Sailor Bob - Non Duality - Where are you looking from? 27 Jan 19

Okay, so can we start with your names? Tony. Jay. Sebastian. Tess. Simon. Belinda. Emma. Matt. Mary. Terry. Mel. Tom. Mel. And Bob. And I'm cut. And I'm cut. I did. Same old, same old. We start with the same thing. Repeat it and repeat it until it resonates deeply and it's seen, understood and grasped and the recognition that you are already that. So we don't teach you anything here and we don't tell you anything. Understand that right from the start. And when you hear what we're talking about, you realize nobody can ever teach you anything and nobody can ever tell you anything. What we point to, and that's all we ever do, is point towards it.

You'll see it's the base of all the ancient traditions if you look at it all deeply enough. Hinduism, they call it Advaita. Advaita meaning non-duality. And they try to describe non-duality by saying it's one without a second. So it's all there and that. One without a second. Even the idea of one implies there could be other than one. So what they're pointing to is that there is nothing other than one. And that. So it's all there in that sentence. But how many people hear that a million times and pass it over? Buddhism, they'll tell you a similar thing. Using different terms, they'll say it's non-conceptual, ever-fresh presence awareness.

And they'll add on to that just this, nothing else. Again pointing out that is all there is. Anyone who is not aware of being present right now, well you must realize you are that. Other traditions of Christianity and all the rest of it, Christianity they talk about all the three things, Father, Son and Holy Ghost of all. Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience. Omnipresence means total presence. Omnipotence means total power. Not your power, mind power, thought power, higher power, or any other power, but that power which is functioning this universe manifestation. Rolling the earth around the sun, causing the seasons to come and going, the tides coming in and out.

Volcanoes, tsunamis and everything else that ever happened in this manifestation, including you and me. Hebrews say, Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God, there is none other. Again pointing out the Muslims will tell you there is no God but God, Allah is his name. Allah is the label we put on it. It's all the one thing. Going back to the Advaitin thing, another way they describe it, call it the five factors, Sat Chit Ananda, Nama Rupa are the five factors. Sat is existence, Chit is consciousness, Ananda is bliss or loving to be, and Nama Rupa is name and form. Again pointing out that we are, that's all we are, is these labels or names and forms.

Another way I put it is I'm not speaking to anybody. I'm not speaking to any mind. I'm speaking to the mind. I'm speaking to that I am that I am. To that sense of presence, which is expressing through the mind as the thought I am. How would you know yourself or even explain yourself if you didn't say I am? But that I am is not it. So we ask you to look along these lines and question them and see what we're pointing to, whether it resonates or not, because nobody can ever do it for you. Purely and simply because the things we call this body-mind, are you this body-mind?

Are you this person? And have a look at that word person. Where does the word person come from? Doesn't it come from persona, a Latin word, I think it was Latin word or something, meaning the mask? And that's what's happened. We've put this mask of concepts on ourselves and taking ourselves with this conceptual image. Not this mask. Take that Sat Chit Ananda. That is existence. Anybody who is not existing right now, you must realize, no, I'm existing. Anyone who is not conscious, you must realize, no, I'm conscious. Anyone who is unaware. You've got the concept of awareness, or right here, or consciousness and awareness, two concepts.

But are you? Can you explain consciousness to me or can you explain awareness to me? But is anyone unaware right now without putting any concept on over them? You realize, no, I'm not unaware, so you must be that. But the nama rupa, the body-mind, investigate that, the name and form. Because the Buddhist told you that, the Buddhist told you a couple of thousand years ago or more, that emptiness is form. And he called it a cognizing emptiness. An emptiness is a capacity of cognizing or knowing. And he made the statement, emptiness is form. And he turned it around the other way and said, the form can be nothing other than the emptiness.

Now all these patterns, shapes and forms that are in this room are actually the emptiness, the one intelligence energy, or god if you like to call it that, or whatever label you like to put on it. But no label will fit it. Because the word is not the thing. Take you out of this body-mind, well are you? Question, have a look. Are you the body? Innately, you already know you're not the body. Because don't you say, my body, don't you also say my coat, my car, my house, my shirt, this, my, that, my, the other? You know damn well you're not the house, the coat, or the car, or the shirt.

So maybe you're not the body either. Maybe that's just a label. What about my mind? People say my mind. Well show me your mind. What do you call mind? Can anybody show me a substantial, solid or static thing that says this is mind? When you investigate you realise there's no such thing as a static, solid thing there, apart from the thought. And the thought is not static or solid, the thought is here. And the mind is nothing but thought. And if, again you say my mind, knowing it's not the mind. So if you were that mind, and mind is the thought, which thought would it be?

The primary thought is that thought I am. Coming from the sound om. That's the primary thought. And if you were that thought, and believe you are, you'd be frightened of losing sight of it. Because if you were the thought, and that's all you were, the thought would be the end of you if you lost sight of that thought. Because you'd gladly give it up every night. Gladly give up thinking every night when you go to sleep. And you know it's not the end of you. So when you start to see these things in a different light, you realise there mightn't be this body-mind. What's this body made up of?

And you realise this body is made up of nothing but elements. Air, earth, fire, water, space. If you think you're separate, stop breathing. Stop taking in the air. See how long it would last if you separate yourself from that element. Air. Take the water out of your body. The body is 80% water. See how long it would last if you stopped drinking. Water. Take yourself. Take the water. Take the body heat out of you, the temperature. The body heat out of you. The fire. That's all the temperature is in the body, the fire. You soon get hypothermia and die without that body temperature. Get off the earth.

Separate yourself from the earth. You can't. Separate yourself from space. You can't separate yourself from those elements. And each and every one of those elements, when it's not vibrating into different patterns, shapes and forms, it's broken down into one essence. That's what happens. It seemingly breaks up into different pattern, shapes and forms, which is still only the one. You can't separate them. And the Mahavakya is, I am that. That is what you are. You're not the body. You're not the mind. You're not the this, that or the other. You are that essence. The one essence that's patterning, shaping, forming and expressing and experiencing as everything.

There is no thing that is not there. There is no thing that is not there. And when you look at this manifestation, you will see this manifestation is made up of things. Everything that is manifest is a thing. The chair, the carpet, the table, the trees, the flowers, the sky, the space, the earth, the ocean, everything are things. And all the things, there's none of the things you can take outside of that cognising emptiness, outside of the space. So everything is the content of space. Space is no thing. Can something come from no thing? It can't. So you see that you, me and everything else in this room are things, which, investigated, can come back to the no thing which everything is.

There is no thing that is real and can be separated as a self nature or a static entity. Everything is that. So doesn't I am that take on a different meaning? I am that means that I am the everything as well as the no thing. Neither one nor the other. Everything appears on that no thing. Silence, movement, stillness, all the rest of it appear in that no thing. And disappear back into it. I've got a mirror in the back of the room now, have a look at that mirror. And what do you see in it? You'll see reflections in it. Now you can't say they're not there.

But go up into that mirror and try and pull a reflection out of the mirror. You can't say they are there. There's nothing there. But it appears to be so. It appears to be reflecting on a reflecting surface. But of themselves, none of those, a mirror is a poor analogy because a mirror needs something outside itself to reflect in it. But in this manifestation there is nothing outside of the emptiness and silence and stillness. What can you postulate to be outside of space? What could you think of outside of space? What would it be in? It would have to be in the no thing, the space or something.

So when you see the satchitananda, it's existence, consciousness, bliss, nama, rupa, name and form. You see that name and form, nama, rupa, the name and form, are appearances only. Like the reflections in the mirror are appearances in the mirror. Appearances. You and I are only appearances. We're not real as such. And that's why they'll tell you a lot of things. This manifestation is maya. It's illusion. It's a dream-like seeming happening. It's a phenomenal manifestation. Look up your dictionary, look up the word phenomena. The definition of phenomena is that which appears to be. And you can see that in the manifestation. Driving down the road and what you see appears to be a pool of water ahead of you in the road.

When you drive up to it, where is it? There was only the sunlight shimmering off the bitumen that made it appear as a mirage, a pool of water in order. Go outside and see a rainbow in the sky. Go up and try and grab the rainbow. You never will. When you investigate, you'll see it's just the sun shining through a mist. It breaks it up into light that reflects on the base of the sky. Go down to the sea, the blue sea. Try and get a bucket of blue water out of it. You'll see though it appears to be blue, when you pull the bucket of water out of it, it's not blue.

