Non Duality Sailor Bob - Nisargadatta still smoked! 6 Jan 19

Are we ready to start? Can you say your names so we know each other? And that's Bob and now I'm Kat. Well, the usual old spiel. We say it again and again and again because something might resonate which it has done with quite a few of you now, and the recognition of your true nature, not what we've believed ourselves to be all these years, but a little bit of a breakthrough into the one reality which is all there is. And as they say in the Mahavaki, I am that, well you are that already. So we often say here start from the fact that you are already that whether you know it or not.

Because the search itself becomes the problem. If you're a Sikhi, it implies that there's something you've got to find, you've got to seek for. But when you know you are that and that is all there is, the search is over. And while you're continuing in the search, there's still a subtle belief that there's something you've got to get and become. We call ourselves human beings. If you believe in a God, you'll call the God the supreme being. But what if you take that label human off and take the label supreme? Anyone in this room who is not being right now, you're going to know I'm being, I am.

You know that you are that beingness. And that applies to everything, you know that in nature. That's being a chair, that's being a carpet, that's being the tree, the flower, the sky, everything out there. is that being and that's where the I am that comes into it that is all there is which we put labels on now look at the label is the word the thing you don't go into my eyes and to buy a shirt and come out with a label you wouldn't be too happy with it have you paid all that money I'll say that we put labels on everything words and doesn't tell you in the Bible in the beginning was the word the word was with God the word was God now that's what all God is a word a label all things were made by him by the word there was nothing made that was made without the word and that's what we've done we put words or labels on all this manifestation and taking the words to be the real and see that how that works in the beginning what beginning do you know about you'll say I was born but can anyone of you remember your birth nobody can go back and remember your birth you don't remember anything or recall anything to you about two two and a half years old when you learnt words so in the beginning was the word that was the beginning for you me and everything in the room was the word when we learnt words though you were existing before that you're falling nine months in the womb and a couple of years you were living in a world where you were living in a world where you were living without the word before you learnt any words.

We're getting on all right without the word. And that's why they use that, I suppose, analogy, whatever you like to call it in the Bible. Adam and Eve in the garden of paradise. They're in paradise until they are eight of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They learnt words. And that's when they dropped out of paradise. And they've been trying to get back into it ever since, but using words they never will. And that's what we've got to learn, and realise, recognise. It doesn't mean to say you're not going to use words. You'll use words, but you'll understand them in a different light.

And you look at the word and see if the word is the real. The word's not the thing. Take the word water. Can you drink it? Can you drink that word? Can you wash in that word? Can you swim in it? Can you drown in it? You can't. So the word's not the thing. As they say, the map's not the territory. The description is never described. We're using words on all these things. The word fire, does it burn your mouth if you speak it? It doesn't. You can't cook with it. You can't heat yourself with it. You're only self with the word. So what do we do?

We take it on this word, I or me. But we believe that one is real. I am real. I am this body. I am this mind. And they're the labels we put on it. Body, mind. But I is a body. We just understand that. We think. The activities happen through this body. And we think that the body is doing it. Taking those actions. And feeling those feelings. And tasting those tastes and touching. It's just the history of it. It's just all happening. And it couldn't happen if it wasn't for that life essence. Or what I call intelligence energy. The activity of knowing coursing through it.

That life essence which formed this pattern. Nine months in the womb. Formed it. From a couple of cells. Microscopic particles. You can't see with the naked eye. The sperm and the ovum. Can't see with the naked eye. Yet they were suffused with that intelligence. I use the term intelligence energy. But I don't use the term God. Because I think you can get confused with that term. I think we all have been confused with that term. When I'm talking about intelligence energy. I'm not talking about your intellect. I'm talking about intelligence. I'm saying look out there in nature. Take it. Leave from nature. The natural state.

As they point out. That's what we've got to find and understand. The natural state. As in nature. That's what it means. So look out there. And you'll see that galaxies are forming out there. Planets are moving around. Earth moving around the sun. Seasons coming and going. Tides coming in and out. All happening in an intelligent way. It's not willingly or accidentally. Seasons, tides and all those things. Winter, summer. All happening. In an intelligent way. And these bodies, trees, flowers and everything like that. Pattern, shape and form in an intelligent manner. And it's that innate intelligence. That's patterning, shaping, forming and everything. And what's energy? Any energy is an activity.

A movement. And look at this manifestation again. You see it's constantly transient. It's constantly changing. It's not static. What it's appearing. The space and the silence. The basis. The basis. It appears in. The static. But the manifestation and appearance. And that's all it is. Appearance. They call it Maya in Buddhism. A manifestation is Maya. It's illusion. And it's a phenomenal manifestation. Your dictionary definition of phenomena is that which appears to be. In other words, it's all appearing. It's all seemingly so. So it's all appearance. Including you. Me. And everything else in it. Look at that intelligence energy again. The activity of knowing. And doesn't that apply to you?

Anybody who is not knowing right now? That knowing is there. We call it a consciousness or awareness. You can even call it unknowing. But it's a knowing. There's an unknowing there. If you think there's such a thing. The activity of knowing. Intelligence energy. And that's happening all the time. And you can't get confused. There's all the labels you put on it. Poor me. That I do this and do that and do the other. Are you the body? Are you the mind? Innately, you already know you're not the body. Because don't you say my body? Don't you say my coat, my car, my shirt, my shoes?

And you know damn well when you're saying that you're not the coat, the car, the shoes or the shorts or whatever else. So maybe you're not my body either. And then you say also my mind. But if you think you're the mind, show me a thing called mind. What do you call mind? Can you put it in a parcel in the packet and say this is mind? All these thoughts, feelings and emotions. We'll try and grab a thought for a start off and see how solid and substantial that is. A feeling. You get sensation, a feeling which we label and all the rest of it.

But there's no substance to any of these things when you look into them closely. No solidity whatsoever. They're all patterns, shapes and forms. So when I say I can't teach you anything, I can't tell you anything. How can one pattern tell another or one shape and form tell another shape and form? You've got that mirror at the end of the room, have a look at it. You can't say it's not there. What do you see in it? You'll see, you'll realise you see reflections in it. You can't say they're not there. But you go up the mirror and try and pull a reflection out of the mirror.

You can't say they are there. You can't say they are there. You can't say they are there. And could they be there if that reflecting surface for it to appear on wasn't there? There couldn't be any reflection whatsoever. There's no reflecting surface for it to appear on. So it's only seemingly so. It's a poor analogy because the mirror needs something outside itself to reflect in it. But this that we talk to, there's nothing outside of itself. It's all contained in that space like silence, stillness and emptiness. It's all pattern, shapes and forms. It's all pattern, shapes and forms. It's all pattern, shapes and forms. It's all the content of space, emptiness.

