ways. Bob is putting it out in a spiel. He's actually hitting the point from many, many angles. The point is really, I think, the point is that I'm not talking about the whole thing. It's really about pointing out that the true nature of everything is nothing. The thought is entirely, in its essence, just a vibration, just like a silent sort of a sound that is nothing.

And the forms, the shapes, the patterns, they are all also an expression of that vibrating nothingness. So we are seeing a manifestation with all that diversity of beautiful forms, forms and shapes and patterns and fashions and that's all the way of the emptiness to express. But it's not really just an emptiness, it's not just an empty nothingness. The ancients call it cognizing emptiness. So that emptiness has the capacity of cognizing or knowing. So it is aware emptiness or pure awareness. So that is what we point to and that is what we call the natural state or our true nature. And it is the case with every one of us 24-7 all the time.

Right now the awareness is there, the knowingness is there, the sense of presence or being is there. And this is where they call that natural state or cognizing emptiness or God or whatever it is that we call it. And that's the nature of the state. And that's the nature of the spirit. Whatever they have hundreds of hundreds of names, none of the names is it. Bob calls that intelligence, intelligence energy, because it is the movement which is the energy with the capacity of knowing which is the intelligence. So all of those names are plainly pointers. Another way of putting it is sat chit ananda. Sat is being, chit is consciousness and ananda is peaceful or stillness or loving to be.

So everyone is being right now. Everyone is conscious of that being right now. And nobody volunteered to suicide right now. So it seems like that Sat Chit Ananda is the natural state and it's with us already, all the time. So now there is appearance, seeming destruction from that natural state. We are not savoring the consciousness of being or the awareness of being all the time. Attention goes into the creation, into the forms, shapes, patterns, into thinking. It projects past and future. It projects problem. And most of all it projects the image to which it relates everything. So the image made of thoughts and concepts, the me, the ego, the separate self, the I.

The belief that there is in that body or in that mind, there is something made of the mind, some sort of memories and experiences and opinions and thoughts or whatever. Something that is solid and substantial and something that is experiencing the awareness and is experiencing the being and is experiencing the seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. Nobody has ever found that thing. Nobody has ever found the ego. Ego is only believed in. So it exists because it's belief. In the same way. As Santa Claus exists because it is believed for children. Or the flat earth was flat for thousands of thousands of years because people believed it.

And all the behavior was modified according to the belief. So now we believe we have that separate center or the ego. And because of that belief, everything that is experienced is translated as relative to that separate self center or the ego. And now the problems are my problems. I mean the problems to start with. There wouldn't be a problem if there wasn't someone who had them. So there is my thoughts or my seeing or my future. There is no me per se. Nobody has ever found it or seen it. It's just, it's believed in the same way as the Santa Claus is believed. So in a little bit of investigation or checking, you can see that that very sense of me-ness is basically just a bundle of thoughts and emotions.

And the sense of me-ness is just a bundle of thoughts and emotions. And the sense of me-ness is just a bundle of thoughts and emotions. It's not like, it's like a sense of that being very intimate, close and personal. But that personal, that closeness and that intimacy of being doesn't really require any shape of form or pattern. It doesn't require that jacket of the, of the separate entity on it. The being is the true nature. The natural state is the intimacy of being, the closeness of, of existence, of, of just, Just being. Now definition put on being that I am is the truth and now I am a woman or I am a person, I am a human being, that's already confining and limiting that being which doesn't really need any sort of confinement.

It has it for the play to be more kind of juicy, more dramatic, but it doesn't have to be this way. Because with the juiciness and drama of the experience of that right called human life comes suffering and who wants to suffer? So suffering is actually, as Buddha promised a couple of thousand years ago, well so they say because nobody was there at that time and passed this only mental construct. But there is a way out of suffering. So the way out of suffering is to question who is actually suffering. Who is actually suffering? Who is actually suffering? Who is actually suffering? Who is actually suffering?

Who is actually suffering? Who is actually suffering? Who is actually suffering? And see if there is any entity in there who would be experiencing suffering. And if there is, well tell us all about it because we were looking and we haven't found it. Bob is over 40 years, 42 years of certainty, of absence of that separate self or self-center and living from that state. And his life is as well as everybody else's life. There is day and night in it. Pleasure and pain in it. And joy and sadness in it. But it is not taken personally. It is not being related to the self-center. So just as the weather in the nature, the rainy day and the sunny day, there are rainy days and sunny days in the appearance, in every aspect of the appearance.

But not taken personally, they are not resisted, and they are not a problem. So life lost its sting. It lost the suffering. And especially last few months, as I mentioned, he is, he needed the backup because he's got a lot of health issues, including Parkinson's, which affects the memory and including the aches and pains from arthritis. But there is no suffering. There is, yeah, tell us about it. It's not about me. Well, it is, I mean, it's a great example. I mean, you know, because just as, as, as it was your story. Yeah. Okay. So the way it works is, as you demonstrate the life without suffering, even though there is crossing legs.

He can't cross legs after the hip replacement. Well, as Kat pointed out, and you'll see in all the ancient texts, if you look at them closely, but basically in Hindu Hinduism, I talk about the five factors, sat, shit, ananda, nama, rupa. Sat, shit, ananda is existence. Consciousness, loving to be. Being, knowing and loving to be. And the next one is the five factors. the Nama Rupa is the name and form. Now they'll tell you that the name and form is Maya, it's illusion. It's a phenomenal manifestation. Look up your dictionary and look up the definition of phenomena. The definition of phenomena is that which appears to be.

So all this, including you, me, and everything else in it, appears to be so. But what's it appearing on? What do you think this cosmos or universe is appearing? Have a look. Can you postulate it being anything outside of space? There's nothing you can postulate or think of to be outside of space. What would it be in? And that space is silence, it's stillness, it's emptiness. There are different labels we put on it. And you see that space has got no volume because you can't find a static point or a centre to measure it from. You can't. Can you find an end to this cosmos?

You can't. You can think of all sorts of concepts, but you can't find anything solid or substantial. Now, you, me, and everything other than the trees, the flowers, the stars, the planets, are all the content of that emptiness. And the content, the name and form, are illusion, they're imaginary. But we've taken ourselves to believe we are this separate entity. As Christ told you, I am the way, I am the way. the truth, I am the life. People thought he was talking about himself. He wasn't. He was talking about that sense of presence. The knowing that I am which translates and expresses through the mind as the thought I am.

That's the way. Go to that sense of presence. The Sāgha-dattā tells you, the Sāgha-dattā tells you that. He says, stay with the I am-ness. Again, he's not talking about the thought. Stay with that sense of presence that translates through the mind as the thought I am. How would you say anything about yourself if you didn't say I am, and even that primary sound om. I translate that as I am. That's the universe vibrating it as om. Our vibration, our movement, can be translated as I am. And what have we done? We've taken on the idea we're individuals, we're persons and it's not our fault. Our parents parents before them and everybody that hasn't looked into this and grasped it, have related that on to you, me and that.

We done that when we learnt words. And what words were you born with? You realise you weren't born with any words and that's why you can't actually remember your birth. You don't remember or recognise anything until you're about two, two and a half years old when you learnt words. And doesn't that tell you that in the Bible, in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. That's all that God is, is a word. Nothing was made without Him without the word, all things were made by Him by the word. And have a look at that. Isn't all this manifestation made up of words?

You, me, the carpet, the chair, the flower, the trees, the planets, all words we've learnt, and you're probably still learning more words to this day, and you're probably thinking, well that's all that I've learnt, I've learnt a lot. This are getting a lot of them too. But when you look into the word and investigate the word, you'll see the word's not the thing. 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. The word fire, does it burn your mouth when you speak it? Can you cook with it?

Can you heat yourself with it? You can't. But we've taken this word I or me to be something real and something substantial. Treat it the same way. I and mine, I tell you, the concepts I and mine are the only problems you'll ever have. A dualistic concept or image you've got about yourself. And we're talking about non-duality. The non-duality is one without a second, not two. There is not two, never was two. There appears to be two and seems to be two. Investigate the word. So I, as soon as we say me now, we take it to be myself. And that myself is a conceptual image.