People stood on the shore years ago and looked out where the sea and sky met, and they were told, don't go out there, you'll fall off the edge of the earth. And when they look out there, even now, it appears as though the earth finishes where the sea and the sky meet. But it doesn't. The earth is not flat. But people believed it was for years. There's so many things we believed in, when you investigate them, you find out they are false. That's why we say the false cannot stand up to investigation. Investigate it and you'll see. And have a look at it again, the dictionary definition of belief.

It's an unquestioned acceptance of something, in the absence of reason. An unquestioning. You see, we've taken all these things without questioning. Acceptance of an alleged fact. A lot of those things we allege to be true, are not when you investigate them, they're not. They're not so. Acceptance of an alleged fact without positive knowledge or proof. Put them to the test and see. Then you might get a different take. Again, this body, mind. Have a look at this body. Are you the mind? I'll say, when did you begin? You'll say, if you've never looked at this stuff before, you'll say I was born. But can any one of you here actually remember your birth?

And you always know, I can't remember my birth. You can go back so far to a point when you were about two, two and a half, somewhere around that age, when you first started to reason, and that's when your memory, that's when you began to reason and learn things. Before that, you don't remember your birth. You don't remember anything before you reach that time when that capacity of reasoning develops in you, about two, two and a half. Because you didn't have any words then. Look at the Bible, it'll tell you, in the beginning it was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God.

All things were made by Him, by the Word. There was nothing made that was made without the Word. Have a look at that. Haven't we put words on everything and given them a label? In the beginning it was the Word. Now when did you begin? You can't say you began at birth because you don't remember. You didn't begin until you learnt those words. But we'll go back and investigate that a little bit further. Go back to your father and your mother. See that animating life essence, that pattern shaped and formed in your father. And through the Prana, the air he's breathing and the food he's eating, keeps that pattern subsisting and going on.

The reasoning going on, the food by the food, the chi, the Prana, going on in that pattern. In that pattern, a little microscopic particle called a sperm to form. You can't see it with your naked eye. The same in your mother. In your mother, again, it's formed from that Prana chi and the breath and the air. The microscopic particle called an egg or an ovum formed in that pattern. You can't see that with the naked eye. But that ovum was suffused with intelligence energy. It knew what to do. It attached itself to the wall of the uterus. The sperm was fused with that intelligence energy.

It knew what to do. It swam to the uterus. It knew where to swim to. And it penetrated the ovum. And when those two came together, what happened? That cell doubled and redoubled and doubled again. What were you doing about it then if you think to run on the show and live in yourself as this entity? Did you say, I better grow a hand or a finger or even a brain? You didn't have a brain then. Or a heart, lungs? You couldn't say anything about any of those things. You didn't have any words and you couldn't have done it anyway. So, you know, about two, two and a half, the capacity of reasoning began to form in you and you learn words.

So, in the beginning, for you was the word. And have a look at that. Every word you've ever spoken or ever likely to speak has been learned. You weren't born with any word. It's been acquired or picked up along the way somewhere. And you're probably learning new words to this day. I'm learning new words to this day and I'm forgetting a lot of the old ones. But the word is not the thing. That's another thing you've got to read. The word is not the thing. Take the word water. Can you drink it? Can you swim in it? Can you wash in it? Can you drown in it?

You can't. Does the word fire burn your mouth? Can you cook with it? Can you heat yourself with it? Can you warm yourself with it? You can't. But what's this word I or me? We've taken it to believe this is what I am. I am this I or me. But you couldn't say that before you learnt any words. But you were functioning for that first couple of years. At two, two and a half, the capacity of reasoning develops in us. And that's the capacity these humans have, patterns have, which is more developed than what it is in other birds, animals, insects and things like that.

But they have other capacities that are more developed than our capacity of reasoning is. Like a bird, for instance, has better eyesight. Than you or I have ever heard. It has the capacity of flying. But through the capacity of reasoning, we can't do that. But through the capacity of reasoning, we've learned to build ourselves eyeglasses if our eyes are failing. Binoculars and telescopes enabled us to see better. And through the capacity of reasoning, we've built ourselves planes, helicopters, balloons, kites, things like that that'll enable us to fly. A chameleon can change colours. We can't do that. A dog has a sense of smell and it's much more developed than you or I are.

Birds and insects can form out of chrysalises or little, what do they call it, cocoons and things like that. A butterfly can come out. That butterfly's in that, a little grub goes into that cocoon and comes out a beautiful butterfly. Do you think that butterfly's doing anything about that? Or anything at all? Or is that same essence as rolling the earth around the sun? Causing the tides to come out? Causing the seas to come in and out? Causing the seas to come around? It's breathing you, breathing you, growing your hair and your fingernails, digesting your food, replacing cells in your body. It's the same essence as doing everything and you are that essence.

But you see what we've done, we've encapsulated ourselves within the word. We learnt words from our parents. Our parents tell you you're a good little boy, you're a bad little boy, you're a little Johnny, you're this, that and the other. And you start realising I am this little Johnny or little Betty or whatever it is. This is me. This is I. Before that you had no words. They learnt other words like I, me and all sorts of other things. Every word you've spoken has learnt. So we've learnt this concept and we form a conceptual image about ourselves. It's me, Bob, the Australian, the good fella or not so good, people like me, people don't like me.

Or I've got no self-esteem or I'm unhappy. I'm not happy. I'm fearful or I'm anxious. All words or concepts have added onto this I. Because look at I in its nakedness. What can you put onto it? Nothing at all. So we put words to give it some seeming reason, some meaning. And so now we've got this conceptual, me, Bob, the Australian, the good fella. That becomes the self-centre, the reference point or the ego. Everything becomes relative to the self-centre. And you're told that in the scriptures that ego is the problem. But most of them tell you to stamp on it, kill it, get it out the road, do this and do that to get rid of it.

But the real ones are speaking the truth and pointing the truth will tell you the ego does not exist. It never existed. It's only a conceptual image we've taken on board and the energy of belief has gone into it making it seemingly real. It doesn't exist in itself. And everything becomes relative. That reference point. And relativity or relationship is duality. While we're relating to anything at all, that's duality or dualism. And don't they tell you there is absolutely no dualism or no duality in non-duality? None whatsoever. So that's how the dualistic conceptual idea and images come upon us. And we reinforce them day in, day out, our schools, society, parents and everybody else that hasn't looked at this stuff or reinforced it.

We go along what they say because the majority is seemingly wrong. And we take into belief, in that belief in it, we take into belief I am this entity. I am this person. I am this individual. And that's the only problem we've ever had. How does it work? Well, have a look at that. Everything becomes relative in this ego. Something comes up and I like it. How do you know? Well, I've had this experience before and this is good. I've had this experience before. This is good. I've had this experience before. And we want to keep the good things that are there. We don't want to lose them.

Not realizing, as we're told in the scriptures, that everything is transient. There's nothing static in the manifestation that's transient. It means it's constantly changing. And look at that body you're sitting in right now. And you'll realize it's not the same body you walked into this room with. There are thousands of cells dying in it right now. Not the same body you had last week or last year. You'll go back to when you were a little child. It's not the same body you had back then. But it's the same sense of presence, the knowing that you are, that's expressing through it to this day. So if something comes up and I don't like it, not realizing it's transient, that it's going to change, what do we do?

We try to get rid of the things we don't like. We don't like it. So what do we do? We resist it. That's it. That's it. That's it. And in resistance there is conflict. And in conflict there is fear, anxiety, stress, guilt, remorse, jealousy, envy. That's all conflict with. That's uneasiness or disease. So there's resistance, conflict, and disease. What about this thing that I like? I don't want that to go. So what do I do? I hang onto it, try to keep it there as much as I possibly can. So I resist it from going. Again, resistance, conflict, and disease. This is all that's going on in our lives while we believe we are this individual, this person.