Any sound that didn't come out of silence or didn't disappear back into silence. You can't get away from that. And that's not two things, emptiness and silence or stillness and silence or whatever. It's the one thing, different aspects of it. Just like steam, water and ice are different aspects of H2O. And pattern, shape and form. And all this diversity and all this variety. Pattern, shaping and forming. Expressing in all this variety of manifestation. And the Buddha told you that a couple of thousand years ago and he said that emptiness is form. That space-like emptiness is form. And he said the form can be nothing other than the emptiness.

Everything, all the forms that appear in that emptiness are nothing other than the emptiness. It still hasn't changed its true nature. So there's no separation in it whatsoever. Why we remain in the idea of becoming, which is not being, or getting or retaining something, when you were never separate in the first place. Then you might understand why you might have been searching for 10, 20, 30 years doing all sorts of meditations and activities and things like that. Trying hard, reading this and looking at that. Why you haven't got there? Because you can't. You can't add anything to what you already are. It is the great perfection, as I say in Bennett.

Or it's the absolute, as I could ever and ever say. What can you add to the absolute? Not one minute particle whatsoever. What can you take away from it? If you added something to it and took something away from it, it wouldn't be absolute. The same with the great perfection. If you added something to perfection, it wouldn't be perfect. If you took something away from it, it wouldn't be perfect. And when we say start from the fact that you are already that, you haven't got all that garbage that we've carried around with us, trying to knock out the conditioning and the thoughts and feelings and everything we've carried around for years.

Trying to knock them off and then we'll start really looking. If you start from the fact that you are already that, you've always and ever been that. You haven't been anything else, never have, never would be, never could be. Then what needs to happen? What will happen? All there will be are discarding, a dropping of the false. And that's why we say the false cannot stand up to investigation. Anything that's false, when you really investigate and look into it, it'll fall away because it's not the truth. Then what are you left with? The false is gone, you must be left with the truth. And that's another scriptural saying, they say know the truth, the truth will set you free.

What are you free from? The bondage of self, if you like to call it that. The cage of concepts. You've got a cage of concepts where we've enclosed ourselves in. We've closed ourselves in. Put a bird in the cage, I mean when you're 10 or 15 years and you open the door, he's not going to fly out for a day or two, or he'll make a tour and he might come across the door and realise there's an opening there which he hadn't lost sight of over the years and forgot and didn't think there was one there. But the door of the cage is in the cage itself.

So you've got to recognise this, all these concepts, trying to get rid of a concept where the concept won't work either. And you need to investigate the concept. You need to investigate the concept. Investigate along these lines and see for yourself. I ask to look and see, you believe you are the separate entity, this person, see how it functions. You've got this concept that I'm a person. Where does the word person come from? Persona, the mask, our lettings, meaning we've got this mask of concepts which we've encaged ourselves in. So what happens? When we learn words at about the age of two, two and a half somewhere, parents fussing around us, telling us words, what do we do with a word?

And the parents tell us, you're little Johnny, you're little Billy, you're so and so, you're this, that and the other. Instead of investigating, well we don't know how to investigate then, I probably don't think of it, we take it on. I'm Bob, an Australian, I'm a good fella, I'm not so good of an unhappy, I've had a bad childhood. All the things about the past are added onto that conceptual image I've formed around myself. Energy of belief goes into it, day in, day out, not only reinforced by myself, by my school, society, but by the world around me. Society and nation, everybody's reinforcing it. All around us and we think it's very solid.

I am this person, I am this entity. Me, Bob, the Australian, the good fella. That's the image I've got about myself. And that's what we call a reference point, the self-centre or the ego. And you're told in all the scriptures and all the others that ego is your problem. You've got to be rid of this ego. Kill it, jump on it, stamp on it. And it's only the very few scriptures, when you look at them closely, that'll tell you that it's a fiction. There never was such a thing. It's a conceptual image we've taken on and believed in that there's no such thing as an ego.

And when we see that everything is relative to this ego, we're related to this conceptual image we've got of ourself and relationship, relativity, is dualism. There's absolutely no duality in non-duality. And we've got this dualistic belief that everything is all... that seemingly appears in a dualistic manner. Look at your thoughts, thinking. It's always vibrating duality. It's either good or bad, pleasant, painful, happy, sad, loving, hating, positive, negative. See if you can think any other way. You're not relating it to something. So if something comes up, and I've got this conceptual image that I relate to, something comes up and I like it, how do you know?

Well, I've had this experience before, it's great. Then we want to keep the things we like. We don't want them to go. We want to be in the liking all the time. Not realising it's a vibration. The moving pattern of energy is going to change. It's always going to change and vibrate in the pairs of opposites, the appearance, the manifestation. We don't want it to change. So what do we do? We resist it. We try to keep it there by resisting it, fighting it. And don't you realise that resistance, any resistance you are in, you're in conflict. And doesn't the conflict make you uneasy, depressed, guilty, fearful, jealous, envy, all these psychological problems come up?

Because of that conflict that goes on? Another word for that uneasiness is disease. So resistance, conflict and disease. That's our life. What happens the other way? Something comes up and I don't like it. Well, I'm not going to hang on to this one. I want to get rid of it. Try to force it out. In other words, try to hang on to it, no matter how much you hang on to it, or try to. Being transient, it's going to change. It's going to move on. And see that in yourself. You mightn't realise it, but you haven't got the same body you walked in this room with.

There are cells dying in it right now, not one or two, but thousands of them, and being replaced. It's not the same body you had five years ago, or ten years ago, or last week. So it's transient, like everything else. But we think there is a seemingly static point in the image. That static point is the reality that hasn't changed. But we put the label, me, on it, and think that I am that changeless reality. Well, the true I is. But not the personal I. The conceptual image we put upon it. I is just a vibration. Actually, the om vibration. It's an I. Not a personal I.

So something comes up that I don't like. So I don't want this one. So again, what do I do? Trying to get rid of it. I resist it again. Instead of resisting it when it's there, trying to keep it there, now the resistance is happening in the opposite way. Again, conflict and disease. So you see where all your psychological suffering comes from. The psychological suffering goes on because of this constant fight that's going on within us. I like it, I don't like it, I'm fearful, anxious. All happening related to this believed in me, the conceptual image. So wouldn't it be imperative that we have a look and see if this image, this conceptual image we've got, me, is true or not?

Well, how would you do then? Well, I'd say look at it this way. Everybody is seeing right now and everybody is hearing right now. Isn't that a fact? It's a fact, isn't it? You're seeing right now and you're hearing. When you opened your eyes this morning, did you say, now I'm going to start seeing? Now I'm going to start hearing? You didn't. The seeing was there immediately. You didn't have to say, I'm going to start seeing. Hearing was there. If somebody called you loudly in deep sleep, you'd have heard it, woken up. So it's not far away, that seeing and hearing. But we think that seeing has changed.