I'm Bob the Australian, the good fellow that's done this and done that, fearful, unhappy. And that's the myself. But don't you say my house, my car, my shirt, my this, my that. You know, you're not the house, car or shirt or whatever else you put an eye on. Maybe you're not this body, mind, entity. You believe it's hard to be either. These are things that need to be looked at. We've taken them on board and we've believed them and we've reinforced them day in, day out because our schools, our teachers, our nations and everybody around us have re-informed it too. But realise, down through the ages there's been so-called saints, sages and seers that have recognised this and formed the great religions that have formed around them.

But even the great religions. They've lost it. Instead of leaving it as true perspective, they've taken it to be some, this God out there, to be some special or separate thing. So not things just a label or a word, but everything is that one essence. Anyone in this room who's not existing right now, and you reckon, no, I am existing or being. Anyone who is knowing, not knowing that I am. No, I'm knowing that I am. But you're taking it to be yourself. You're taking it to be yourself. You're taking it to be yourself. You're taking it to be this body-mind. Anyone who is not happy to be.

If you get locked in the concepts and ideas, of course you're not happy to be when you're fearful and you're anxious and depressed. But naturally you love to be. You wouldn't be dead for quids. So you are that being, knowing and loving to be. But you've identified with the name and form, the nama rupa. And the name is the pattern, shape and form of these body-minds are. The trees, the flowers, they're all pattern, shapes and forms. And we put navels or... names. And that's how the mind functions. Every word you've ever spoken has a label or a name. Just the same as God has a label or a name.

And we seemingly divide it or separate from the one, the non-dual one without a second. It's no big deal to recognize you are that. And you might have some vested interest in trying on this, being on the search for years and years and years. Done all this meditation, all these things. But you haven't found it. Why? Why haven't you found it? You're not dumb, you're intelligent people. You're not idiots. And all the meditation and all the working it out in the mind, you've never found it. Might I just do it on you. But maybe I've been looking in the wrong direction. I've been looking for the answer in the mind.

And always think I'm going to find it out in the next set of sang, the next book, the next person I talk to. Gonna give it to me, the names, labels and forms. When you realize maybe I'm looking in the wrong direction, then you look at what is the direction I'm looking at. You realize I'm always looking for it in the mind. But don't the angels tell you you'll never find the answer in the mind? It can't be grasped by a concept. The Saga does it for you. We try to grasp it with a concept and we fail. And all the concept is sinking. He says we're bound to fail because it is non-conceptual awareness.

That's what the Buddhist will tell you. The great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. Awareness without any concepts, names and forms on it. And they also call it the absolute or the great perfection. What's the great perfection? What can you add to perfection? You realize you can't add anything to perfection. If you did, it wouldn't be the perfection, would it? What can you take away from perfection? You can't take anything away from it without conceptualizing or putting it in labels or forms. The absolute is another way of putting it. What can you add to the absolute? We're searching for the absolute. Think we've got to find something that is the absolute.

When was it never the absolute? When can it be never other than the absolute? Look at those things, recognize them. And what must you recognize? The basic thing is I am that. I can't say I am not that. And don't we know that in our language? That's the Mahavakya or the great mantra or the great word. I am that. And realize you know that. Because you say that's a chair, that's a carpet, that's a tree, that's a flower, that's space, that's solace, the stillness. That is me. So I am that. That is everything which we put other labels on. Chair, table, you, me, the carpet, the flower, all different labels we put on that.

Now if you went into Wyres or Woolworths or somewhere looking for a shirt or something like that, if you come out with a label, you wouldn't be too happy. Would you? You know it's not the thing. Realize you're doing the same with this when you look for the answer with the concept of a label. And you understand the word is not the real. The word is just a vibrating pattern of energy which we put meanings into. And they're very useful in this manifestation. Very useful. So the mind is not the enemy. It can be utilized. But it's the same mind that vibrates in the opposite as telling you you're not good enough when you take it to be me.

Not the real. Not the thing. Have a look at that. And can anyone of you say right now, I am not? You cannot deny your existence. If you're not that, you must be I am. And then we try to grasp the concept. Do you need a concept? Or a thought? And that's what we say. Every word you've ever spoken or ever liked to speak is being learned. And you didn't learn any words until you were about two, two and a half or something like that when the capacity of reading did. That's why you can't remember your birth. You cannot remember your birth. You don't remember anything until you were two.

But yet you were nine months in the womb, forming, pattern shaping and forming. When that sperm and ovum came together, two microscopic cells you can't see with the naked eye, but they were suffused with intelligence, the livingness, the knownness, and the sperm knew what to do. Swam to the ovum. Look at it. Put it under a microscope and you realize it can swim. You've known this. You've learned this in your science. You know it does, but you don't take any notice of it. And the same with the ovum. The ovum was another intelligent thing. It knew what to do. It attached itself to the wall of the uterus.

And the sperm knew what to do when it swam. It swam to the ovum and penetrated the ovum. When those two came together, the blueprint in those two cells coming to bed doubled and redoubled. And that is what you are today. It's formed from the genes and that and the process. It's formed from the genes and that and the process. It's already part of the breath. And here it's formed that pattern that you are today. And it's grown you ever since. When you started a reading, you learned words like I and me. Instead of seeing it's the one I, one self that's appearing as everything and expressing it.

We took it to be myself. Just the same as taking it to be my car, my house. But you've seen through that and you know you're not the house. But this myself, we take it to be a personal self. and there never was a person. Where does the word person come from? Persona the mask. A Latin or Greek word, persona the mask. Pointing out we've got this mask or conceptual image of what we believe ourselves to be, which we reinforce daily with the belief in it, what our parents, schools and society have told about it, and we're reinforcing it every day ourselves. And question it and have a look.

Move away from it like the ancients told you, those that have understood it and recognise it. Move into the act of nature, intelligence that you are, and seeing it's not self. The only self there is is that basic self, which is self-aware, which is self-knowing, it is self-shining, it is self-liberating, it is self-realisation. There's never been a personal self that's ever realised that it's self-realised. Or become liberated. Never a personal self. The personal self is fiction. That's what needs to be see-through and recognised. And don't you already know it right now, when you look into it, it's very simple. So when you realise that, what are you going to do with all these conceptual images you've got about yourself?

Am I this poor, miserable self that's fearful, that's anxious, that's got low self-esteem about it, that's depressed or is anxious or is unhappy? They're the concepts we've taken on and believed in, fixated on, and suffered accordingly. But have a look out there in nature. Is that self-shining, ever-fresh presence awareness that's formed the sun that's rolling, and the earth that's rolling around the sun? Is the earth that's rolling around the sun saying, I am the earth? Does the sun that's shining out there, that I am the sun? It doesn't. Do the galaxies, the stars and the planets say that, I am this planet, this star, and I've got to look after myself?

It doesn't. But isn't a natural essence, call it a life essence or whatever it is, that's functioning it, patterning it, just the same as it's breathing you, beating your heart, growing your hair and your fingernails, replacing cells in your body, taking in the prana or the air, and through the food you eat and what's in the air, that's living you, that's lived you from that sperm in the oven before that even, from the essence of the food eaten by your father? And you must realise, what am I? Instead of being the personal life, I am that life itself. The one essence that's basically appearing and expressing as everything.

That's what we point to, and ask you to look along those lines and see for yourself. So if you've got any questions, doubts or arguments, or if you've had experience, and we've got a lot of experience, you've all had experience of it and taste throughout your life, let us know and recognise that that needs to be stabilised in. And it's not just for the few. We take it for a few that have seen through this. And what have we done? We've set them up as saints, sages, saviours of the faith, as good, God's brothers, God's brothers, realised as person and this, set them up as saints, sages, sages, and we've worshipped the messenger.

And lost sight of the message. The messengers have come and gone. They're no big deal. Just the same as this here have come and been going and disappeared. But the message is the same message you can trace back through all the scriptures before you can reason. It's always been there. Thousands of years, the Daoists, the Buddhists, the Christians, the Muslims, have basically all said the same thing. Realise you are that same essence. If you can't see it, ask questions about it. Get the taste of it. So, get into it. Away you go. It's all yours. So if all these religions say the same thing, how come there's so very few people that can see it?