Constant resistance, constant conflict, and constant uneasiness, unhappiness. There are brief periods when it can be happy and peaceful, but it doesn't last long because the thinking comes up again. The buts come into it and the story starts again. And it's the story that is the problem. And it didn't shake. It didn't shake. It didn't tell you something like that about the dead. It's a tale told by an idiot or something like that. It's a story you tell about yourself. Well, it's sound and beauty signifying nothing. Yeah, signifying nothing. Well, there it is. It's there. So both ways, it's this believed in me that's resisting it.

And it's this me that's fearful. It's this me that becomes anxious. Me becomes happy, given seeming some substance, solidity. So we go looking for it. We're trying to make this me whole or complete by meditating, trying to become something, trying to reason it out or work it out. But it doesn't happen. Why hasn't it happened to you? Intelligent people, why hasn't it happened? Because we've been looking into the mind. We've meditated. We've searched for it. We've prayed. We've done all sorts of things, disciplines and things like that. We've never found it. Might I just do it on you? Do it on you? And the answer is not in the mind.

And the scriptures will tell you that too. They tell you you'll never get peace of mind. The mind can never be the peace. Because the way the nature of the mind is to vibrate. And it's always vibrating dualistically. Good, bad, pleasant, painful, happy, sad, pleasant, painful, loving, hating. Look at the way the thinking is happening. Always in the pairs of opposites. And the boundary we put them under the word. Good, bad, pleasant, painful, happy, sad. This thing. This, that, that. The word has become the cage in which we imprison ourselves. In the cage of concepts. And the word is not the real. So we've got this conceptual image.

And everything becomes relative to it. So wouldn't it be imperative we had a look and see if this image is correct? The thing is the concept is getting into trouble. What a couple of cheers. So investigate this conceptual image and see whether it's true or not. Or you ask yourself, what's the truth? Well you ask yourself to look along those lines and see for yourself. Nobody's going to do it for you. But have a look and see. Everybody is seeing right now. Everybody is hearing right now. Isn't that a fact? When you opened your eyes this morning did you say now I'm going to start seeing?

You didn't. The seeing was there immediately. Now unless you look at it you mightn't have seen this before but you mightn't realise it's the same seeing that's going on then that's going on now. It's the same seeing you had yesterday, last week, as far back as you remember. You think the seeing has changed. But the seeing hasn't changed, it is the content that's changed. When you were in your bedroom the seeing was different to when you got out and went down to breakfast or wherever you went to. Or when you came here, the content has been constantly changing. It's all taking place in the same seeing.

The same with the hearing. When you wake up this morning if somebody called you loudly in deep sleep the hearing wouldn't be... would be there, it wasn't too far away. It's the same hearing that's going on. But again, the content has changed. So the seeing and the hearing are happening. Isn't that a fact? But ask yourself this. Does my eye tell me I see? My eye's not saying, look at this, Bob. Look at that. That's good. That's bad. My eye cannot say anything at all. Can your eye say something? I'm talking about your physical eye, not the thought eye. The physical eye. You're seeing through the eye.

But the eye's not saying, I see. Seeing through the eye is translated by the thought, I see. Now, the thought, I see, is no longer pure seeing. Remember what we've added to the thought. Me, Bob, the Australian, the good fellow, the conceptual image, the egoic image I've got, now thinks it has the capacity of seeing. A conceptual image. Thinks it can see. Ridiculous, isn't it? So the same with the ear. Hearing's happening through the ear. The ear's not saying, listen to this. That's a good one. You're going to hear that there. Ear's not saying anything at all. But it is the instrument, again, which being translated by the thought, I hear.

But again, that thought, I hear, is what the image in which it's translated. The thing is which is translated by through the thought. But can that thought, can the thought, I see, actually see? Investigate that for yourself. Close your eyes, look around the room, and see what objects you can see in this room with the thought. Your eyes close, there's nothing there but the darkness behind your lids. You can't see any of the objects. You can imagine them through imagination, through the mind. But you can't see any of the objects in the room with the thought, or outside of the room. Is there anybody in the room unaware right now?

You realize, no, I'm not unaware, so you must be aware. So you see, the thought, I see, cannot see. You can't see anything with the thought. The thought, I see, can't see. The thought, I hear, can't hear. Nobody unaware, so the thought, I'm aware, is not your awareness. So it's not this eye that's doing anything. The see-going eye can do any of those things. What about the thought, I choose? We think that's a big one. That's a big one. We think we choose our thoughts. But who would want to have a miserable, unhappy, or anxious thought, or a fearful thought, or a stressful thought, if you could choose them?

Anyone choose to do any of those things? I don't. You do. You can continue if you want to. I don't care. So you see, this thought up here, as we say so much, can't see, can't hear, can't choose, can't be aware, can't do anything at all. It's a figure. It's a reflection. And yet, we've believed in it and taken it to be so. Now, you're going to continue to do so if you're going to do that. You'll get a taste of it. But you go out there in the world, 99.9% of the world will suck you back in, because 99.9% of the world are coming from that egoic point.

They haven't looked into this. They've taken all their religious and spiritual, so-called spiritual beliefs to be so, without looking in it and seeing what they understand and recognize from themselves. Because only they can do it. Nobody can do it for you. Shakespeare told you that a few hundred years ago, when he said, nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. will tell you also, nothing can trouble you, except in your own imagination. That's all the bother trouble ever is, what you imagine. Break that one imagination down to image in. Imagine. And realize that's what we're doing. We're creating. We're creating mental, conceptual images about what's around you, what you think's going on, and what's happening in your mind.

And mind's vibrating into conceptual images all the time. So this world, as you see, it's only imagined, imaged in, or illusion. They call it like a dream. You go to sleep at night and you start dreaming. All sorts of things can happen in that dream. All sorts of activities. You can be in different places and all that. When you wake up, where does the dream go? Doesn't it disappear? And when you realize in that dream, you were seeming in all these places, doing all these activities. When you wake up from the dream, you realize your body hadn't moved off the bed. No words had come out of your mouth.

And it was all taking place in the imagined, conceptual imaging that was going on when something was stirring in the sleep, in the dream. And we don't realize we wake up to this dream. And this is a dream. And the reason this one looks so real is this dream seemingly continues. If that dream you had last night continued from where it left off, tonight when you go to sleep again, and it had been continuing from the time you had a dream, it doesn't. It's fresh and new every time. But this dream seemingly continues. And that seemingly continuation of it gives it a seeming reality. Makes it more real, doesn't it?

So you must realize it. You are that uncontaminated, uncorrupted, pure, what I call for a better term, which is not it, and either better to tell you, intelligence energy. The activity of knowing. Intelligence is knowing. And energy is a movement. It's an activity. And isn't everybody in this room knowing right now? Or then the ING on everything, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, is all an activity. All the seemingly sudden movement. And you are that. And that's a bit of an outline what's going on. And there's other people who can point to it, tell you more about it if you want to know. Got any questions or any doubts at all?

Bring them out. No use coming here and sitting there and going away without saying I should have said that, I should have said that. Don't hesitate to bring it out. And don't be fearful what you think somebody will think of you if you say something that's not right. Because everybody in this room will have a concept about you whether you like it or not. And you have a concept about everybody in this room whether you like it or not. And you have a concept about yourself. Now which concept would be right? When you realize any concept is a conceptual image, it's not the actuality. It's only a mental image, a mental concussion.

So if there's no concept right, who can be superior to you without a concept? What can you differentiate and say this is better or worse without a concept? Who can be inferior to you without a concept? And what will you want of the other person without a concept? When you think somebody's got something that I want or I would like, you're taking a concept of them and thinking the concept's got to be. If they're the same essence as you are, and it's available to them, it can be available to you. If it's meant that way. That pattern's going to shape and form and express that way.

But each pattern is a unique expression and a unique pattern. And that's what we point to. So it's open for business. Go ahead. It's pretty hard to listen to you today. Last time was pretty easy. Last time I couldn't say anything. And today, from all the pointers you used, there was so many the mind was like, or the thoughts were like, no, that's not correct. That's an easy way to say it, but it doesn't make it true. It's not because I don't see something or I cannot show it that it doesn't exist. Blah, blah, blah, blah. That's not correct. Blah, blah, blah, blah. There was all this.