But when you look into it and investigate, you'll see. It's the same seeing you had yesterday, last week, last year, and as far back as you can remember. It's the same seeing. It doesn't change. But the content has changed. And the content has constantly changed, just like in this manifestation. The same thing is applying. The space hasn't changed, which it's all appearing in, but the content is constantly changing. So you're seeing through the eye and you're hearing through the ear. But does your eye say, I see? Well, we say I see. No, no. It says your eye tell you I see. My eye doesn't say, look at this, Bob, look at that.

That's good and that's bad. My eye can't say anything at all. But it is the instrument at which the seeing is happening. And that instrument is translated by the thought I see. And the thought I see is not a pure thought anymore. Remember, it's me, Bob, the Australian, in the conceptual image that now thinks it's seeing. A conceptual image is based on past events and experience. A dead image is that. And that's what you are when you relate with me. We're relating with the dead image all the time. And things that were in the past are dead. That's why we can't keep up with life.

And that's why we're constantly suffering. Because life leaves us behind. It's constantly transient. It's changing. So I relate to this dead image. I like it. And the things we don't like, we resist. And we resist the good from going away. And that resistance brings about the fear, the anxiety, the stress, the guilt, the shame, remorse and unhappiness. All come about because of that resistance relating to the me. If it doesn't fit the me, we resist it. Instead of leaving everything as it is, which they tell us and switch us, leave things as is. What is means unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. We don't have to try to alter them, modify them, correct them.

Because they change themselves. Realise, have you got the same thoughts right now as what you had yesterday? You realise that every thought you have will be fresh and new. It might be regurgitated to an old memory or pattern or something like that. But it's still a fresh and new thought, each one. So the seeing and the hearing are happening. Thought comes up, I see and I hear. And what are we relating to? Because we believe it's this conceptual image. We think it's me, Bob, the Australian. Seeing, hearing, tasting, tasting. Hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. But have a look at that. Can the thought I see actually see?

You're saying I see, but can that thought I see see? Close your eyes, look around the room and see what you can see with the thought. You can't see any of the things in the room with a thought when the eyes close. You can picture things in your mind, just be mental images. But the actual seeing, all you're seeing when the eyes close, is the darkness behind the lids. The same with the hearing. Put your hands over your ears and see what you can hear with a thought. The thought I hear is not your hearing. And you see that. The thought I see can't see.

The thought I hear can't hear. The thought I am aware can't be your awareness. Anybody unaware right now, and you realise you've been... If you're not unaware, you must be aware. And you realise you've been aware all through this. None of you have gone to sleep yet, I don't think. So that awareness is there. And the thought I choose can't choose. We think we choose our thoughts. We've taken on the belief I can choose my thoughts. We know what I'm going to do next. But if you could choose your thoughts, anybody choose to be unhappy, miserable, depressed, guilty, fearful, anxious, you realise, no, I don't choose that, and I don't want to.

Half the time, jealous or envious. And you don't want to. You don't want to be angry. So the thought I choose can't choose. So this thought up entity it's relating to, and believe it's so wonderful, hasn't got any power whatsoever, or any independent nature. It's not doing your breathing, your hearing, your tasting, touching, smelling, you know. That's all happening spontaneously, naturally, and effortlessly, by that same intelligence energy that's rolling the earth around the sun right now. It's imploding and exploding planets with stars out there. Bringing about tsunamis, volcanoes, and everything else. The seasons, the tides are coming out. It's breathing and beating hard. It's the same essence that's doing everything.

And if it's not separate, you must only and ever be that. So just don't mouth the words when you say, I am that in future. Take it for what it is, what it really means. I am that totality. I am that one essence. I don't have to put these concepts on it even, to name it so. There is nothing separate and apart from that which I am. That's what we point to and ask you to look at. And see for yourself, because nobody is ever going to give it to you. You've got all these different things and the things, you're going to go around, hitch on the head with a bunch of peacock feathers, or pressure between the eyes, or do this or do that.

You're going to get it. You can't get what you already are. If you can take the blinkers off, or break down the cage, and see the cages are fixed, and be, you are already that pure being. That's how they put it in Hinduism, Sat Chit Ananda, being, knowing, or loving to be. Or, awareness of being is bliss. Or, have an affectionate awareness of being. And have a look at that. It's a beautiful definition of consciousness here. Always arguing whether consciousness comes first, or awareness comes first. But consciousness means an existence. An existence. And you're all existing right now. Fully aware, that's the awareness. That it exists.

Anyone unaware of their existence right now, that's the consciousness, in which other things appear in pattern, shape and form. But that full awareness, that you exist, you can't negate. Try it and see. Got any questions? Any arguments or doubts about it? Not much use just sitting here without asking questions, investigating, or tell us what you've understood of it. There's different ways it can be expressed down through the ages, has been, and it's reality. But there's a lot of false ways too. You know, see it, question it, bring it out, you might say something that somebody else will resonate with and recognise. But there's not much use coming here if you don't want to hear anything or do anything, or just be inquired.

Yeah. You've just used a lot of words, and I've just read a lot of words in that book, and they seem to be pointing to something that's beyond words. He talks about, or uses the word desire, in the sense of, I think, stripping away, a desire to strip away the cage, as you put it. Where's action in this process? Like, I see that to sit in sight, he talks about you just sitting there, I think others talk about sitting in silence and watch, and just watch what is. But where, what I'm interested in, or like, where does action come in this? Like, I don't know if I just sit there, he talked, just have some food and have a shelter over my head.

I just believe the food would be accurate. Yeah, I suppose that's just to survive and not die, like for the physical body to maintain itself. But why did I come here today? Why am I going to do anything? Yeah, well, that's the, why does the earth roll around the sun? Why do the seasons come and go? You see, it's the same thing. What's breathing you right now? How did you come into existence with it? Did the sperm and the ovum come together? They didn't come together, and that cell doubled and redoubled, formed the little embryo which formed the body, which formed you right now, and the life essence that is in it.

It's an activity. That breath you just took, that's an action. You breathe in, what do you breathe? You breathe the chi, the prana, the life essence into you, and you breathe it out. And when they say, let the thoughts ride on the breath, that's another way. We don't, we hang on to the thoughts, we let the thoughts go. Every thought is fresh and new. And when you say, another way of putting your breathing in, you say, I inspire. People have inspiration. With thoughts and words coming in, and they respire or expire, breathe out. But most of them keep the thoughts there and hang on to them.

What happens if you let the thought ride on the breath and go out? The next thought will be fresh in you, the next activity will be in you. You won't be relating to the dead past all the time. There's no thought fixed in your head. We think it is. I can see the separateness from the body and the thought, but what is the mind? There's no such thing as mind. Show me a thing called mind. All mind is thinking. Now, thinking is conceptualising. But there's no such thing as mind, mind is just a concept. Concept's a mental construct. Can you give it any substance or any reality?