Because instead of staying with it and recognising it, they've set the messenger up as they know of that religion, the one that shaped and formed it, and worshipped the messenger. Muhammad is set up as God. Christ is Christian. Buddha. What they call God. Yeah. Yeah. But not the... If you look at the message they were saying, it's all the same. In Christianity they say, I and the Father are one. Christ will tell you that the Father is greater than I. The Muslims will tell you there is no God but God. Allah is his name. That's the name and form. The Buddhists will tell you it is non-conceptual, ever-fresh presence awareness.

Nothing other than that. They're all putting Christ tells you, I and the Father are one. There's nothing other. Moses told you on the mountain, I am that I am. It's basically there in its present essence. The reason I don't believe in religion is because they separate God and you. Yes. They say God is over there and you're down here. You're a sinner, blah, blah, blah. But they all seem to do that. All these religions. It doesn't make any sense. I don't know which religion you go to. There's always a difference. I don't believe. That's why I don't agree with that. All the ones that add these things on take the personal idea, I'm a knower of this more than others are.

They set themselves up and you've got to follow me. Then when he dies they take on that they're in succession, a line of succession and all the rest of it. You see and add to it. Put a few different words on it and say, you've got to set up all these different rules. You've got to believe. Otherwise you are a sinner. You're going to lose sight of it. Don't eat meat on Fridays, you know. It's a change thing. If it was illegal then, it should be legal now. If God was upset then, God would still be upset now, wouldn't he? Exactly. All the man-made rules.

Exactly. That's what I mean. I think the religions, they're all just manipulated. That's all there. You are that. What's that? Everything is that. That's a chair. That's a gun. And it's just a patented show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. It's a show. Everything is that. That's a chair. That's a gun. It's just a pattern, shape, and form. And the Buddha told you that. It's a cognising in emptiness. And he made the statement, emptiness is form.

All this manifestation is pattern, shapes, and forms. But it's all emptiness. Because he turned it round the other way and the form can be nothing other than the emptiness. And it's all made up of things. You and I and everything in this matter are things. But can some thing come from nothing? It is no thing. the manifestation, it's got no names. And all the things that are pattern, shape and form it, we've taken a pattern, shape and form to be something, but it's not. It's still the one essence. I guess, I think the most exciting thing or the greatest thing you can realise really is- Can you speak up a little bit?

Sorry, I think the most exciting thing you can really realise is that, like what's right now, it never ends, it's eternal. It's always just a concept thinking of the past or if there's gonna be a future, but whatever's happening now- How would you be able to say that? How would you be able to say that? Because you've recognised that time is a mental concept. Is there a past if you don't think about it? Exactly, no. Is there a future? Yeah. So past and future are only a concept. Yeah. So you're always there. And yeah, you can never get away from it and it's not like it's gonna run away from you or you can run away from it.

Exactly. And yeah, that's why I feel I saw that enlightenment, there's no such thing as enlightenment because you're already here. It's not like you have to find something. Beautiful. You're trying to get somewhere and it's only your mind coming up with tricks to say, you have to do this and then you get there and then that's when you're enlightened. Can you say there was a time when you were not? Yeah, exactly. No, there wasn't. It's just happening here. Saying there's a time you will not be? Yeah, exactly. No. Yeah, just concepts. Yeah. Good. Beautiful. Yeah. Simple? Simple. It's the simplest thing that is ever. Yeah, that's the problem with it.

It's too simple. It's too close to your eyes to see it. Yeah. And people just make it very complex in their heads thinking that it's something other than themselves or something they have to gain, something they have to reach because if you just accept, oh, it's here, then the mind's like, oh, no, but that's way too simple. Way too simple. Way too simple. And the mind also wants the pleasure. Yeah. It wants eternal bliss. Yeah. Like, lasting. Yeah, it thinks enlightenment's an experience and the experience has to last forever. But that's obviously whatever is experiencing that experience, that's the eternal thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. So well said.

Yeah. They tell you that simply in the scriptures. They say non-duality is one without a second, not two. Yeah. Yeah. They put that one without a second on it because it's not two. Yeah. It's only that. It's only that. Mm-hmm. Now, can you say you are anything other than that? No. All this appearance around you, seemingly separate things, we are all that one essence. Exactly. Mm. Coming to terms with that. Yeah, just recognizing it moment to moment. And but you don't, I feel like most of the time you don't have a choice in recognizing it as well. It just happens. Yeah. You recognize it. Absolutely right.

It's not something you do, and then you recognize it. Absolutely. It's just moving. Mm-hmm. And then there's reckoning. Well, what brings you here in the first place? Yeah. No clue. No clue. What started you on the search, if you were ever on one? Yeah. The mind. Oh, well, it came through the mind, but intelligence told you. Yeah. Exactly. You couldn't. It just moved me through. It did. It didn't move me. It just moved. Something in the belief that we'd taken on, that we were this separate entity, something. Yeah. Some intelligence moved you past that point into looking further into it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Good. Yeah.

Great. There you go. So no more. Yeah. See, when the sound stops, the stillness is clearly recognizable. The silence. And you realize that all sound is a seemingly disruption of the silence. But how long does the sound last? Silence. Silence. The sound comes and goes. But the silence is the same with the stillness and movement. Space is empty still. Yeah. Now, everything that appears in this space seemingly vibrates in that stillness. But has the stillness ever been contaminated or corrupted or cut? Can you cut space or divide it? You can't. So that's the basic screen in which everything appears. Now, you can liken it to a movie.

You've got a movie showing on the screen. Now, there's cowboys and indies in the movie, and they're getting shot and killed. When the movie's finished, how many dead bodies are in that screen? How many things have been blown up or anything? Nothing. It's still the same old screen. Never been contaminated or corrupted by anything that's gone on it. And that's the same in this manifestation. These patterns, shapes, and forms came into being. And what were you before you were born? You can't say you were not. But you can't say you began or didn't begin, because there was no pattern, shape, and form. Other pattern, shapes, and forms were seemingly there, but are they other?

Or are they still only pattern, shapes, and forms appearing in that one essence? So it's always and ever been that. And look at the great burden it's going to take away in the re-cognizing. Cognizing emptiness, when you lose sight of it, it needs to be re-cognized. And we do. We get the taste of it. We go back and re-cognize it again and again. That's what recognizes. Until the establishment in what I've always been is seen for certain. There could never have ever been anything other than that. And seeing it doesn't matter what comes or goes or disappears or disappears. Has it contaminated or corrupted that which I truly am?

It hasn't. Got a mirror behind you on the wall there. Have a look at it. What do you see in it? And you'll say, I see reflections in it or images. Now, you can't say those reflections or images are not there. But go up to the mirror and try and grab a reflection or an image out of the mirror. What do you do? All you do is grab the glass. None of those images or reflections have ever contaminated or corrupted the mirror. Never can. Now, could there be a reflection or an image if there wasn't that reflecting surface that you could appear on? There couldn't be.

So we liken the mirror to it. But the mirror is not it. That's just a poor description. But get the idea of what we're pointing to and see for yourself. And you've got the capacity of reasoning there which came upon you at two and a half. Instead of using it, capacity of reasoning can be very useful because this room is an idea of the mind, whether it's the chairs, the carpet, the television, all ideas or images are in that mind. It's very useful. But the mind, thought vibrates. And it vibrates in the pairs of opposites. It can't do anything other. If you look at it, see how it's vibrating.

Past, present, happiness, sadness, pleasant, pain, this, that and the other, day, night, always vibrating in the pairs of opposites. And the boundaries you put upon are the word. Good, bad, pleasant, painful, happy, sad. Can you go any further than that word? It's bad, it's terrible. Then it's good, it's great. But where is the equilibrium? Just to say, if you go to the South Pole, how much further south can you go? Because if you can't go any further south, your next step will be north. You go to the North Pole, how much further north can you go? You can't go any further. The next step will be south.

Now where do they meet if you go north and south again? Doesn't it meet at that thing they call the equator? Just a ribbon running around the center of the Earth where everything is equal. And that's what you need to recognize in yourself, the equilibrium. Where it's neither good or bad, pleasant or painful, happy or sad. But it's not going to stay at that seeming point for very long because that's how the manifest is manifesting. It's constantly transient. It's constantly changing. And recognize the transience, the change in it, and realize no matter how bad it seems, it's not going to stay that way. For where are yesterday's fears and sadness and unhappiness now?