That's the way of listening. Agreeing or disagreeing with what is said. Yeah, that's what makes it hard because there was a lot of reactions. Reactions and in the same time there was the other thing which same as always, it's just the same paradox ever. It's just the same thing again and again where any question I would ask would reinforce those resistances anyway. Because the question is arising. It's arising from the resistance. Yeah. So. Good to know. The question is, can there be any question which makes the resistance drop? What is the way? Because there is this tiredness of the resistance in the same time. Like, I'm not totally blind.

I can a little bit open one eyelid and see, oh, those thoughts are resistances. But still they come. And I was trying. I'm trying if such things exist, to let go, to not buy into the thoughts so I could not buy into them. But then the next one come anyway. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one. And there is no question right now. But there is a but again. Isn't that great? The idea that there is resistance. It's a good opportunity to have a look at this. And say, that idiot told me there's no one. There's a resistance. There's no one.

There's no one. There's a resistance. There is no one. There's no one. There's no one. There's no one. There's no one. There's no one. And there's no one there to resist. I'll have a look and see if he's correct this time. You'd go back and have another look and see who is resisting. Who is the me or the Sebastian that's resisting me? Can you find something, some centre or some point in that Sebastian. Can you say, this is what I am, this is where I begin? It's all around. What's that? It's not the centre point. Right. Well what is it then, it's just pure seeing, isn't it?

Pure, pure movement. Fewer. Less of an experience. Pardon? The experience can only happen to an experiencer, but it's pure experiencing. It's pure seeing. As soon as you say seeing, you divide it into seer and the seen, you've divided it, subject object. But can there be a seer without seeing? Can there be a resister without resisting? Can there be an experiencer without experiencing? So the experiencing, the seeing, the hearing, tasting, touching are going on and they're going on all the time. But today it's stuck in the seeing and not in the seer. Not in the seer, stay in the seeing. Stay in the seeing, see it, what it is.

What's happening first and foremost? Are you seeing right now? I'm seeing right now. Before you say there's a seer. Then you say I see this. That seeing is there first and foremost. The hearing is there first and foremost. The listening is there. The tasting is there. The touching, the smelling. The ing before it's divided. The seeing, hearing, tasting. The functioning is going on. Divide it into concepts. Seer, hearer, taster, toucher, smeller. You've brought the so-called me back into existence. Now isn't that what you've been habitually doing as far back as you remember? Recognise it as a habit. What happens if you don't pause the thought for a moment right now?

And you can't pause the thought, but have a look. Try and see what's beyond. See what's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. What's beyond. And you're looking at the thought right now, and you move over the thought into just pure seeing. And get the taste that it's happening without the thinker or the seer coming into it and saying, I see, I think. Now you've been breathing and your heart's been expanding and contracting. You've been saying, I breathe. I'm beating my heart. You haven't. That's going on spontaneously, not relating that to the ego or to me.

Taste in your mouth, you say, I'm tasting. Till you taste something. You put it in you and you say, I taste this. And you'll evaluate. from that previous experience or something or whatever? Good. Breathe it. It's still not it. Yeah. Yeah, because perhaps, I don't know, maybe that's not the case, but often when we hear that message in the beginning, it feels like it is great philosophy to follow, and I am intelligent enough to expand my mind and actually embrace it. And when I expand my mind and embrace it, I will be all cool. And then you listen to one, two, three times, yeah, yeah, okay, I can get it, okay, I can agree with that.

Oh, no, that's rubbish, but I can agree. And now nothing is changing. So the disappointment kicks in. But the one who is listening is still the ego evaluating a philosophy, while what Bob is actually talking about is not a philosophy. It's a purely practical thing. It's so non-philosophical that any word that is trying to describe it is already clouding it, because it's a singularity. It's something undivided, something that is not. And it's not just a singularity. It's something undivided, something that is not. And it's not just a singularity. It's something undivided, it's something basic. Like, really, before you say a seer and a seen, there is seeing, one.

And now you divide it to two. I am the subject, and here is an object. So I am the one who is listening, and here is what I'm listening. And now I agree with this and don't agree with that. There's constant evaluation going on. So basically what's happening, there is a pure listening or pure hearing happening. And that one is overlaid by the interpretation, the duality, the belief in the entity who has the opinion or judgment on what is going on, trying to grasp it or get it as a good philosophy. It's really too simple to be, well, many, many sages actually decided to speak the truth in silence.

They just shut up and they wouldn't say a word for 10 or 20 years. And it works with some, and it doesn't work with the others. Well, either way is the room for misunderstanding, because that's just how it flows. But it's really a practical thing. Like, what is the truth? What is the ultimate truth when the mind is not, when there is no questions, when there is no buts, when there is no agreeing, disagreeing, when there is no commentary going on over what is being heard? What is truth without any beliefs on it? This is so simple, it's so basic, and it's so close to the eyes that we keep overlooking it, because the mind wants objects, the mind wants complexity, interesting ideas.

the thing about non duality is really not a philosophy. It's nothing that you can learn. It's nothing that if you listen to long enough, then the resistance will disappear on its own. No, it isn't really. If the resistance is what is happening, what the intelligence is manifesting and expressing and experiencing at this moment, let it be, let it be, and let it be completely impersonal. Okay, the movement of resistance, the bubbling of resistance and vamos que vamos. Okay? Okay. No, even if someone's waiting and the no or I don't want to hear this is not true this is happening this is the this is the movement in that space and now if you see everything as just impersonal happening then you don't really need to wash it to wish it away you don't really care if the resistance is there or no resistance is there and then the resistance serves no point and it doesn't show up anymore because resistance is actually an invitation to investigate who is the one who is arguing with the reality who is the one who is arguing with the way the one essence decided to create not decided but just created this moment as it is and now there is someone who is saying no to it resisting it so this is really a gift resistance is a gift because without it there is no questioning well without it is also a gift because there is no problem either way either way the you you you're gonna find a way home you never left you're gonna find out that this is always just what it's as it is it's nothing to do is just to recognize and what is means unaltered unmodified uncorrected no preference no partiality no comparison I love that thing that Krishna wrote, the mind is the me, you can only live in the past or the future.

and so when when you're watching that resistance you're watching who's resisting it and that has to be the image you have about yourself the me which can only live in the past or the future what's wrong with right now unless you think about turn it back in I think it's fantastic to see that resistance today you know because you're what's watching that's not the memory that's not the memory that lives in the past and the future That's prior to the mind. And the mind can only work in pairs of opposites. As Bob said, me, you, pleasant, painful, happy, sad, yesterday, tomorrow. It's a clunky thing.

It's like an out-of-date computer, really. It really can only work that way. And what's it appearing upon? It's the old switcheroo. Have a look that way, not that way. You know what I mean? I do. Relatedly, it's bloody ridiculous that I'm letting concepts dictate my life. I mean, Karl Marx was on about the dictatorship of the proletariat. Well, what, bloody say it worse, is concepts telling me what to do, for Christ's sake. You can't even choose them. No. Good. The process is the same all the way through, Sebastian. It's about recognising what you're not. It's the same process all the way through. There's no different tact that you take when you get close to this.

No. It's not. So there's still a butter there. Yeah? I like that. And literally, as you've already been doing, like you've gone into self-inquiry. I know you have, just from conversations we've had. Yeah? You need to keep just doing that. That's all. And what you're getting caught up in is all the content, which is the intellect, which Kat beautifully pointed out. You know, until, can I say until this happens? I'm going to say it just, but until that is seen, whatever that is, right? But until there's the dissolution of the me, until that is absolutely seen and recognized, Well, the questions. Yeah. And it can only be recognized from presence.

Until that is seen, anything you have about this teaching or this understanding is intellectual. That's it. That's all you got. And what you're doing is you're still fishing around in the intellect or you're still fishing around in duality trying to find the answer. You're still doing that. Whereas all you really need to be doing, all you really need to be doing is what you have been doing. Where am I? Who am I? Where am I? And just keep doing that. And eventually you'll just start to see everything spontaneously happening. And it won't matter if there's thoughts of resistance. It won't matter if there's yucky feelings in the body.