Is something solid, substantial? Mind, we call it my mind. Where? What? It's a part, it's a process. And indeed, to use the thought or the word to move, a pointer, like a word's a pointer to something that isn't beyond the word. Yes, you can utilise my thoughts. That's what they're there for, to be utilised. But we don't. Thoughts utilise us. Thoughts are very, you know, can be very useful. The thinking is that mind's not the, the so-called mind's not the enemy, if it's understood. So the so-called mind's not the enemy if it's understood. But didn't you just say that there's no such thing as the mind?

Yeah. That's the understanding. It's understood. Maybe you would like to sit here so I don't have to flick the camera. Please, just for the time being. And I'll get you to hold this one. Ah, so much easier. And we won't lose the words when we're off. So is that the same as what you said about the ego, that that's a false construct and that we spend our time trying to get rid of something that doesn't exist? Mm. And is it the same as what you mean about the mind as well? Like it's... Yeah, well, when you look into it, there's nothing, there's no creator, no creation, and no creature.

You and I are creatures, and all those things are creatures, creatures, but they're not so. They're all maya, as they say, manifestation. Phenomenal. Buddhists will tell you it's maya or an illusion, and it's a phenomenal manifestation. Your dictionary definition of phenomena is that you're a being that appears to be. It's only seemingly so. All this, like the reflections in the mirror, they're appearing on the mirror, aren't they? You can't say they're not there, they can't say they are there. Investigate them, go up and grab them. What do you grab? Just grab the mirror. So when you break this down and see for yourself, what do you do?

You just grab that empty space. Mm. But then that's where that, for me, what comes up is, where does, if I'm sitting in this space, like in sitting practice, in meditation, just watching whatever unfolds, why do I get up out of the chair? Like, why do I even do anything? Well, it makes you do it, doesn't it? Why not? What makes me do it? The life itself. If you were a record. Is it not just a tiny little subtle thought that goes, okay, I want to stop and I want to eat now, or I want to go for a walk, or... It might come up as a thought, it might not.

You might spontaneously jump up. If I dropped a snake at your feet right now, would you say, that's a snake? You'd up and off. Spontaneous. In that book he talks, like, you die before, I don't know if you've heard that before, you die before you die. Yeah. Die to the sense of self. That's what St Francis told you in his prayer, you know, make me in this peace, where there's hatred, let me say love, blah, blah, blah. And he goes down to reach the moment, he says, it's only by dying I can have eternal life. He wasn't talking about carcinets physically. He was talking about dying to that sense of self.

And then that is eternal life because you're out of time. See, eternity is not billion light years away, just kind of, that had a beginning, it'll have a finish. Eternity is right in this moment. It's now. When does this moment begin? You can't even say it's beginning. As I was saying, it's beginning, it's ending. It's forever now. Spontaneous, yeah. Can I just, just on that point though, I could, I know it's not me, but I could decide to do this, this, this, or this, A, B, or C, and I might be confused about which way to go. So at that point I'm still, whether it's inspiration or not, like I'm still, you know, can make a decision to do one or the other.

Yeah. Now whichever one you do, you might think you've done the wrong one. You go a little bit later, you say it worked out exactly as it should anyway. Yeah, okay. So it's more just going with the one that feels more inspired or... Well you take notice what they call the still small voice, you know, the voice behind you saying this is the way, walk into it with your turn to the left or with your turn... Yes. Intuition. Yes. He could use the word feel. Which? He used the word feel. Feel? He goes, oh, I just, I'll choose the one that feels, did you write that, that feels right.

Not to be critical, but just to drill right in. No, no. He could write down like that word feel, like where does that, use the word intuition, what does that even mean? Yeah, what does it say? What does any word mean? Yeah, yeah. But it does, it happens. Happening is happening. But what's the word mean? What does that mean either? When you think you're doing it personally. And then I read that, like it's a brilliant book of the questioning and answers and the questions that come up to it. And one of the persons that came and visited him said, there you are smoking. Yeah. And that just struck me as like, so a word, realized man, or like he talks about, oh, all you need is something to eat, a little bit of shelter, warmth, and he's smoking.

Why is he smoking? Why not? He's not doing it. Yeah, but that's what he, but he says to the person, he doesn't answer that. He just says, who do you see that's smoking? But my question is like, why would a realized man have a habit? Why would he need anything? Yeah. Why animals have habits? See, the birds are singing. They are not, you know, they realize they don't have ego. So they didn't really, they didn't have to be realized because they didn't forget who they are. They just life expressing. And they have habits. They have habits of hunting. Otherwise they would die of starvation. And people also, like Nisargadatta doesn't have the habit.

The body has. This is the conditioning of the body. The whole universe contributed to that set of patterns. And there is no one there to break it. There is no one there who have the concept that this is wrong. Because society told me that this is wrong. So I should obey the... Yeah, but would you think, like, if we're talking about intelligence, I like the, you said, I can't remember the word you said. Focalizing intelligence. Focalizing intelligence. What's that? Focalizing intelligence. Yeah, like, would you feel that through an awakening that you just have like habit? I used to smoke, you know, and I dropped that habit through, I don't know, lots of different reasons, but I would have felt that somebody like him would have just sort of like, it would have just naturally dropped away.

So it really struck me because all these words that get spoken about, like action for me is quite interesting because, there's something beyond words, you know. Why did you take on the ego in the first place? Why did it enter yours? Well, that word, I can't, I don't even know what that word is to me. I've never liked that word. Well, the person, the idea you're a person. It's separate, isn't it? An individual. Thoughts. Just the way the patterning goes, isn't it? Because he doesn't care, he gets asked many times, he doesn't care whether he dies or lives, like, physically. So maybe the smoking is, I just, it's, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very, It's, it's, I just, it just strikes me as something that is contradictory.