They've gone. Where were yesterday's joy, love and things like that? It's gone. They're vibrating into one way or another. And when you listen to what Shakespeare told you when he says there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. And the only thing that can differentiate it is a thought or the word which we put a label on. This word is good, that word is bad. If you haven't got those words, where are you? Whichever end of the stick you are, it's still the same. And realize there's never any one-ended stick. Every stick has two ends to it. Every corn has two sides to it.

But when you understand it's the same coin, whichever side you're looking at, it's the same stick, whichever end you're looking at, it's the same essence, whichever way it's focused, whichever way it's vibrating, what's going to contaminate or corrupt you? Nothing. And it changes. Go outside on a cloudy day. You can't see the sun. Would you say the sun's not in the sky? No. How do you know? Well, you've investigated, you've seen through it, and you know the sun never leaves the sky. But you have a look at the cloud, and you ask yourself, well, the cloud is seemingly obscured. What forms the cloud? You investigate, and that's what you need to do, investigate yourself.

And you realize the sun itself forms the cloud. Now, the sun's got no idea that there is such a thing as a cloud. The vastness of the sun is so great, it doesn't know what this thing of an earth is, and even less than that, the clouds which are forming over it. But all the sun does is shine. And that radiance, or the intelligence energy that's radiating, that is the heat and light, that radiance, it evaporates water. The water vapor rises and condenses, and when it rises, there's a bit of cool air or something, it will cool the cloud down. And the cloud forms, seeming something solid, like a cloud that covers the sun.

And all the sun does is continue to shine, and it'll cool it down, and of course the winter snow will blow, and it'll blow the cloud away, or bring it down as rain. And the rain from the water vapor condenses into water, and then it solidifies into ice or snow. And that's all that's happening, is that one essence that's solidifying and forming into solid pattern of shapes and forms. But it's still the one essence. And you can't be anything other than that. One thing which I'm not 100%... I understand, but it might be a stupid question, but on one hand we've got, oneness or consciousness, as you say, which is not a thing, right?

And on the other hand we've got what we call maya, this manifestation, right? Now, to my stupid brain, it tells me that this one seems more interesting, you know? There's more going on, you know what I mean? The other one seems more boring to me. Right? How would you explain that? Well, of course the discrimination is going there, but if you know it's the one essence, you know, you've got to try and stabilise the good things when you know no matter how much you try to stay with the love and joy and happiness, that it's going to change. No. Well, you realise it's going to change, but you're going to let it go.

And when the bad thing's going, you realise it's going to change. But what has both appeared on, the good has appeared, what's the essence that both appeared on, is that sense of presence, the wellbeing, or the knowing that you are. So you recognise that prior to whether it's good or bad, that this life is there. So it's still going to appear the same. And it'll be unmanifested, non-appearance, you know? What could you do about it before you were born? You didn't know anything about it. There was no world or nothing in it. Yet it was all appearing to other pattern shapes of forms which are the same essence.

But so, the pattern shape and form, and given that particular pattern, the concept of being, the concept or idea that is seeing, experiencing and expressing is that. And you know you are that life. Take the limitations, the boundaries you put upon yourself, oh, this is not good enough, this is fearful, or I'm this or that or the other, and let it express in its fullness. Would you say that this manifestation comes and goes, or would you say it's continuous forever, like, I mean, what we call ever? You know, is that dream... It's ongoing. Is it ongoing, or does it stop for a while and, you know, maybe it's tired, and he doesn't want to dream anymore, until he wakes up again?

Time is mind. There's only this moment. Seem it's coming and going, but you know it's transient. This moment is changing right now. And what do we put it? We put the whole labels of concepts on them, the transients are changing. So in that changing, there's nothing static. It's ever fresh and ever new. It'll continuously change. But what is it that's changing? The pattern, shapes and form. What is it changing in the mirror? The reflections that appear and that come and go. But isn't the mirror the same? So isn't the essence, it's all appearing the same? So the pattern, shapes and forms are going to continue, but the essence has never changed.

And you are that. So when the things come up, it's good, enjoy it. If the so-called bad thing's up, come. Enjoy it. Well, realise it, leave them as they are. They're going to move on. Because even that body you know is transient. You haven't got the same body you walked in this room is. There are cells dying out right now. Not one or two, but thousands of them. Look back ten years ago, have you got the same body you've got? You haven't. You realise it's transient. They're the same thoughts that are coming in. Not the same thoughts, but the way the thoughts function. I mean, come and go, and this is good, or I like this, or I don't want this to go, or I love that.

And when we don't want them to go, what do we do? We try to keep them there and resist it. We want the good things to stay and the bad things, so we resist the good. And don't you know, any resistance is conflict. If you are resisting something, try to keep it there, you are in conflict. And if you are in conflict, it makes you unhappy, fearful, sad, jealous, envious, or whatever. And that jealousy, envy, conflict, resistance or conflict is uneasiness. And that's another term for dis-ease. The other way it comes up, the bad things come up and you don't want the bad things. So what do you do?

You try to get rid of the bad things by resisting them. So again, you're in resistance, conflict and disease. Whichever way you look at it, while we're altering, trying to alter, modify or correct anything, we're in resistance both ways. If you're taking a stance like nothing either good or bad, but thinking, leaving everything as it is, what it means is unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. Just like in nature. Nature is not, daylight now is not fighting with the darkness. The earth is rolling around the sun, while in this moment it's facing toward the sun, it's light. But on the other side of the earth is darkness. When it rolls around, the other faces away from the sun will be darkness.

The earth doesn't know anything, all just of itself, it rotates. The same with this, you know, life moves in all its diversity. So when you see that, what are you doing? You're taking place as the life. And you're letting the life manifest instead of taking a stance as something separate and apart from it that's going to alter it, modify it or change it. That's why they say, abide as that. Rest in it. Let it be. Let it rest in its uncontrived singularity. If nothing you can do, it can change it. No, it will change. And also we're often tempted to project the time, the time before I was born, now the time when I will be no more.

That's all dream. See, you have to imagine that. So it is not really what is happening right now. It is something that you go to your head, to your mind and imagine. So this is what you can wake up from right away. Is it here now? No. Okay. So let's engage with that basic... Because this, what is here now, is also a dream. It's also a manifestation. It's also transient. And it's not transient if you take the time away from it. It's just this. But when we start... I know it's fascinating. Oh gosh, I love the whole philosophy and the difficult questions and contemplation and all that.

It's thrilling. It's actually giving us this... It's pleasurable. But to recognize that this is, again, just perpetuating mind activity, trying to find the answer in the mind, which what Bob says is completely impossible. There's no way to find the answer in the mind. You can find a lot of answers, but how long you will be satisfied with them? Let's say you get the answer that, you know, what happens before appearance or what it would be in the absence of the appearance or whatever. That answer would be conceptual and imaginary. Very quickly you would be bored with that and you would look for another one. Then the habit of looking for the answer here would just strengthen.

And that's what you said. This was brilliant. I mean, every word you said was brilliant. But the thing is, even if you do have the answer, even if you do work it out, this answer has come and will go. And what is timeless and spaceless is the space, is the screen on which the answer comes and goes. So if there is anything other than this moment, any pleasurable, blissful experience, or any great intellectual understanding that is not right here right now, it's not worth it. It's just not worth it. You don't want it. Like, what for? It's just like an ice cream or whatever. It's just a pleasure that comes and goes.

What you're actually looking for, and this is really funny because you can't find it because the you that is looking is just another object on the screen. But what everyone is looking for is there all the time, underlying the great understanding. Underlying the great bliss or pleasure or any experience that is transient. So it's the awareness of presence. You are aware that you're present. Without the thoughts asking questions and looking for answers, nothing is wrong. Bob's most famous statement, I would assume, what's wrong with right now if I don't think about it? What is wrong with right now if I don't think about it? And the answer is always silence.