None of it will matter. Like none of it will matter. It'll just arise. And abiding in that presence, all that stuff gets cleaned up. You don't have to do shit about it. You don't have to do it. Yeah, that's the great thing. Because you can't change the mind with the mind. It really is. And the intellect hates this. It hates this. Because we kind of go, yeah, yeah, I've looked and I know there's no me here. Now what? What next? What do I do? What do I do now? What I found tricky is that I experienced that. I know. And this is when the mind, real or not real, illusion or not, regardless to how we explain and name it, the mind try to own that experience.

It's what I explained at the last meeting when I said I'm confused because I don't know if at times, I don't know if I'm just really present and if I'm really that. Or if I just froze the mind. And it's like the mind is frozen and it's a tension which to some extent can look like pure presence. But it is not. And it's not always easy to recognize. And I could see in those last days, I spent days in pure awareness or whatever the name of that. I spent days where I was. Just I was. And there was no question when I came last time because the answer was in the air before the question.

But somehow I can see now because I'm speaking. I can see I slided from this detachment where there was basically no thought and I would pass by and I would not even notice that. To a state where I'm frozen. I don't think I'm present. And this is not. This is not. That's a bad imitation. Look, here's what's happening. Okay, real simple. But here's what's happening. Okay. The mind is claiming ownership of the presence. Full stop. The mind is claiming ownership of that presence. Now, the interesting thing with that is it's not difficult, as was pointed out in the beginning, it's not difficult at all to know that you are present.

I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. That you are present. That you can't deny that. Like, that's a fact that you can't deny. Okay. Yet, the me you can't find and you're still operating from it. And ignoring and ignoring the fact what you actually are or what actually is. And. And the mind tries to grasp and tries to. and tries to understand this presence, this awareness, and it can't. At the end of the day, it just seems bland to duality, to a dualistic mind. Presence awareness just seems bland. That's the best it can interpret, presence awareness as. It's bland. So that can't be it. So I can't have arrived, so it goes searching for something else.

Yeah? So, you know, from conversations that you and I have had, just keep looking. Really. And try not to get caught up in ideas and content. Literally, it's the same process from start to end. Where am I? Where am I? Am I, as in I'm talking about the me, is it actual? You need to see that. That's all. That's it. And like I said before, the intellect hates that, because it sounds like you're going back to basics. Do you know what I mean? But it's the same all the way through. It's not, this isn't about, you know, higher levels of understanding. It's not. That's what makes this so beautiful and so simple.

And that's why people, we keep throwing you back on yourself all the time. You know, you'll hear things and again, the intellect hates it. Who wants that? Who wants to know that question? Hates that. The intellect hates that. You know. But there's so much truth in that. Who wants to know? Who's stuck? Who's the butter? And literally, and man, you just sit still, sit quiet. Go looking. I find it. Go looking. Because there's still the sense for you that it's still here. There's a sense. That it's still here. That's why all the but, but, buts come up. There's a sense that it's still here. Also, there's another aspect when Bob is telling how to do the inquiry.

He often says, you know, things that we were told, you know, I am a little Johnny. So if you are actually feeling that sense of presence, you know you are, you know you exist. And now, how do you know? That's the experience, undeniable experience. Now I could say, okay, but who am I or what am I? I'm the body. Because it kind of feels obvious. It feels like this for the last 40 years, whatever. So how do I know? How do I know I'm the body? Well, I was told. Somebody told me that. Have I been the body when I was one year old? When I was a baby?

I had absolutely no clue that I was the body. And still I existed. So the body, the idea that I'm the body is a learned idea. How do I know? Because they told me. Now I begin to believe it. And of course. I can relate to the sensations of the body. Who am I? Who am I as well? I'm, let's say, a woman. Or you are a man. Whatever. How do I know? Like if I had my memory taken away and I was, and I had no mirror, would I still know that I am the woman? If there was nobody else who would be, who I would be relating and comparing myself with, would I still be the body or the female body?

No. I'm all in the thoughts. If I pause the thought, am I still the body? What is the experience? The experience is just of being and some floating sensations in this being. The sensation on the, on the butt, on the, on the chair or whatever. The sensation, headache, doesn't matter. But is that if I don't have the language to even call it a sensation or to even take it as mine, am I still the body? Am I still the bundle of sensations? Am I still female? Or am I my thinking? Am I the mind? Like when Bob says, you know, you're not the body, you're not the mind.

That's what Nisargadatta told him on the first time they met, they met and he heard it. What do you mean actually he heard it? How can you actually hear it? By believing it? Oh yeah. It kind of sounds convincing. I agree with that. And he says, okay, the body is elements. Yeah, that makes sense. I agree with that. I believe it. This is not about the believing. This is really about seeing what is true. When for a moment the thinking is taken away, the imagination is taken away. Because when I stop imagining my face, my body, I don't really go on perceptions. Like any perception I have right now, I will have mental image going with it right now.

I focus on my foot. I'm not even looking. I don't have any foot in my direct experience. But the mental image comes out right away. Yes, there are legs, there's foot. Imagination. And that imagination is beautiful. It's wonderful. It makes functioning easy. And it's to be appreciated. But with the investigation like now, we can reimagine the world in a minute. But let's disappear it first. Experientially. Just experientially taking the imagination and the thinking away, what is left? I am. Am I really the body? If I forgot everything I ever learned. If I don't have any other images to compare myself to. I am. I am.

I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. And then who am I in the present-day? I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. And they go healthy. And then I wasjar going from mental to emotional, and I suppose, the emotional powers of something, like a soul. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am.

I am. I am. and all the past that I've seen it is actually appearing right now all the past moments are appearing right now as the memory they don't have an existence it feels like time is something that is real of course you know I'm grown up it means I was born and I grew it took time but perhaps in the direct experience I'm actually creating my past and growing up right now it's not to be grasped with the mind because for the mind is totally incomprehensible it just sounds like hocus-pocus whatever hmm no I sort of label it that the mind mind loves the conditioned mind loves really like a shit buffet of thoughts in a weird way it's endless it can start to change it can tell story about anything it can get a story of the past it can get a story of the future but it's all that same feeding of what's not really here now but causes us suffering so that's the key about never minding the mind because if you listen to the mind it's not going to take you in a direction it's gonna basically take you out of the well you're always in the moment in fact hail from the Sedona method always says in our seminars any of us try to get out of the moment right now any any of you say in here can't it's you're in the now and it's the mind that loves to project and create stories that causing suffering I'll give you a quick example I'm not talking story about my shoulder I heard it I've got three torn tendons in it that's a little bit of a story but I could suffer if I start to think how long the surgery is gonna be how long I'm gonna be laid up how I'm not gonna do stuff but I just full stop I stop on that story and go in any farther and my body is already in a very terrible state it gives me so much pain life is great without thought and unless you have a lovely and practical and creative thought I try to disregard any other thought because it will cause me suffering and experience always what is actually true without thinking because we can imagine anything we've been imagining the earth was flat we've been imagining Santa Claus even though direct experience says it's just an open space looking out.

And that's good because that's the expression, that's the way that the One Essence wants to express itself, experience itself. Without that machine that can translate and imagine the whole world and believe it into existence there would be nothing. Well there is nothing, it's just an appearance. But it's a beautiful appearance, it's a gorgeous appearance and it is here, it is here to be celebrated, but it is here also to be known for what it is. Because if we know it for what it is it doesn't really sting anymore, it doesn't hurt. The resistance is not my resistance, it's just the energy moving, it's not personal.

Anger is not my anger, it's just the energy moving, it's not personal. How easy is that? Because then you don't suffer. Whatever comes up, whatever the pattern of the energy, it's welcome. Okay, that's what life is experiencing, expressing right now. It's not personal. And that makes everything easy, that makes everything experiential rather than, and if the story, interpreting story, because of course it will come up, I mean why not? It's a gorgeous thing. But if you actually hear your story, anger or resistance came up and then the story comes up and builds, why, what, goes to the childhood, goes to the mother, whatever, whatever. And you know it's a story and you just give it a beautiful smile.

Wow, yummy. And you don't believe it. And you don't really take it on board, you don't wear it and you don't beat yourself up with that story. Let it be. Everything, if it's impersonal, if it's not really believed into reality, it's just sweet dance. And I totally identified with you when you said you had a period of where you just, you just are. And you just really saw that and you really understood that. And I think that's what I'm trying to say. I think that's what I'm trying to say. You just got it, got it, you know. Got it, you know. And then that little bugger came in and started going ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni, you know, but what you felt then, that's it.