Well probably when he took on smoking it wasn't a bad thing. Yeah. Everybody was smoking. Yeah, back in that day it was, yeah. Got the habit, was, can be hard to break the habit. Who knows. He also answered a few times that he leaves the body to look after itself. He doesn't really care what the body is doing. He doesn't intervene in digestion, he doesn't intervene in habits. Because the way he was conditioned, the way that pattern who are more naturally conditioned to be mindful about the body will do something about the habit like you or bob or myself and many others he just simply didn't really have that conditioning no no he died of lung cancer and i think he said he said he said oh when he got diagnosed he said oh great or something like that so he's he's watching the body and the world as a something on a screen it's just yeah and because that wasn't his body if it was the idea that this is my body and i was given that body to look after it which many spiritual paths are suggesting that this is the temple without the body wouldn't see here as truth in it but because questions of doership see why do we go off on a tangent like that why when it's not about who cares about anybody else but yourself why are you bound in the self-centeredness because he just as he said he's just a mouthpiece for which the truth comes through if you want to listen to it again and i think that's actually a wonderful thing that uh thanks for not quitting smoking i mean he didn't have any saying because he wasn't a doer but it actually takes off the idea that many people have that once you see through the illusion of the self the consciousness is seeing through illusion of the self you naturally right away become holy and superior morally clean and good suddenly the whole conditioning of the life will disappear and vanish and something new that society dictated as holy or saint will appear in place that's nonsense that's totally unreasonable to think so having a person seeing that the ego is a fiction and having that having a habits of getting a little bit more of a sense of getting irritable or angry or liking this type of meal or this type of music it doesn't really do anything so that's why when bob says you are already that you don't have to quit smoking to become that you don't have to become holy to to be that you don't have to be morally superior you may have the tendency to hurt people less when you are happy and you're not hurting because usually hurt people hurt people yeah i suppose that's a worldly yeah thing but maybe going to the do it from the right doership what we you spoke about like why eat or why you don't do it take a tobacco so he's that disconnected that it's almost automatic yeah he isn't even disconnected he's not there just look how disconnected these cats who are walking around are when they're hungry they go and eat they don't have thoughts although there was an experiment and science is not really reliable because that's a part of the dream but it's a good illustration the famous libret experiment proving that any decision taking process takes place about 0.7 of a second after the action has been decided on the neuro biological level in the brain which means that if you decide to do something it already body is already doing it and the thought the commentary catches up later and say oh i decided yeah i work in that area like depending on what you experience definitely the more primitive parts of the brain are faster than the neural networks in the cortex um i think it's more suffering comes from personal volition like at the moment you're having a judgment on the sagada which is causing you mental questions yeah a judgment you could call it you could call it a judgment it's it's it's another thing that points to something in me that you know like why i can do that on anything it's like once the mind divides it's like that thing of um the hinting me you know heaven and earth infinitely apart once i start that process of division from the oneness like judging anything so you know make not what is it bob do you remember make the slightest distinction and heaven and earth would sit infinitely apart that's like the birth of my suffering when i do that so i guess i was led here because i thought i had an anxiety disorder and i wanted to reduce my suffering and um i used to smoke and bob said you know i've got nothing to give you there's nothing to get because what you're seeking you already are and he said you know you can come here once and go away and i'm back here because uh someone said he hadn't seen you for a while and um look i just i can drop into that space and that's where I want to be it's like happiness what do you call it or the oneness or start from the fact that you're already there is my starting point so it's more like the investigation if I start drifting towards suffering I know even Bob goes oh that's just a concept to himself or not that you know when I came here Judith used to repeatedly go not that thought not now not that thought not now you know like just anything to just not go down that kind of rabbit hole of thinking which is the birth of my suffering because that thinking centered around me and the world relative to me when I start thinking like that you read I am that you read his other stuff in those he says abide as awareness that's what he's pointing to that you are this awareness so you're aware of doing aware of everything actually just stay there we always take ourselves to be a body because it's very subtle and not so subtle it's you take it to be really even though we may say I don't believe it or I'm not the body you can mouth it but yeah you said aware of doing yeah so you what about you caught on doing you think you're the doer but who's aware of doing awareness is aware of doing okay awareness is aware of doing but if what he's doing happening about your appearance but doing seeing hearing tasting touching stilling always an activity moving of energy we split up into I see I see this and I say that you split that there formed a subject when you file ice a and what you're saying this all that has become the objects so you divided the same the subject object or the thinking into think I'm in thought and feeling in to the field them felt but can they be it's there without a thought can I be a seeer without a thought seeing.

Yeah, it's like that. I was reading Krishna Dasi is talking about the observer, you're not the observer, or you're not the observer or the observed. So that just leaves observe. Observing. And that's what's happening right now. You're observing, you know it or not. Seeing without observing memory and stories. And see how everything, every action, every thought happens and the agency is completely redundant. You don't actually need to have anyone that is doing it. But once you start, like Megan says, you start from the fact that you are already that and see how it is true. So you are already that knowing awareness and in you, in that space of knowing awareness, the body is doing actions.

You're not doing it, you're knowing it. And the body is looking after itself as breathing. You don't do the breathing, the body does it. You don't do the seeing, the body does it. So you are the knowing awareness and you and everything else that you are conscious of is the content of that knowing awareness. And see how even if it feels like okay, but I have decided to get up. That's the commentary that happened 0.7 seconds after the body has already done what it is supposed to do or what the impulse that got and it is in constant interaction with the environment is completely not separated from it.

The action, the impulse to get up may come from somebody's suggestion or may come from the temperature rising or falling or may come from toilet calling it is completely in contact just like you are exchanging the air with the with the environment and you are exchanging the matter by eating food and you are exchanging water and everything is just the content and you are the space in which it happens. You happen to identify with the body because being that space this is your window to look. So you're using that body to have the camera and to look at the space so it feels like okay but I'm here you everywhere but here is your viewpoint because here are your eyes there may be less vigorousness or you know maybe different and then maybe some crap dropped there may be some stuff still there some crap not dropped because that pattern just doesn't have any interest in pursuing that you know what life doesn't unravel in that way it's the distance between heaven and earth measured in yards or in metres but I get what you're saying about like probably assessments a better word than judgment because sometimes assessment goes on sometimes this assessment answer does a little useful to drop that assessment oh okay yeah that makes sense forget that and it's less busyness sometimes assessment like you said is a great pointer it points to oh okay that's what it's like to have nothing going on and sometimes assessment is just something that is busily happening in the head and it's something oh heaven assess me okay i can do about it and also smart thing to do is that if that happens it's actually good to contemplate about you know it's nothing wrong this is what life does so contemplating about Nisargadatta and about his habits and about non doer ship here and there it's It's a good pointer, it may be utilised, but always coming back to what is actually happening physically.

It's a very good habit to have, because where is Nisargadatta right now? In the head, as a thought, as the memory. He doesn't exist, he's not in the immediacy. So it's good to contemplate, nothing wrong, but remembering that now I'm engaging in the mental processes to the exclusion of the immediacy of seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. Because the moment you actually invest in being here, the thought is not going to shake you that much. So in the case of Nisargadatta, when you are really grounded in the reality of now, that's how the intelligence was expressing itself, through the smoker, through the chain smoker, killing himself of cancer.

But there is no judgement about it, because this is the one and the same intelligence expressing as the dog by barking, as the cat by meowing. And there is nothing wrong in barking, or meowing, or smoking. I think that's that. I've bought lots of books and sought lots of teachers, but that was the last book I bought. And it took me a long time to buy that book, because when I came and saw you, I just felt like I'm sick of getting more information. But then the nature of some parts of how I am, I will really get into it. And when I read that, I think that just shakes me.