There is no problem without the thought. Even if there is an uncomfortable situation. And I have to label it uncomfortable for knowing it. Like the way Bob was in the hospital in pain. And there was no resistance to pain because that was obviously a very intelligent sign from the nature to be careful with that hip. Without the pain, who knows? The dislocation right away. I mean, pain is a sign that something is going on. The healing process is going on. And without label that this is something wrong, there is no resistance to it. It's the content of the moment. There is that uncontrived singularity or awareness of presence, the being.

And certain floating sensations through it. Sensations, physical sensations. They're all kind of physical because sight and sounds and even, well, everything is part of the sensation. The world we are sensing through senses. But what is actually the singularity, the subjectivity, the subject of sensing is that basic screen that never changes and can't be sensed. Because that's why they call it presence because it's prior to senses, pre-sense. So that awareness of being, the knowing that we are, it cannot be made to an object and sensed. And therefore it can't be found either. Because there's nothing to find. The present is always there. The seeking is only possible because of that presence, awareness.

There wouldn't be any seeking. And even seeking, this was another brilliant thing you said. I mean, gosh, every word is recorded. I mean, gosh, you know, you look so young and you have this level of realization. Like, gosh, I had to suffer for 40 years. I'm not that young. I am really... I am this young. Exactly. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, you do look very young. But anyway, people use... Some have to suffer for a lifetime, which is wonderful. I mean, gosh. I was thinking about the book I Am That and I was thinking about what you said. And I was thinking that when I was getting used to all the Indian terminology in the book I Am That that Bob kindly gave me a long time ago, it was talking about noumenon and phenomenon.

And Bob touched on phenomenon before. And noumenon is basically that... Which is? Which is never changing. And in its unicity, in its oneness, it can't know itself. So that's why, you know, these unique patterns of energy, you know, appear. And because the noumenon in its unicity can't know itself. And so, you know, so here we are in this unique pattern of energy with this, you know, mind that appears upon it. And the mind that appears upon it can only work in certain parameters. I'm always on about this. But it can only work in certain parameters. The me and the you, the pleasure, the pain, the desire, the fear, the preferences that all relate to a me.

The preference for excitement and pleasure and pain. Or not... You know, we always avoid pain and go towards pleasure. You know, so, you know, we want excitement. So who is it that's looking for the excitement? That's where the looking comes in. Who is it that's looking for, you know, something a bit more interesting or a bit more pleasurable or a bit more... I think what you said before, while I was talking, you were spot on. You said, who wants to know, you said. And it clicked, you know. Yeah. Maybe I want to know too much. But you did. I got what you said exactly. You said, who wants to know, you know.

And that's where it stopped me, yeah. Maybe my mind wants to know too much. Cognising, cognising. So you just immediately cognised emptiness again there. So that's fantastic. Yeah. It's like a vanilla ice cream looking for a cooking cream ice cream. I'll take both if it doesn't matter. I like ice cream. I'm not fussy. That's very good. So you're not partial to one thing over the other. No. Everything is there. What's the saying there? Love everything? Yeah. Yeah, that's also Nisargadatta. Dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of it and not the other. Exactly. It's true, 100%. That's true. Yes.

Talking about imaging before, have a look at, that's what Nisargadatta tells you. Nothing can trouble you except your own imagination. Nothing at all can ever trouble you, except what's your imagination. Break that word imagination down to image in. Imagine. And realise we're creating mental images about everything and taking the image to be real. That chair you're sitting on is an image. an image. How would you know it was a chair? The tree outside is an image. The rest of the people around you are images, mental conceptual images which we've taken to be real. The pattern, shape and form they're appearing in. But it can all be broken down, put any of it under a microscope.

Put this body under a microscope and you'll see it's full of holes and there's nothing there, solid or substantial. It appears to be. So when they exploded the atom bombs, people out there was looking at them and they were saying they were told to look. And when it went off in the big flare they could reckon they could see through their hands, see every bone in their hand and everything. They were miles and miles away from it. They were lit up by the radiation. And one of the great things about the atom bomb is that it's a very, very powerful, very powerful, very powerful, he said, everything is changing.

He said, that rock behind me is transparent. You can see through it. It wasn't that he could see the rock. But he knew that the rock was transparent. And everything else is transparent too. He goes, if we break it down to that essence, that's what it's supposed to be able to walk through walls and things like that. But it's the one essence appearing as everything. And you are that. Could you say the answer is to have no questions? And that's it? If there's no question, then there can't be a question. And you can't be lost in thought. Still asking who am I, who's asking the question?

And you realise that the questioner is the question. There's no question, then there can't be a question. Where does that leave you? Present and aware, without even having to put those terms on. It's interesting how the questions stop arising. They just stop. There's nothing you've done. And all of a sudden, one day you realise I don't have a single question. So that's what you're experiencing now? You go to the stage where... I don't have any questions. Bob took me beyond the need for further help. That was quite a while ago, wasn't it? So what that actually means, taking you beyond the need for further help, is to know that there is no you, to ask the question.

To ask the question, yeah. But what you said was really spot on. The questions stop arising. And there's nothing the mind does to stop the questions. Just all of a sudden, all of a sudden the questions just stop arising. As long as you're asking questions, you're still in the mind. Correct. That's right. It's true. Look into it and you realise there's no such thing as mind. Yeah. Bar hand or hand. And also... That's funny, James. What is mind? There's no such thing as mind apart from a thought. And thought, when you realise a thought's a fiction, who's going to claim the thoughts? They appear and disappear just like a vibrating pattern, just like the tree, the flower and everything else is just a vibrating pattern of energy.

And it's just coming and going, appearing to be real, but not sure. It's another important thing that you said, and I wanted to quote it because it's worthy of highlighting. You don't ask questions. Questions arise. You can't stop asking questions because you didn't start it. Like you said, you know, you can't start or stop seeking. Because you can't start or stop investigating because there is no you to do that. That's important to understand. You know, that you can't... Yes. And the disappearance of questions is a liberation, absolutely. But you can't suppress questions. You can only... I mean, and that's also a figure of speech because you cannot do anything.

There is no you. But the questions can be recognised as a mental activity. And the recognition happens. You can't do it. You can't recognise. You can't investigate. You can't do absolutely nothing. Because there's no doer. No doer, exactly. So the recognition of mental activity, the recognition of the activity may happen. And it is likely to happen if the resonance is with the message. So when I asked that question, I understand it was not me asking that question. No. The question just arose. Yes. Right? Yeah. That's right. So really... Don't take credit for it. Yeah. Just look at it. Oh, don't take credit for it. That's a unique...

That's a unique... I'm asking too many questions. Sorry, boss. I'll show you. That me that thinks it's asking the question is a unique expression of that same intelligent entity that's vibrating in that pattern, shape and form, Tony, which is a unique way of patterning. There's no two Tonys around. Three Tonys in the room. Take the name and form and would the real Tony please stand up? Yeah, the question to be voiced, it needs the voice box. So life has used yours. Just the voice, you know. The question, the thought is also one of the forms through which life expresses. So life expresses questions and it needs the body to speak it up.

In other words, I'm the puppet. You're the puppet. Yeah. Why not? You are life. You are life. I'm not the puppet. You aren't the puppet. What you are... The body is the puppet. The body is the puppet. Yeah. The body is the puppet. Yeah. The body is still alive. The body is still alive. Everything is still alive. We've been born. Yeah. Tony's right. Everything's label, even the body. Absolutely. And you know that when you say my car, my house, you know you're not the car or the house or the shirt. We're all... My body. We all... We are the body. Yeah. Then we say body is myself, but there's only one self.

Yeah. That's a good thing. Yeah. It's not myself. It's simply myself. We've personalized it. And the person is not reality. It's impersonal. No person. And if we look at the word personal, personal. Personal. Personal. Personal. Personal. Personal. Personal. Customer. Personal. Well now this person comes from persona the mask in Greek. Mask. A conceptual image we put upon ourselves and take it to be real. A mask. To be real. Well I never called my mother that obvious. So I don't have my son calling me old man either. Then you sit down and have a go at spouses. I mean... Yeah. It's just words we use. I mean, like I said...