You just are. The rest of it appears upon it. The rest of it is a story appearing upon it. And you know, when I really felt that I just am, my kids were running round, one was 12, one was 2. running up and down the hall, I was sitting down doing meditation and you know, I really should have been there for those kids and all of a sudden I just saw, I just am and I got up and told them off, you know, and I told Bob that, I said Bob, I just saw that I really just am and I really don't need to just sit down and meditate and you know but do you think I didn't ring Bob for years whenever I got hooked into a story?

Because I knew I wasn't that, I knew I wasn't that story and I knew that it was all related to a me which was a story, I could see that, I could see that early on that old habits die hard and the mind just does not want to get, it just does not want to know that it isn't in charge and so I must have rung Bob, I don't know, probably hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. In the early days in 1988 when I first started coming you know, and so I think it's amazing that you've already seen that resistance because what have you seen that from?

You haven't seen that from the mind you've seen that from that presence that you are and you know you are, that's the only thing you know for sure that's it. Something you said I loved at the book, kind of sick, I mean I'm pulling it from what you said. In the absence of me, in the absolute absence of me, life becomes an impersonal celebration an impersonal celebration whilst me's there becomes a personal celebration, I like that and I don't like that and it judges. Because the splits, yeah. And wants more of what is good and less of what is bad. More pleasure, less pain. Someone like Isaac Shapiro said something like no personal identity is involved.

Yeah. And it's not a doing, we think we need to do and get, but it's a we are, if it's perfect truth, anyway. So you just have to is, is that. Just is, you know. But that can only happen when one sees what they're not. I mean it's happening all the time. Yeah, I mean it's happening all the time. A good example of the projection. However big the impersonal celebration. Good example of the projection I think is I'm an artist and I do portraits. No one likes their, no one likes a photo of themselves because it's the reverse image of the reflection they see in the mirror.

So if you're like my beard goes one way, when I see a photo of myself my beard goes the other way and I think something's wrong with the photo. But the photo is the reflection. The photo is actually a false image of the reality. But because I'm used to the reflection I get caught up in that. Because the truth is it all goes the other way. You know what I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah, great, great. It's always a 180. It really is. But if you understand what we're trying to work out is what the reality is now. At least we've got that. We've got the content to work with.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's all. Well said. It's all a natural state. And what do they mean by that? Just leave it as in nature. Out there in nature this earth is rolling around the sun now at terrific speed. It doesn't, the earth's not saying oh there's a spot up ahead that's going to be extra cold and don't want to go there. Or there's a better one over here. Or that one's too hot and that's not. It just continues to roll on. And life adjusts itself. As Mankey said, as N. Muck in the 16th century, he couldn't do it. He couldn't do it. He called it the unborn buddha mind.

Unborn mind. He says everything is perfectly resolved in the unborn. In other words, nature resolves itself in the does. And he goes on to say why exchange the unborn for thought? And that's all we do. I think we can think that, leave it as it is. And when you leave it as it is, we understand what Masa Haga Dutta says. When I know that I am nothing, nothing whatsoever. That is wisdom. That is wisdom. and when I know that I am everything that is love see but you don't split the two everything and nothing and one and the same thing so you never will everyone so that wisdom and love is not something you have to acquire or have to get knowing that all this appearance shape and form is no thing appearing as something and all this manifestation is something including you me and everything else but we are all no thing knowing that what's necessary what's there then just loving to be wouldn't be dead for quids would you also when when Nisargadatta said that when I'm nothing this is wisdom when I'm everything this is love he said the third line the third one says between those two my life is flowing it means it kind of dances between the nothing and everything between recognizing the nothingness and everything and everything's between which basically means even that is the appearance even the nothing and the love the everything is an appearance like this is something that is conceivable or perceivable and Nisargadatta says nothing that you can conceive of or perceive of is the absolute is the absolute he says and we had Stephen Wolinsky's another another Nisargadatta student and he's a friend of Bob and he sent him a last work that he did and we just started watching just checking on it a little bit the what was it deconstruction of the portals to the absolute and he says nothing is one of the portals to the absolute everything's another portal portal is something that you give temporary existence nothing has temporary existence in the language the silence the stillness the what else he was saying do you remember the vibration the love all sorts of a concepts that we are using to point beyond the concepts intelligence energy your concept or life force they're all temporarily you know the pointers the words they not it so they eventually have to be seen for what they are just the pointers a portal to the absolute because only butter butters laughter ultimately everything is the absolute laughter laughter or margarine or whatever laughter butter makes it better laughter last night we were having dinner and I had my daughter with me and and we got on to this subject and we were talking about conditioning and how the like you said before that a baby after 18 months 2 years becomes conditioned right mmhmm mmhmm and her question was well how do you know that the baby is not conditioned to start off with or it's awareness it's you know it has no conditioning so how would you answer that what do you mean not conditioned it means non-existent well I was explaining saying that the baby until 2 years old it's just pure awareness right it's it doesn't know it doesn't know the language that's right doesn't divide things conceptually but at 2 years it becomes you know starts becoming conditioned but there are 2 things you are kind of a little bit mixing because one thing is the language is understanding learning to divide and separate yeah that's the separation and another thing is conditioning like everything in the nature has the pattern through which it expresses you can say that pattern of expression is conditioning which means every butterfly dog everything is conditioned by the environment because it is it is growing inseparable from the environment and so are we right?

absolutely and so is the baby the baby is conditioned by the music the mother is listening when it's still in the womb by the food that the mother is taking so everything is the conditioning is the pattern that's formed through you know moving seemingly in time by growing or whatever but the conditioning is one thing you don't need to get rid of conditioning conditioning is when you think about it but the language let and created the sense of separation the baby will be conditioned and the mother will be conditioned but the mother is not conditioned right? which is conditioned by the diet, by the food, maybe the mother was abusive, or maybe something happened to the baby, maybe it fell off the bed and had brain trauma, whatever.

So the conditioning is there, but there is no idea of separation. There is no idea that I am this and the world is that, that I am separate from my mother, because the language didn't come on board yet, so the concept of separation didn't. That's exactly the question. You said there is no idea of separation, right? Yeah. And her question was, well, how do you know that a baby has that? The baby can't express that, no baby can express that, right? So how do you know? That's the question that was asked. Yeah, pause the thought, then you will know right away. Pause the thought, the gap between the thoughts when you are not thinking.

What do you know about being separate without the thought? You need the thought, the word, the consciousness. You need the concept to conceive of separation. Without the concept, just verify yourself. Can you be separated if you don't conceive of the idea of separation? So the gentleman, was this with your daughter? Yeah. So you are trying to communicate with your daughter with language. You are fucked right there. So I remember you said, I start communicating with a few languages. Yeah. And then it's all over. As soon as you try and do that, it's all over. Good on you for trying. How do we communicate, through eyes?

That conditioning, that conditioning that Kat's referring to, another way of expressing that or describing that is that there is a particular pattern of energy. This child is going to pattern a certain way, like no two snowflakes are the same. Yep, you're totally unique. Everybody in this room is quite unique. Yeah, I understand. Okay. So there will be a particular pattern of energy that happens. And that will happen through DNA, that will happen through what parents, you know, the sperm and the egg. Everything. Everything. Correct. I was going to say, as way back as you want to go or as way out as you want to go.

So there's a particular pattern of energy. That's, you could term that as conditioning. Yeah. That's the way that is. But the conditioning we're referring to in relation to the me comes about in language. The separation only comes about in language. Me and other only comes about in language, when we learn language. So when the mother says, your name's little Johnny. Mm-hmm. And that child starts identifying as little Johnny. That's when the separation, through language, occurs. In repeated patterns, because it is conditioning. And in Zen, this is not such a great thought, but in Zen they call all this conditioning, it's not loving, they call it egocentric self-hate conditioning.