But what I ended up resorting to is, I don't really care what anybody says, I want to be heard. I want to practice. Ah, there you go. And find out for myself. That's it. Yes, that's the attitude. That's a simple thing. But obviously things come up along the journey. Mmm. That, yeah. Yeah, they come up. Life does it. I want to find out for myself. I don't care what anybody says. That's the attitude. That's, yeah. So, while there's a belief in a subjective me, what we tend to do is look objectively. We try and find the answer, out there. Or we try and find the answer, in the mind, which is also objective.

Because you can be aware of it. You can be aware of what's going on. So whilst we're operating from that sense of me-ness, is that we believe that there's a doer there. Choosing to do this or choosing to do that, or whatever the case may be. But the point is, we always look for the answer, objectively, when we're operating from that sense of me. Without, any, without even inquiring, as to whether or not, there is, actually, a me. Like, really, it's a 180 degree turn. It's a complete 180 degree turn, to what we're used to doing. And what we're conditioned to do. And what all human beings are conditioned to do.

We look for the answer, outside of ourselves, or, at something. And even thoughts, or the so-called mind, is at something. We never once pause, to consider what the subject is. We assume, the subject is the me. And what we're invited to do here, is to literally go looking for it. Literally, go looking for it. Instead of, trying to find the answer, out there or in a book or, or even here in this room, hearing people talk. All that gets communicated here, is a point of, is a pointer, to go looking for yourself. Which is exactly what you just said. You wanna know. Right. So, if you can, if you actually understand, that the me, operates in duality.

Which means, there's a, a, a notion, of a subject, and an object. And you're taking the me, to be the subject. That needs, literally, it's gotta be more interesting, the subject, instead of the objective. Is there really a me here? And the saga data says it, Bob says it, there's lots of teachers, out there, that say, the me's doesn't exist. It's a complete fabrication, it's a complete illusion. It's not actually, a thing. It's not, there's nothing, there's, yeah, there's nothing solid about it. But until we go looking, for ourselves, to discover that, we're just gonna continue to operate like, a, yep, there's a me here, and I'm gonna keep looking for the answers, in books, or in talks, or in my head, or I'll try and work it out in my head, without, pausing.

Like, literally just, you know, in my experience, I got so tired, of looking for the answer, out there. So I was, I was smashed. Because I just kept looking, looking, looking, looking, looking, for years. And I mean, decades. Looking, looking, looking. And I just, in the end, and it doesn't have to be this way, but this is how it was for me. I was just, exhausted. Absolutely, smashed. You know, and I just kept coming up with, I got to a point, where, I didn't wanna listen to anybody. I've heard it all. I believed, there isn't anything, that I could do, that I could do, that I could do, that you can do, that I could do.

But there wasn't anything, any teacher, or any book, could say to me, that I hadn't already looked at, and considered. However, I still felt, like me was here. Still felt like me, was here. And it wasn't until, all that, that the seeker, the investigating, stopped. It just completely, and it was, you know, ridiculous, . That's one of the moments of it. Yeah. Like moments of, that, that, I resonate really strongly with what you said when you just stop seeking and then there's words that point to bliss that's a beautiful carrot you're right, it leads to desire but he talks about there is somewhat a needing of desire to push you to that point like you're talking about to look inside and that probably needs to be dropped but even that desire that comes up of itself too there's no me here that has a desire there's just a movement I'm getting out of the way of what already is there's literally just a movement of energy can you say that a movement of energy that's as close as I can get to it verbally but at some point you've got to stop like literally you've got to stop and turn around and I think that's why for me that stopping brings up certain questions around action because when you stop okay I've stopped I'm watching what do I do now look for the me look for the me look for the questioner the one who actually has the questions the one who has doubts because that's the one who that's the conceptual image because see when they say that there is no me and people feel that I'm still here I'm still present like I had this conversation I think she's with us today a friend from America who was speaking to her husband and she asking him investigation questions somebody saying that can you find the me who has the desire or can you find the me that is actually here now and he looked within and he honestly says yes and she says bullshit there is no me everybody says there is no me how can you say yes and I say darling the guy is honest he doesn't want to please you he actually looked within and he found that he exists there is a sense of presence like Bob says consciousness aware of its own existence there is existence there is a sense of presence there is no point denying it if I say there is no me I don't mean that there is no me there is no sense of presence the sense of presence never goes away it's always there it's undeniable and that's the only thing that is real but the me we usually put the border on it the me is within my skin or it's a little bit outside if I believe in aura or other stuff but the me is here but not there the me has limitations and how do we know about these limitations because we were told we were given a name we were we look at the mirror we we look at all of this see we've got so this it 45 but if if if it if we that that if it works isn't it?

we don't know seeing right now and the hearing. The presence is the whole space, filtered space of seeing, hearing, tasting, not just the body. But usually when the question comes up, it is about me. Like in my case, this whole spiritual search was to find the enlightenment of freedom from the suffering for me. I didn't care if anybody, yeah, of course, part of the search was to help others. Why? Because then they will recognize me. I will be the bodhisattva. I will be the wonderful one who is enlightening everyone else. So it was always about that central point that was distinguished, sharply different from everything else.

So who is that one who wants to know the answers to the questions? Who is that one who wants to wake up from suffering? Who is that one who wants to serve or help others? Because if there is someone separate from the others, there is the one that wants to help others. There is the one that wants to help others. There is the one that needs to be looked at. And maybe you will see it that this is just a thought. And when you don't think that thought, that entity is gone. When we first get exposed to this, this teaching, non-duality, we spend a long time, I did, we spend a long time coming to understand what we're not.

A long time. I think that's what I take out of the whole book. Yeah, so. Because he points to that. All we can talk about is what we're not, what we are. We can't talk about what we are. Right. So that's what happens. We spend a long time doing that. Yeah? Until eventually we've got that sust. I know what I'm not. Like, I know what I'm not, but I'm still here. What the fuck? Now what? Like really? Now what? Like where do I go? What do I do? And I knew that there was, you know, I couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't do any, you know, so you, oh.

Yeah. So you spend a long time investing in what you're not until eventually the real seeking starts or the real looking starts. Watching. Mm. That's when that, that's, that's really, you know, when you, you'll go seeking for the me when you've exhausted it intellectually. I'm not that, I'm not that, I'm not, or this, this, this, this. Yeah? When that gets absolutely exhausted and me still feels like it's sitting here, you'll go looking. Yeah. And what I discovered was that what seemed to, um, give me the illusion that me was here and substantial and solid was because the last thing in my experience, I don't know for anyone else, but in my experience, absolute last thing that the me was hanging onto was the sense of presence.

Hijacks it. It says it's my sense of presence. Yeah. And the sense of presence is real. Everything else, everything else that the me has claimed ownership of and hung onto, total illusion, complete fabrication. But right at that very, very end, the last thing was, that's what I discovered, the last thing was hanging onto that sense of presence. That's why it feels substantial. That's why it feels real. It identifies with the sense of presence and says, that's mine. Yeah. It's my seeing, it's my hearing, it's my tasting, touching, smelling, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we believe we, we come from the standpoint that I comes first.