Who? I mean, my dad. My son calls me old man sometimes in front of his friends and I'm not very happy about it. I know he's still called my father old man or old woman or my mum, never. I know it's only words but... Yeah, you know, you've got to use words but know the word's not the thing. To point it out, there's a word fire burn your mouth, there's a word water, can you drink it? They're not the words. I think the most beautiful thing you can realise is that, yeah, like, everything that's happening now, everything that you're experiencing is just one big game you're kind of playing with yourself.

And it's just only when you try and separate it, like, you know, that's something else happening to me, that's when the problems arise. But even though those problems are a game you're playing with yourself in the end anyway, it's not, it's not, it's not like, it's not supposed to be like that if it's happening. Totally, so true. Yeah, this is exactly what life wants to experience in this moment. If you are experiencing suffering, that's exactly what life wants to experience. That's exactly what life is experiencing at this moment. It's a play, it's a game. They call it lila, which is a divine game. And if you recognise everything just like a game, or you're just watching a movie, you're actually not engaged or you don't have these preferences.

And even if they are preferences, oh yeah, I don't like that, I don't want to suffer. And you see the preferences as part of the game. It's only the game, really. This is all that can be perceived or conceived is that lila. So what is ever the problem? You just, it's just lila. I should have called it the play of consciousness. And as you said, yes, you are playing it because you are life expressing as these forms in that play of consciousness. You're the substance. That's right, if there's only one, then everything else, the one that does everything, isn't it? Ask the question, get the answer, or whatever.

Yes. Are you going to say something? No. . Under a microscope, there's no difference between the stage, or the backstage, or the audience. It's just all blip-blip-blip-blip. Whatever shoots up an attention, not labelled even, then it's just an experience. Placeless. I must say, I don't take things as I used to take them before, like seriously. I take everything as a joke now. And some people will notice that, that actually somebody said the other day, says you take everything as a joke. Well, in my mind, I didn't say that. I said, well, we're sort of worried about it. Whereas before I did, I must have, you know, this body did anyway.

They're recognizing something that's in you anyway. Yeah. Sorry? The fox up to you today. Did you have fox eating your chicken? Yeah. Oh. What happened? Fox has killed some chicken. Yeah, still coming around. Years ago when I was up on the farm, I had a canary, beautiful little canary, and whistled its little heart out all day. I used to hang it in the tree over daytime, you know, outside and take it into the night. One night I forgot to take it in, but the next morning, all it was, it was the blood and feathers on the bars of the cage. People said, oh, the poor canary.

I said, it wasn't bad. I said, it was bad for the owl that got it. He thought it was good. Fox ate it. A friend of mine has got a little farm near my place, and he does work for me in the building, right? And he's got chickens too, but, you know, he doesn't live at the house there. And he knew about mine, that the fox had killed about 15, 20 chickens. And I said to him, you're very lucky. I said, you know, you're isolated. You're not even there. And you know, nobody's attacked yours yet. Not even a week after, two weeks. So I cursed the poor guy.

The fox has got his. So anyway, he said, I'm going to get a cage, you know, and trap him. I said, all right. He says, you want one? I said, nah. I said, look, see how you go first, because I don't think a fox will go in a cage, you know? Like the possum cages, you know, that you trap them. Or you. The first night he put it on, put the trap there, he reckons he caught it, because he could see the, but somehow he didn't close it properly, and it got out. It would be too big for a fox. There's possum cages. Well, they're pretty big cages.

You can put a cat like that, no problem, you know? Anyway, that was the first night. And I said to him, I don't think he's ever going to come back there again. I said, I'm going to try again. Anyway, he sent me a photo. He caught a little cat. He said, let the cat go. Little kitten. Oh, poor baby. So. What I was trying to say was that, yeah, that's right. Now, I said to him, I said, give me the trap. I want to put it in my place, you know, and see what happens. Have you got one? No, I haven't got one. I'm going to get it off him.

But then if I do get him, I probably won't be able to kill him anyway, because I think he's one of me. What am I going to do? Well, you're killing bacterias in your stomach every time you eat. You're killing. You know, killing is part of life. I mean, gosh, I don't think you would be able to kill it. I think I'm just killing more chickens. Exactly. Yeah, that's. We'd let him go a long way from anyone's chicken farms. Don't worry. Yeah, you will see. He's got the address now. You will see what you are moved to do. It's totally not in your hands what you're going to do.

That's true. That's right. So I'm not to blame for whatever happens. Absolutely. And then who says whose life is more valid? Exactly. Three chickens or one fox? Yeah. Next one. That's a question for the fox. Yeah, those philosophy questions are possible. I was watching a movie where they're making a deal about some train going somewhere, and do you break the train to go down one track and do one disaster or the other and do a different disaster? It's just a massive circle, any of these philosophical outlooks, you know? You've got to sit there just going in circles and then randomly choosing one. You know, randomly, just the dice lands on one, according to life's concept of that.

Yeah. It's just a real dance, that philosophy. Yeah, and that poor fox. Imagine how confusing is that for the fox, because in nature, chickens don't exist in packs of 20 or 50 or 100. So the instinct has given fox the ability to find the food. And when it sees the bird, it basically just runs and attacks it. But when people gather those birds in a big masses, like this, then nature hasn't really kind of prepared the fox for it, to get just one for today, you know, and tomorrow come for the other. So it's just so, it's so uncommon. They don't just wear one. They'll kill four or five or six.

Rip their necks out and just leave them there. I mean, it's not that they kill one and take it and that's it. I don't understand that. But they just. Yeah, because they don't think, you know? They just follow the instinct. Yeah, yeah, I understand. Yeah, in a couple of millions of years, if humanity will survive, then nature will find solution for it. But evolution kind of works a little bit more like a. So you're saying for me to wait till then? No, no, no, no. I would never, ever, ever tell you what to do. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do. I'm only joking.

I know. Yeah, but this is often situations like this. People often bring up when the example of the, of the fox, the effect side effects of identifying with the ego when you are insecure and you are vulnerable and now you want to fight with people or you want to get something from them, you want to add to yourself, you want to accumulate a mass, then you want to form the tribe and go and attack the other tribe for form the nation, go to war. You know, that all comes from that feeling of void, insecurity, not enough. I want more. That's sort of a grasping sort of a feel.

And people come. Up with the examples. Yes, but animals do that too. You know, foxes kill all the chickens when they can. And in a way it is the same thing. The people who are identified with that little monster they imagined within themselves, they have no saying they completely unconscious. Just like that fox who had no idea what to do with the, with whatever it comes across. Everything could be said to actually run on the set of conditioning that it has acquired. And it's not even conscious in a way. Like, you know, thinking is the additional layer on top. But thinking is basically a narrative or justification for whatever comes up.

So certain urge is to act. And then the commentary comes what and why and how and what for and stuff like this. Can you build a officer proof cage for the noise? Yes. Well, I had, I've got, because I've got one and a half acres, I mean, I've got a big area there. And I can't make all the area fox proof with just too much. But what I've got to do now is I've got to make a small area, probably the size of this room, you know, outside so it can go outside. But it's got to be all nets, you know. Like we said, it's got to be fox proof.

No use trying to catch the fox. I think I've got to make that fox proof. Good luck. Yeah, well, when I get time to do it. What you're saying about the, like we can't have all the particles of what's going on in the space in attention in this body because it'll blow the fuse, you know. Yeah. Yeah, this body just works in this biologically developed way to have a couple of things turn up in attention. Well, one thing really. Might be smell, might be something else. Whatever activity turns up in attention, it might be a thought, a process that you're only ever in the middle of, you know.

It's not an entire thought ever. It'll be a... It's just like whatever's there. But... The notion that you are witnessing an entire thought is also one thing that might be popping up. Yeah, that's the particulars of the machinery that we are. So-called brain or whatever. It has limited computing capacity and it can only focus on certain amount of bits per second. And even the vision, the way it works, it kind of assumes and it kind of calculates. And... And put out things that has been seen before. The vision that, you know, the people who study brain, they can tell more about it. But yes, as you say, it's limited computing capacity.