Wow. We're born in innocence and love. And then all this stuff comes on to us. And again, a baby is just there. And you look at a baby, he'll smile back. He's not analyzing you or anything. He's feeling the energy of love and joy. And then it gets conditioned to the point where we go from, in fact, until we were six or seven, again, maybe, we were more vibrational with energy and love. And then we go into our head and thought and mind. And I'm still, like everyone else, getting never mind the mind and just try to get out of it. Well, we get like snowflakes.

Snowflakes are actually perfect because when you make a snowflake flow, you turn it into water, it becomes one. It all becomes the same. So we're all water, but we become snowflakes. Beautiful. Beautiful. That's it. You are an artist. Stop. That's beautiful. Like a wave on the ocean. Well, you know what I mean? That's what we're trying to do as individuals and adults. We become, I'm an individual snowflake. But the truth is we're water. When we water, we're water. When we warm up, we warm up a bit. We're all just one water. One blob. One blob. Yes. That's it. Yes, but snowflakes can have a ball.

Nothing wrong with snowflakes. You know what they also do? The ball, the snowball rolls and gathers and gets bigger and bigger. And you get a political movement. Does the water evaporate? It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. It does. Does it disappear though? Does that, too. Yeah. It bi threes itself. Very subtle in the evaporating, much more silent, yeah. When it comes over slow, it becomes matter.

Beautiful. Some good stuff coming out of here. Watch a metaphor. Because there never was five. How privileged we are to be in this space. Yeah. To feel unselfconscious and able to speak. And thank you for the invitation, Rob. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to say too, this is a joy and a blessing being here. This is the second year I've been able to come when our show's been in Melbourne and to sit among you. The love that's here. Great to have you. Great to have you. And to be able to talk about this and engage in conversation in a world that does not always see the truth of who they are or who we are.

And this has been my fourth in a row here and I will miss you all. But I'll be here. You'll be here in my heart. So, thanks. It's been great. Always. Yeah. Yeah. And Chicago. So, thanks, Bob. You can't separate yourself from us, man. Okay. Thanks. The show goes on anyway. The show goes on. Yeah. Come on. Get in there. That's fine. Silas, sweet. Yeah. So, is there anyone here for the first time? We're all here for the first time. Always. Always. How are you enjoying it? Good. How's the singing angel doing? Yeah, no, good. It's great. I'm enjoying it immensely. No questions? No questions.

No, there's no questions. Good. You know, I was just on talk radio. I had to talk about a legend show from 9 to 10 on 3AW. And Darren Wells, I was talking about Bob and other things to him off. And he got onto stuff. But I said to him, I said, talk radio. You guys are all about talk radio. It would be interesting if you had silent radio. And all that they would do is every 15 minutes hit a gong. And that would be the key. Because so much of it, while it's good and interesting and everything, it still comes down to blah, blah, blah.

Yes. But it was great. He sort of got it. I didn't tell him. Bob's passed and everything. So it was great. Off to the side. Yeah. Send us a link. We'll listen. Yeah. I will. You have to cast around for something to say. You're super aware that that's content. Yeah. Yeah. It's a nerve-wracking game, what this is. What is it? It's nerve-wracking. Like, up and down, up and down, like a yo-yo. Yeah, but you are the one who knows about it. Of course I do. Oh, no. So you're not touched by it. So the yo-yo is happening. The energy is moving. But you are just the witness.

Or not even the witness. Witness is another portal to the absolute, according to Stephen. Anyway, it's just a temporary idea. It is knowing. There is a knowing of the yo-yo up and down. Say that again. The witness is what part of? It's just a temporary sort of a label that you put upon. Because the witness is unlocated knowingness. So it isn't really a point in the game. It's not really a point in consciousness from which you are knowing the yo-yo or the up and down. It's just the pure space of knowing. Otherwise it implies a witnesser. Sorry? Otherwise it implies a witnesser. Yeah. Yes, it's just witnessing or the knowing.

Yeah. But see, whatever is happening in your life, there is part of the energy goes into and fuels it. And you are identified with it. And you're struggling and fighting. It feels personal. But there is always a plan. There is always a place in which you can actually, that may be even a tiny little hint of the awareness of what you're doing. And that awareness of what you're doing is completely impersonal. If you can, you know, that's why we drop the pointers because that pointer can inspire you to remember. And the remembrance can just come up and say, oh, yeah, right. There is a lot of energy engaged in struggling with the reality.

But just a tiny little bit is still the space around it, awareness of it. And you are this awareness of it. Temporarily believing yourself to be the person engaged or involved. But it's just act. It's just pretending. You're pretending to be an individual. Correct, huh? Yes. Yes, because it's the great intelligence. So whatever it does, it does completely, totally, fully. It fools you fully. I just want to pretend to be taller. You're infinite. But the interesting thing about awareness, there's a celebrity, I heard this story, I won't name who it was, but he was with a friend once. And it's again, awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness.

It does so much to, but it, because it is all that there really is. But the, but this actor, a friend of his turned to him at 11. And he said, I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to tell you something. And he turned to him at a lunch and said, are you aware that you've had four drinks in the last half hour? And that awareness of that shifted him to stop drinking. And you never know what it is that's going to trigger you to lift the veil off of it. But once the veil is lifted, whether it's somebody in alcoholism, it's, you can't put the blanket of denial back on.

You can't put anything. And it eventually is, if you just keep going. You're going to get it back. You're going to get it back. And you're going to keep going a little, plus a little, plus a little, equals a lot in the changes that you'll see in the person that you're not anyway. Yeah. The problem is I've had that remembrance of, say, example is one stage, oneness, right? And, but then after I can't remember nothing except the word oneness. So I had the experience of oneness, but then I lost it and all I remember is the word, just oneness. Yeah. I had the experience and who lost it?

So it feels, this is the old trick that mind does, you know? The experience is going on all the time, constantly. And it's like the sky is there all the time and the sun is shining. And now the clouds come and hide it. So the experience being obscured by the thinking, identification, whatever you want to call it. And now, when for a moment the clouds are just faded, the thinking stops. The experience shines fully again. And then the clouds come again. And now the clouds is the mind who says, I had it. Mind never has it. Mind can never ever have it because mind is vibration.

And we're talking about stillness. When there is no vibration, it means there is no mind. So when the mind comes and say, I had it, it basically claims the ownership of something mind can never ever have. So it's not that you had experience of oneness and then you lost the experience of oneness. It's that you are the experience of oneness. Temporarily obscured by the mind saying, I am not the oneness. I am Tony. So now the mind is basically just coming and veiling it. It's just putting a curtain over the experience of oneness. So next week when you ask me my name, I'm not going to say I'm Tony.

I was a boy. I was a boy. I was a boy. I was a boy. I was a boy. I was a boy. I was a reinforcing. So you say you recognize oneness, and then you forgot about the oneness. Did you say that? Yeah. Or when you forgot about it, what was there then? As I said, I just remember the word oneness. Yeah, when you forgot that word, what was there without the word? When I forgot the word oneness. The word. But the word is all he remembers, and the experience. That's all I remember, the word oneness. Nothing else. But not the actual experience. But if you haven't got that word, what's there?

Nothing. Right. There you are. That's it. Yeah, and this is also a way that the mind fills the show. See, because there is an experience. The mind is not. The mind is quiet. The vibration stops. And now the fully shining experience of presence awareness or non-conceptual knowingness or whatever you want to call it. And now the mind gives it a label. Oneness. Okay, now I'm going to remember it. And then the clouds come and that oneness is another cloud. And the mind says, I remember the oneness. And it tries to imagine the oneness. And now it says, oh my gosh, I remember the experience. It was great.

But this is already a cloud of imagination. And now going to that cloud of imagination, mind says, I want it back. How am I going to move back to the past and recreate that imagination? So what the mind does? Creates more and more. Creates more and more imaginary clouds over the word oneness. And it's the homestead. Yes. And this is, when you see through it, it's brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant. It feels like it's evil, but it's just brilliant. Depends on which side of the fence you're sitting on. No, when you see it, it's so easy. It's so hard to go past that. What we need is a machine that rings the police immediately it happens.