Then there's presence and then there's awareness. It's the complete reverse. So absolute, complete reverse. But you don't know that until you actually look. What to do? I, I think from, from the book I am reading, I'm going to read it to you. Mm-hm. the book I am that he talks about earningly helpful so it's like the earnestness of my investigation that's really where to direct any energy to it's am I earned you know what I mean like if I feel there's something to do or have a bit of a look you know have a look oh that's just rubbish you know that's not there's no me you know Bob said that or you know that's more where I direct the energy and you seem already have it you seem to have it I mean what Nisargadatta and you call earnestness for me in my language when I was first seeking it was called devotion it was basically that love for the truth that actually propel you to do anything at the put you at the point when you are ready to die for it like my gosh I'm so thirsty of finding out of the truth that I'd do anything at all so now they tell you to look and sure tell you to sit in a meditation torture I'll sit I won't move so if that desire you know if you're in a meditation and you're in a meditation and you're in a meditation and you're in a meditation and you're in a meditation and you're in a meditation and you're in a meditation the heart-desire or that heart desire that longing wakes up that's the great guide because that's old already that's not the individual longing for its dissolution does not individual longing to disappear and die or or or appear unreal that's the consciousness that's the heart waking up and wanting to return home that it never left that only dreamt it left it only dreamt that it was something separate or different because it can't possibly be anything else at totality but doesn't know it vaguely remembers because the veil of conceptual thinking of believing in that world is so thick that it only kind of shows us a glimpse yeah whenever there's stuff going on you know that never left comes up and you go there it is never left yeah that's the second discover once you discover actually that that you are not the doer you realize that you have never ever been one and then and then you realize that nobody else have ever been a doer so there's no point to compete with anyone to blame anyone to feel guilty about anything it's just pure yeah yeah and I'm just not somewhere else so the certain comfort you said going to I that was the point of the work verse to me so somebody said put on that is if you're already that so to me that was like okay and to me the head just comes back you know every second in and out in and out sometimes that can be observed so 99-90 there is still an eye bubble but I need that is pure and it just comes and Maybe hundreds of times a day, maybe twice in five hours.

But because it's so in and out, and a lot of it's observed here, there's not a disbelief or there's not even adoption of any kind of beliefs about this. It's just, there's a certain aspect of me, like free will means nothing to me, and I don't think it ever really has. Goals haven't ever meant anything to me. And I think it's just because whenever anyone talks about anything, I just see such an expanse of the unknown, so that this little mechanism can't see, like the tiny tips of the icebergs have taken, this is immoral, and it's just a few tips that's come up here, and there's a few different tips that come up over there.

And yet there's an entire iceberg, and how can people see that? And it's just utterly so full of stuff we don't even know. How the heck are we driving that? It's just utterly meaningless to me. Free will is utterly meaningless to me. So generally for people, that's their last thing to go. For me, it's like, I can't remember where it was. It was there. But a ton of defense mechanism of some other kind of psychological stuff is just always coming in and in and in, and then sometimes there'll be discomfort, like, oh, damn, is that still happening? I don't like it. It feels uncomfortable. You know, that sort of thing.

And for me, what was helpful recently was, Ken Wilber's done a Buddha at the Gas Pump, where he says back in the day, Brian thought, enlightenment, that clears away all the psychology, it clears away all of the blocks, and even like limited, world views. But now they sort of have adopted, you know, they have a sort of theory of waking up, which is no-thing moments, or abided ones, long ones, like a bunch of people in this room had. There's growing up, which is the blocks dropping, the psychological stuff just going. So for me, that stops the stuff coming in. There's more space, more back to the space.

And then there's, sorry, there's cleaning up, and then there's growing up, which is just world, look at Spirited. There's a lot of dynamics for that. It's just worlds, world views get bigger and bigger and bigger, and people can see a little bit further than the other person. But someone might wake up, and their world view is red bottom of the head. So, you know, they go back to little me, and they're just like aggressive. And people are getting very confused about these, you know, awake people. Really, they're having awake chunks. And you know, other times where there are reactions happening in the manifestation. So that just helps, it's too less in the head, it is a bit more clear, and then you can just get, oh, that's it.

You just get on with, you know, seeing what's there when the space is disappearing. Bob. Bob, how did you see through the separate self? How did you see through the idea of a separate self? You go back into memory and try to recall. Back in memory? Mm-hmm. I say I have to. It was a long time ago now. Yeah. Certainly hasn't come back again, this was your... I don't know how it happened. Well, I heard what he was saying, Well, I heard what he was saying, something resonated with him, and he was saying it wasn't the body, it wasn't the mind, I thought it was there, you know.

And I said, I'll never be caught in the mind again, but I was five minutes later, you know. But it wasn't the same. Once you see something as false, it can't capture you in the same extent it did. So, and each time that it come up, well, hang on, you saw through this, have another look, you'd look again to see if there was anything you couldn't find. So it's like walking through that door and being hit. Mm-hmm. And you forget yourself. But the thing was, all the discipline I was doing, it all dropped off. Though it wasn't anything, well, I don't have to do this now to hell with it, you know.

I had nowhere else to stay, so I had to do it. I was doing it, but where it meant everything, it didn't mean anything to me. It was a sort of a limbo for a while, you know. What the... Didn't know what to do, what to be, where to go, or nothing to do, nothing to be, nothing to see, you know. But then things started happening. But the important aspect, Anna, I think this is what Megan highlighted when you were talking about the earnestness, it isn't really the ego that investigates and see through the illusion. So what can individual do to see through the illusion of the separate self?

Zilts, nothing. That's why the earnestness, and I call it devotion, or the longing of the heart, it is only always the consciousness that actually wakes up to the fact, that I'm not doing this. I'm doing this. I'm doing this. I'm doing this. I'm doing this. That is the fact that individual is a fiction. It's not the individual who says, Oh my God, I don't exist. Who says that? So it really comes from... It's almost like a miracle. It's a shift of consciousness. It's not... And I know you know it. I just speak to the room. I don't speak to you. Sorry, I... It's really about highlighting the fact that individual as such is not a doer.

It has no power. It has no free will. It has no control. It just happens to be a bundle of thoughts that was habitually believed to be real. but it can't do investigation. It's not the ego or the mind that does investigation. When Bob is inviting people to look deeper, to look for themselves or look within, he is basically speaking to the I am that I am, to the consciousness, to something that is beyond words. He is radiating, inviting frequency that are to open up that heart, wanting to see beyond the conceptual veil of thinking. So it is really heart to heart talk. And when that heart wakes up that longing, this is where the glimpses, the glimpses come in the gaps between the thoughts or in the gaps between the thinking.