So attention only flows to certain amount of bits of information. So the way Bob is often using it as a practical advice. And again, there is no doer who can follow the advice, but the natural resonance may bring... Right. ...about the recognition and may bring about the resonance with the advice to starve the attention with the thinking and focus it equally into seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. And in ancient texts it is called stay... It is Dzogchen, right? Be utterly awake with five senses wide open. So this is... Nisargadatta also had the advice like this. Stay with the I am to... And to the exclusion of everything else.

Like starve the thinking. Don't give them fuel. Don't put attention on it. Not that you have a choice because they come up. But when the... Sometimes this sort of pointers bring the resonance. And when they come up in the right moment, you just hear maybe don't go there. Dave often comes up with this one. Dave, are you sleeping? Are you with us? Yes. Yes. Gotcha. Yeah. Just don't go there. Yeah. Just don't go there. Yes. So those are little things that the doers can't do. But they somehow sometimes seem to ease the situation when the attention is trapped somewhere in the drama, in the story or is just about to get there.

It's almost like the new wiring is being trained. Like almost the brain is... Or the mind is trained to... To... New highways on the neurons to focus the attention more into the seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, which is the immediacy of this moment, which is also part of the appearance. It's also a dream. It's also transient. But at the same time, it's like a first sort of a layer of a dream rather than imagination, layers of imagination put on top of it. Where all the problems and all the suffering and all the separation exist. In the immediacy when there is no idea of being separate self or no identification with the body or the mind or anything, that moment as it is, it doesn't hurt.

It's quite beautiful. It's quite alive. It's quite amazing. It's intense. There is a content of seeing. There is a gaze space of seeing. And there are some forms in there. There is space. There is space of hearing. And there are some sounds there. There's space of tasting, touching, smelling. All that space or that emptiness is filled up with different patterns. And it's quite amazing. If there is no relating going on that this is my seeing or this chair is better than that one or any sort of a thinking, that life is equally distributed. That's what ancients call being utterly awake. Now, on top of that being utterly awake, the thinking, the imagination comes up.

I like this. I don't like this. What am I going to do next? What have I done before? That is also spontaneous activity. And the space of thinking is no different than space of hearing. The thoughts are not much different than sounds. They also arise and appear. But with the capacity of, when the attention is not so much the attention of the mind but when the attention floods the thought, they create completely new layers of the dream on top. Like we can bring up the dream of galaxies. Now they are not hearing this immediacy. They are completely conceptual, their thoughts. And of course, that's not a painful thought.

That's quite amazing. It's just like sounds are amazing. So to be aware of that capacity of expression. the life essence expressing as sounds and as imagination, as thoughts, as galaxies which are not immediately here but they are in the space of thinking, or the whole past which is in the space of thinking. That's really beautiful. But it becomes really hurtful, really painful when it is taken to be a reality, when the thinking, imaginary, imagination, all that magnificent universes which are hidden in every single thought, when they are taken to be real and they are related to the me, and the me is now me against the world, me against the galaxy or other countries or other people, enemies.

That is part of the beauty of the play. That's part of the divine game. That's how life wants to forget. It wants to forget itself and experience itself as the other. That's the vacation of the eternity, from the eternity, in time, experiencing that magnificent ride which the life is. But life is equally magnificent, if not more, I'd imagine more, when that... I wouldn't imagine that's what I'm experiencing. When that thinking capacity is known for what it is, when the thinking capacity, imaginary, imagination capacity, the going and creating the dramas are known for being dramas. When you watch the movie and you know it's the movie, it doesn't make it less beautiful.

It actually makes it more. It makes it even more amazing that such a beautifully detailed, well-furnished universe came out of nothing. And it hangs there and it looks so convincing. It looks so real. The illusion is so well done. That makes it even more beautiful. Because taking it to be real, it creates all that set of resistances, responses, desires. That's beautiful too. But it has the... Oh gosh. I mean, yeah, it's beautiful when I look at it from now. Three, four years ago, shit, I hated it. I hated my life. I hated my suffering. It wasn't beautiful. There were moments of the brief break when I saw the beauty and when the space would open up.

But the rest of it was all about me. It was so tight. It was so painful. People didn't see me the way I was thinking they were supposed to see me. I didn't see myself the way I was supposed to. I was thinking I should see me. I was kind of a confined little thing. I believed and I could question the whole world, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't question that vulnerable, fragile, sensitive, emotional structure that was so easy to be hurt. So, yes, definitely, there is a way out of that sort of an identification with the object that we, as Bob said, innocently believe to be real.

Innocently. Because my parents believe that's real. My teachers, my... Everyone, almost everyone around me, I mean, that room is a great exemption. But wherever we go out, it is taken for granted that there is a separate me that has to look after my future and my health and my diet and my everything and has to obsess about that me all the time. Like how beautiful and juicy the life is when that self-obsession drops off and now you walk down the street and instead of thinking what is going to be me, what someone talks or thinks about me, or rehearsing dialogues in your head about me and the others, now you suddenly see the flowers.

You see the sky. You hear the birds. You experience the muscles in your body. Everything is there so much more because of that computing capacity now, which is not wasted to self-obsession and thinking about me all the time. Now it's just shining through and it's feeding that beautiful, beautiful world, that moment, which is only here now and which will never be the same again. So that's... Sorry. I thought about 15 thoughts ago. Yeah, tell us. We have some deep pointers there, but way back. You were talking about, it came to mind that the computer can't replicate the human being because biologically there is just one molecule moves, another molecule moves, and there's only ever whatever turns out, whatever behaviour happens in that moment continues to happen.

But if a computer just takes in too much information and it can't choose, because there's no choosing, how do you make a quick decision, this is what's going to happen, when you've got a raft of information. They can't come up with the... I forget the name for the word that describes the programs that select... Yeah, the algorithms. It's just impossible to create algorithms when you have all of the data at hand to quickly do this one as opposed to any of the others. Yet the human mechanism does that. I think it is possible. It forgets most of the stuff and just does one thing, but it's just so fast and it still isn't actually taking a lot of data.

It's... Well, I suppose that's a myth. It's really just whichever molecule if there were such a thing, whichever drive gets there first. So there's just an unravelling happening and the computers attempt to take all this data, apply some algorithms and make a choice, but the whole choice thing is just absolutely false. So there wasn't a deeper point to that, but I've forgotten that one. Well... Yeah, what we ask and look at is a little bit of self-investigation. And recognise the false cannot stand up to investigation. And you've seen that many times in your life. Use many metaphors to point that out. Go down to the ocean and I say to you, get me a bucket of blue water out of the sea, what would you say to me?

You'd say, don't be ridiculous. Because you know, well, the water's not blue when you get down, but it appears to be blue. Get up in a plane 30,000 feet and where's the blue sky? Is it coming in the blue sky? Is it coming out in the whole windows of the plane or is it still further out? A rainbow, go outside and you see a rainbow, all those colours in the sky. Looks real, solid. If you flew up and tried to grab a rainbow, could you? You couldn't. And the only way you'd recognise all the rainbow is is the mist rising up and the sun shining through the mist and forms all these colours.

All these different metaphors like that, when you start investigating yourself along the same lines, you'll see that you're not what you've appeared or believed yourself to be. We've taken on the belief because our parents, schools and society have all reinforced it when we started to learn words and we followed along. When you quit following and ask yourself, who or what am I? Am I this body-mind entity? And when you know you're not the body, you're not the mind because you say, my body, my mind, my heart, house, my car, my life, my life, my life. And when you start to investigate these things and things, what we've taken to believe is not what the actuality is.

And then what must happen when you can start cancelling some of these out? You must be left with the reality, the actuality that you are, which you've always been. So, it's quite simple when you look at things. Instead of taking things for granted, have a look and question. The sensations, what are these sensations? This is fear, this is anger, how do I know? which I've labeled as fear. And so immediately I've done that, I brought all the previous fears back into it and made it solid. What if I see it as a fresh, a new sensation that I haven't understood or recognized yet? Sit with it and see what it is.

Well, this one is anger. Who told me it was anger? My parents or my brothers and sisters? This one's anger. Now every time this comes up, it's anger, and I let myself down with it. But it's just another present sensation or feeling. See that, and they lose their sting. You can't believe in the false anymore. And what are you left with if you're not seeing through to the false? You must be left with that old scriptural saying, know the truth, and the truth will set you free. What are you free of? You're free of belief in all these erroneous or false concepts we've taken on board, and keep reinforcing by putting the energy of belief on.