Okay. We could set up our own police force and call it the Invader Police. Of course, of course. That's all we need. The sort of issue is we don't realise how much time we're working, how hard we're working on remembering everything. So we're busily putting it in the compartments when to do this we have to almost let go of the memory making device and just let it flow and be. We're so conditioned and we should remember what did Bob say and whatever. So true. That is such a good point. It's hard to let go of that. You don't even realise you do it. Sometimes it's a much lighter casting out of just that word.

There's no attachment to it whatsoever. Yeah, yeah. The mind, body or whatever chucks it out there to get, and maybe a pointer comes back and it's as light as that. So it's not always a heavy thing. You don't have to chase it so hard and cement it into the... And sometimes it's not. I mean for me generally it's not. It's just chucking it out there to see what somebody says and what might drop. But then I think sometimes when people then come down, oh you're just doing this heavy thing, it can be very... Other things can then react to that kind of misinterpretation. So there is a range in there too.

Although quite often most people do talk about it. Yeah. They talk about the heavy trying and doing. So I imagine it's pretty common from what I've heard around here. But it's not always the case. But it's also a habit. You've got to see that the mind is actually doing its thing because it doesn't really know any better. It constantly organises, labels, recognises from the memory, compares with the memory. It's just what it does. It is the machine. It is a computer and it goes on default. I'm talking about not that though, what you were saying, describing. I'm talking about another place where you just hear it come out, you know, oh there's a story in the word one.

This was remembered. And then there's just a dropping, sitting back and then someone might say something that drops. And I'm not saying the point of cause is something to occur. Just where, you know, the point might turn up with an experience of no thing for a moment, whatever. Sometimes it is very light. And I think you could see a continuum of, not to take that literally, but a continuum of how lightly something is held and say how strongly something is held. And then a reading of where that person's coming from at that time also comes into play. And that's really hard to guess, you know.

It's really hard to interpret for anyone, you know, given the outcome. Yeah. This mind, you know, even though we say it doesn't exist, it's pretty bloody busy but... Yeah. Yeah, for something that doesn't exist. For someone who doesn't exist, it's bloody busy. It is, yeah. It's just a thought machine. It's just doing its job. Just like the white blood cells are. They are transporting whatever lymph is moving the oxygen in the body. They're just part of the machinery. But the white blood cells are there, aren't they? The mind is supposed to know not to be there. Yeah, well, white blood cells are not there either.

Everything is an appearance. Okay, yeah, and then we can say everything... Yeah, everything's appearance. Something's going down there. Is that all you can say? Yeah, something... Something is going down? Or up. Or even a greater awareness or... Yeah. Something is going down there. You think you're the mind and then you get rid of the mind. You know, the mind's going away. And then you think... And then you go into the body, but then your mind again. Mind out. You get rid of your thoughts and then you're just a body, you know. But then you're the mind again. See how mind comes into existence by defining things.

Like, what is the mind without definition? Like, what would you say the mind is at all? The bundle of thoughts, right? One at a time. Thoughts and images, one at a time. Of course it doesn't have an existence. But if you start defining something, describe something, like an ego or the mind or whatever, you right away pull this life essence into it and you are creating it. You are painting it, like an artist painting the painting. So now you believe it into existence. You define it out of nothingness. Everything here, all the things, we are actually... Yeah. ...agreed to define, label out of the pure field of potentiality.

So you actually call it into existence. Certain words, certain ideas didn't exist. Like certain language, computers didn't exist a thousand years ago. The word wasn't there. But as it was started coming into existence, it was defined and it came real. Seemingly real. The same way mind comes to existence. Three hundred years ago, the body was functioning in the way that nobody knew the little details about genes and stuff like this. So genes didn't exist. I mean, potentially, it was just an appearance. And these are the things which we'll probably discover? Absolutely. Which we don't know at the moment? Totally, yeah. Well, that doesn't stop. The way you describe mind always make me tick to some extent.

And I try not to take on my one resistance on this tick, but to see what's really about that. At a point in time, if we take the concept of time, the experience of life was done through the physical body. And there was no mind. And there was probably no emotion. And we speak about the minerals at that point. Then we can, again, using concept, we can speak about the etheric body when the plants came. And then the astral body when the animals came. And it's always been an unfolding of a vibration. So consciousness could experience itself at a different level. So consciousness could see itself from a different angle.

It's like a vibration which refine or get expanded to more and more complexity. And when you speak about mind not being real, it's like, but mind have a level of reality. It's not consistent. I cannot show it. I cannot point it. I cannot do nothing in that. Yes. You're right. But still mind is a level of experience of life in which in all those understanding of Advaita, what I don't... And I don't want to use that as a resistance because I know it can be. But still it's a genuine question, a genuine wondering about what's really the role of that mind. And I don't believe that the role of the mind is to be transcended.

This is the ultimate definition that we will all most probably go anyway. We will all transcend that mind and to believe that's the way of evolution. As we transcend the belief of we are the body, we transcend the belief we are the emotions, we will probably transcend the idea we are the mind. But while the world consciousness is as I am the mind. What do we do with that? You want to understand the mind. The mind is not the enemy. It's very useful. But it's self-destructive when it tells you you're not good enough and all these definitions you're putting on it which are only nonsense.

And you're not good enough and you're fearful and you don't understand or you don't realize and all this crap that's going on in the mind. That's the destructive way. The other way can be very useful in the definition. So you've got to understand it and realize what it is. The mind doesn't have to be destructive in the same way the body was destructive at the beginning. Body killed each other. Then emotions ate each other. Then mind killed each other. But it doesn't have to be the nature of the mind. So in Advaita conversation or life of understanding of life, why is the place of, and the words are obviously wrong, but what is the place of refining the mind?

What is the place of self-development? How much it is useful to help someone to have a better mind? Well, just relax and see what comes through the mind. Don't try and utilize the mind to do anything. The mind can't do anything. It never has. So the mind can do anything. Not at all. But it can't do anything but it's done through it. Pardon? It can be done through it. Yeah. Like if I have someone in front of me suffering, I can get the idea that it's all perfect. It's all okay. It's all as it is. I don't need to do and I can let come up things.

But is there a place, a role, a point, and I, ah, those words are so bad. Is there something about reducing the suffering of someone else? Because let it be just in the mind, the suffering. Let it be. You want to be a doer again. Yeah. Yeah. Because it comes up. I mean, of course, like see how logical it is. If I'm not preoccupied with myself, if I'm not self-obsessed only about me, me, my future, my problems, I will be there for you. In absence of my own self, I will be completely fully there for you. Not because I have the idea that belief or religion called Advaita told me that I have to enhance myself and I have to purify my mind and I have to become better person because morality, human morality, of course, I can kill all the animals but human morality is not the answer.

I can kill all the animals but humans. You know, none of that crap but just natural spontaneous functioning. If you get rid of the self-obsession, the story about you, you engage with the world from completely different place. And if you see the suffering, you naturally move to elevate it because this is also you. That person in front of you who suffers is you. Everyone, everything, everything is you. It goes down to how light your talk is. All those things you were saying, you were looking for the answer in the mind. You will never find it. Right, right, right. And wanting to have something to do.

Yeah, right. Stop right now, just relax a minute. But you know what, I would just quickly acknowledge it because this comes from the heart and it's beautiful. You want to be a good person, you want to be helpful and you want to find space for developing yourself and being better, serving the world better. This is hard speaking and it's beautiful. But that natural tendency is so much deeper and more natural when the mind steps out and say, I want to be better than everyone else or I want everyone to be better than they are because I'm the judge and as it is, it's no good.

So the part that comes, you know, you come from love and from wishing every sentient being ultimate goodness and liberation from suffering. This is gorgeous. But it happens. But it happens. Yet not this way. Not this way that I must, you know, like get religion or get better or strive. Not this way. But it happens. And thank you for having that heart attitude and wanting to help. I think, Sebastian, I would like to open it up for the same thing. The more you think about things, the more questions you come up, the more the worse it is. The best thing is just pop. I'm sorry.

Let go of everything. That's what it tells you. The more you talk and think about it, the further away you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking. There's nothing you'll not be able to know. That's a good note to start to end on. And it finishes words. The way is beyond language. For there's no yesterday, no tomorrow, and no today. Silch. Way over time people start. So thank you, everyone. Have a good day. Have a beautiful Sunday. Thank you, Kat. Thank you. Thank you.