Like Tony was saying, you know, things comes in and out, just the selfing bubble, you called it eye bubble. It comes up just like the sounds are coming up. Here the bird is singing now, oh quiet. The bird is singing again, quiet. Or the I thought comes, quiet. Another I thought, quiet. So it isn't really, it is the moment of quietness when there is a glimpse, there is a sun shining through the clouds. It's not the I thought doing anything about finding out its reality because the I thought is the one that is hiding it. The I thought is the cloud that is actually. I love the analogy of the railway station.

When you realize you're a railway station, you don't get on the trains that come in and out. No, that's a good one. You're just the railway station. And so you see the train, you see the trains going in and out, in and out, in and out, just like, you know, you see the clouds in the sky. So you realize you're the railway station and that's all you don't realize it. You cognize it that you're the railway station. And so when the trains come, the trains go, including the train that's called me train, you just see it. You just see it. Yeah. Right. And then the railway station goes, oh.

No, the railway doesn't. The railway station is non-conceptual. It doesn't have words. That's what I mean. It's just aha moment drops and the space is recognized. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I love that analogy. Yeah. So you just let the trains come and the trains go. And beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Really good. So anything that's happening is just spontaneous, like, like experiences, isn't it? Yeah. It's just, just nothing to do with you. Content. No, no, that's not me. Yeah. Nothing to do with the conception. But it feels like it's, I know there's no me, but energetically it feels like there's a path or a plan of some, oh, without having that.

A story. A story. We love them. If, if, yeah, but it, but it feels energetically that it's moving in a certain. Because we believe them. That's why it feels this way. Because we've always identified. We've always been. Yeah. Identified with the me that has a plan. No, but I'm not talking, no, it's, I realize there's no me, but it's more at a, the consciousness. Mm. Is heading in a, in a, in a direction. There's no, there's no me to wake up. There is absolutely no me that's going to wake up and get this, oh. But I think he's talking about the tendency or something. I realize, I'm like, I feel like I'm in awareness now.

Like there is no me there. Yeah. That's dropped away. Okay. So what's there? It's just awareness. Great. Mm. Sit there. And it doesn't move. Because what is moving is the tendency, the story, the weather is moving, clouds. But the awareness is still. It doesn't move. Okay. Do you want to say something, Bob? Hm? You want to say something? Did you want to say something? Well, nothing's ever happened. Yeah. Mm. That's right, mate. That's it. And could anything be observed or known without that awareness? No. So that's prior. Or primary. It's first. The railway station. Yeah. It's first. Still. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So even the, when you inquire, even the notion of who or what is it that's aware of these thoughts?

Yeah. Surely it's me that's aware of the thoughts. So even that thought that, oh, is there a plan? Like that's that. Yeah. That's the trap. That's the. That's the story. That's the story. When you're sitting there without thinking about it, you didn't have that feeling of action. No. So if you're the railway station, then the thoughts are there. Thoughts are the trains. Yes. Yes. Exactly. And experience. They're very subtle. Every thought. It feels like it's a spiritual type. Yes. Question. But it's still. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we're not compared against the past. It's like, oh, this must be an insight. Yeah. So it's the me trying to claim it.

That's its habit. That's its habit. But yeah. And when they really high and noble, that's the biggest danger. I'm growing up. I'm getting better. Yeah. I'm getting more spiritual. Yeah. More compassionate. More loving. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the tendencies, even like tendency, the body is aging. Yeah, it is. If you think about time and compare it to yesterday. But for the awareness, there is just stillness. Yeah. And all the past is happening in this moment. You actually create in your thinking the moment when you were younger and younger and younger. And you were born. They are all actually exists right in this moment because there is nothing else than this moment.

So the aging process is a story created right now. You wanted to say something, sorry. Oh, no, that's fine. I was just going to say, when Bob was saying . And he said, well, stay in that . . You know, like, when the person had that question, what do I do? But I was thinking when I came here and I was like still had that notion I need to . . And then it was like the last bastion was I needed to get this, you know, like that was still another trap. Like that was the final hook almost to overcome that I needed. You know, this feeling I'd come here and I'd get it and I'd leave this place and it'd be sucked out of me, you know.

But it was still me wanting to get something, thinking there was nirvana or a state of enlightenment. But once you see it, you're free from it. Now you can see that me wanting to become or gather or accumulate or whatever as a movement. Now you are the stillness, you are the space. And that me grasping, grabbing, wanting is just a movement. Just like every thought is a vibration of energy. Every form is vibrations a little bit faster, the atoms vibrating a little faster. So we kind of take them as a matter because of the equipment, the way it is set up. But it's all just a context.

It's a content, different vibrations of the sound, of the light, of the microwaves, other waves. And the stillness that I am is unmoving. It doesn't get anything, you can't add anything to it, you can't take away anything. It's just changing. You are the screen and the content is changing. And it's nothing wrong with falling in love with the content because the content is also who you are. It's totally you. Ultimately everything is one. The static aspect which is the screen or the space and the dynamic aspect which is a vibration or dance of forms is one. It's also me. So Nisargadatta says when I'm nothing this is wisdom.

I'm nothing, I'm space, I'm screen. When I'm everything this is love. I'm also a manifestation or expression of that nothing because everything else is also nothing. The vibrations are only illusion. They're only the flickering mirage. They're only the little rainbows. But they're also the expression of that stillness, that space. Emptiness is form. So falling in love with content is what Nisargadatta says when I understand everything is nothing and I am nothing then I am everything and I love it. That's when the joy of life comes in. When Tony, when you were saying that you observe things popping up in and out of existence. Pyramids pop in and out of existence a little bit longer than I thought.

Right. But they're still popping in and out of existence. In the ultimate scale of timelessness they pop out into and out of the existence of my awareness. Nisargadatta has visited the awareness today. But you know right now he may not be there. Things pop in and out of awareness, of attention. And that's just the flickering of the appearance. It's like when someone asks and you look. There's absolutely no memory ever of the planning of that. So. Yeah it's just never ever there. I've never ever had a memory of what caused that thing to pop up. And I've never ever come across a memory. A memory's never occurred when someone asked me to look of something causing something else.

It's just never ever showed up. And that's all I can say. Yeah. Yeah. And the dream character. When you're asleep at night, laying on the bed and you're dreaming and your character is in that dream. Okay. Could that dream character ever. Ever know what it's like to wake up from the dream? No. This is what's happening right now. Yeah. It's a dream character trying to work out what it is and it wants to wake up. Or it wants to name it. And it never can. It never can. Yeah. What wakes up? Wakes up from the dream character. And its habit is to name it and claim it.

Yeah. So that's how it works. Naming and claiming. It's like a clunky machine really. Good. It's stirred up some good stuff today. Yeah. Time's caught up with us. Oh does it? Oh did it? Yeah. Thanks Bob. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you everyone.