People use it to make their beliefs come true. It's a very powerful thing. It's a very powerful thing. It's a very powerful thing. What I thought many years ago when I stood out where the sun and sky, sea and sky met, look out the edge of the ocean, they were told, don't go out there, you'll fall off the edge of the earth. Some people believed that. Who would believe it today? But people investigated and seen through, so you can't believe it when you say it's false. So you don't have to hang on to these ideas andbrushes. Never look and see if that's so. You must reveal the truth of them.

People still believe the flat. They believe. Yes. That's extremely pleasant. It's a good comparison as well there. Yeah. We believed in Santa Claus too when we were little kids. But when you saw through it, you know, you couldn't believe it anymore after a while. But we knew it gave pleasure to our kids. So what do we do? We put that belief that it's there and let the kids, give the kids some happiness amongst it. But when they grow up a little bit and they look into it, they won't believe it. But they'll probably do the same for their kids. But why do we believe that the Earth is round?

Because we've only been told. Where is the Earth right now? Is it here in this room? I can't say for sure. It's round or flat. Yeah. They will tell you anything. They go into space, you know. It could be just photos that they drew. And we know exactly for sure. We don't. It's a million-year experience. We get fed information, but we really don't know nothing. That's right. You still have to, at the end, say, logically, that would mean I went around a sphere. But that would just be an argument in the head. Just a logical argument. It wouldn't even be, you wouldn't know. Yeah. The only reality right now is this moment.

I mean, everything else is added to it. And it's beautiful. That's a beautiful addition. I mean, we all probably all, I don't know, believe that vitamin C is good for immune system. And stuff like this, you know. Or, gosh, we have, we have... Yeah. We have beliefs, we have preferences. But knowing that this is all just part of the appearance, whatever the beliefs are there in the head, they're part of the appearance. Whatever the sounds are the part of the appearance. There's nothing wrong. They're all to be appreciated. They are like, you know, the little children of the, the forms coming out of emptiness. They're all kind, another version of myself.

The way I am showing I, life, am showing myself to myself. The forms, the thoughts, the beliefs. The stories, the dramas. They all just the divine game, the, the lila. So, knowing, knowing them for what they are, it's just... So, going back to what Bob was saying about a child, right? He starts off with no words, so therefore he is that oneness, right? He doesn't know anything else. Because he doesn't, right? But then, on purpose, he forgets. And he grows up. And he grows up with words and whatever and becomes, he forgets who he is. And then he wants to come back again to find out himself again.

As soon as you say, okay, it's part of the game, but that's the way, the excitement of refinding himself. That's the way I see it. That's the purpose. It's like the excitement of going back to find himself or itself or whatever, you know. Yeah. And then, you know, you have this beautiful analogy in the Bible about Prodigal Son, or whichever way you pointed. There is, yeah, there is two of them. One goes away, take part of his inheritance and goes out in the world and spend everything. And end up feeding pigs, doing something that is much, much less noble than being, you know, staying with the father.

And then he goes down to the ground and he's completely wasted. He's lost his life, his identity, his self-esteem, his self-worth, his money. And then he goes to the father and he asks if the father would employ him as the lowest, on the lowest grade. And the father comes up and kills the best whatever, you know, make a big feast for everyone. Because the son that was lost is found again. And put him on a high seat, on a high chair and says, okay, you who were lost are found again. And of course, he's lost. And celebrates him for finding and showing him his true nature is to be his son.

Now the other son never left the house, never lost himself. And now he goes jealous to the father and says, why didn't you ever kill a goat or anyone and made a huge feast and a huge party for me? I've been faithfully serving you all my life. So how do you recognize me? And the father says, hey. But you've never lost it. This is all yours. You never lost it and you don't even know. You don't even realize. So now, unless you lose it and find it again, you actually mature, you grow, you realize, you learn to appreciate it. Something that you take for granted.

You never really, I mean, how could you possibly wake up if you haven't fallen asleep? How could you find enlightenment if you didn't identify fully with so-called separate entity or individual? Yes, it is part of the game to experience yourself as other. You cannot be an other because it's only one. But you can dream that you are. So suddenly now you're falling for your own dream. Oh my God, I really am separate. It feels so real. You're falling for your dream. It makes it real when you find yourself. It makes it more real. And now as you realize that, oh my God, but I can't be anything else but that one because everything is that one.

My gosh, what a ridiculous dream. I thought I was separate. Now I'm waking up and I know I haven't. Not for an instant. Five, ten years ago as a child, I haven't. I never have been separate. I couldn't. But I was dreaming and I was totally believing that I was. So the waking up is waking up from the dream of separation to the dream of being separate. Yes. And the waking up is waking up from the dream of the immediate appearance right here right now. 100% always makes sense. No problem. Yeah, that's basically the same way I'm telling the same story as you're saying. So you kind of, you get it.

Isn't it a matter of preferences? Like I think, I know we're not as a child, but I think children, we naturally like we daydream. But when we daydream, we come, we open out and go to a kind of effortless open space. When we lie in bed in the middle of the night, we choose not to think. We know we want to, we just lie there kind of in meditation. And I think we just preference the thinking stuff. But we're always forever abiding in a kind of totality. You know, it's just that we don't, we've, our school and our society focuses on that singular, you know.

Because I think we, like we were away, I say away with the pixies. But when I'm away with the pixies, I know that I just kind of allowing all of it just to be, you know. So it's more about sort of the way we prioritize things. It's not about how we prioritize how we function or something. That's exactly right. Exactly right. Because I think the totality, I had a learning difficulty when I was a kid. And they said I had a learning difficulty. But basically, I just see everything as equal value. So when I sit here, I hear the cars as equal value as the talking, you know.

Yeah. You know. Yeah. And the flowers and all the shapes is all just one, you know. So I had a horrible time at school because I, the teacher says, you got to focus on this thing here. And I'm like, all of it. You know. So I was a problem kid, you know. Because they're saying, well, what, why are you, why, it's that, you know. And I'm seeing all the, all the letters and all the white around the book and the book and the table and the kids sneezing and the. So I was forever really annoyed, you know. And I think you could, I don't know.

I think you could take like, I think this, what you, you could take a bath in reality. Instead of, the problem is the same. It's focusing on the things. And if you just let yourself effortlessly just be, exist. Like what's my natural state or something. Yeah. And just allow it. Expand completely. Totally. Just, yeah. Yeah. Beautifully said. It's just, it's a range of habits. So for example, we might struggle with communications and meetings like this. But in the Highlanders of Papua New Guinea or whatever, they, you know, every afternoon and evening is set aside for their whole lives of communicating. Yeah. So, you know, it'll just be a totally different level of effort, you know.

So-called difficulties. And it's the toolbox we've got, isn't it? Yeah. We have to talk about it because that's the toolbox we have. Yeah. But also what you say, it is about kind of stepping back and relaxing and expanding. That's it. Just let everything. And you can notice you have your energy. And yet it's, you've been trying to label the energy. And these feelings, but you can just abide in the energy. Yeah. You know, like the universe is energy and we're energy. Yeah. You know, like I feel like, I feel like what's outside of me is more strong than me. Like I could quite comfortably argue that this, you, all of this is more me than this body.

Absolutely. That's what it feels, that's what it looks like. Totally. Because I can't see myself. That's right. That's right, yeah. Yeah. So that's the last thing I know is myself, this picture of me. It's like when you're a teenager and you start to recognise like sexuality. There's this horrible realisation, it's like, oh my God, people are looking at me like I, as this object that is attractive or not. You know, that was a real shock to me. But you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Because it's not how you experience the world actually. It's your way. That's what I, yeah. That's so true. Time, oh yeah, Bob is, yeah, it always happens that the meeting gets a little bit more alive towards the end.

And that's, we are over time. But I was, I was, gosh, that was beautifully said. It's nice to, it's nice to hear people talk about this stuff. It is. It's nice, especially when other people, like you guys, when you open up because that's precious. It's much nicer when it's recognised, recognised. Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. Yeah, so thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.