Sailor Bob - Non Duality - Presence or Flow - 3 Feb 19

Okay, good morning everyone. Can we start with names? Salila, Cundi, Jane, Mel, Sebastian, Jim, Tony, Mary, Ross, Tim, and Kat and Bob. Okay, you all know what it's all about. I'll give you the run through again because giving you the run through, a reminder in case you forget. We can't teach you anything, we can't tell you anything. Understand that right from the start. When you look into what we're talking about you'll see that, realise that nobody can ever teach you anything and nobody can tell you anything because there's nothing other than the One. Most of our concepts and ideas are all over the world. But the so-called spiritual, there's God and everything else.

That's what we try and do. Try and look and become one with that God or realise or recognise it. It's the other way around. God is all there is if you like to use that term. The Italian certain scriptures, it's the one essence, patterning, shaping, forming, expressing, has everything. There is only that, only that One. And labels like spirituality and all these other sort of things, they're all labels and none of them fit it. But the start of the Satchitananda, existence, consciousness, being and then do. Anyone who is not existing right now, no you realise I'm existing. Anyone who is unconscious, no I'm conscious. Anyone who is not happy to be, no I wouldn't be dead for quid.

So you must already be the that. That that they are talking about. That's the Mahavikā, the great mantra, I am that. This is that, the tree is that, the flower is that, the bird is that, you and I are that. But we don't realise that, we don't hear that word that, we think it's something mysterious or something we've got to find or understand. But you know that innately in your language when you say that's the chair, that's the carpet, that's the house, that's the flower, that's me, that's you. Already you know it. That is what that is. That's what we put labels or words on.

They might start to understand when they say the word is not the thing. Words are the problem. And realise that every word you've ever spoken or have the likeness to speak has been picked up. You've learnt them, you weren't born with any words. Nobody was born with any words. Go back and see if you can remember your birth. You can't remember your birth, why? Because you didn't have any words to relate to or didn't have any concept about yourself. When people like Shakespeare said a couple of hundred years ago, two or three hundred or whatever it was, there's nothing either good or bad but thinking makes us sad.

And when the Sarcadist says nothing can trouble you, and he means exactly that, not a thing can ever trouble you except your own imagination. How many troubles have you got in your life? How many troubles have you had or likeness had? You recognise they're all being imagined and believed in. And made only seem in a hundred times. They seem in a hundred times worse than what they actually are in their total functioning. Break that word imagination down to image in. And realise everything you're seeing in this room and everywhere else, you're creating a mental image about it. A mental image. Look at that mirror behind you or in the room there.

What do you see in the mirror? You'll see reflections. You can't say they're not there. But go up and try and grab a reflection out of the mirror. You can't say they are there because you can't grab a reflection. All you'll do is grab the glass. But the mirror is a very poor analogy because the mirror needs something outside itself to reflect in it. What we're talking about there is only the one essence of everything reflecting or appearing on the background of the silence and the stillness, the emptiness. That's why the Buddha's call it a cognising emptiness. Emptiness is infused with an innate intelligence or knowing.

That's all cognising. The only expression of it is knowing. And he made the statement then that emptiness is form. All these patterns, forms, including you and me and everything else, are forms of that emptiness. The emptiness is form. The form can be nothing other than emptiness. It's no way to appear solid and substantial like the earth appears, the planets and everything else appear solid and substantial. They're all just vibrating patterns of energy. Put them under a microscope and see how solid they are. Put that body under a microscope and you'll see it's made up of subatomic particles and it can be broken down into energy.

The manifestation is what they call light or energy. That's all that light is, is energy. Energy is light. And the light is that innate intelligence that we label and label, see everything, cognise everything and label it in. So there's no such thing as separate entity as an individual or a person. Where does that come from? Where does that idea of person come from? It's a word we've learnt or picked up or our parents taught us, coming from a latent word, ancient way back somewhere along the line, meaning persona, the mask. That's all of this person we believe we are today is this mask. Mask is a conceptual image.

You put a mask on, it's not your actual face, is it? Put any mask on. So we put a mask of concepts on ourselves. All these concepts we've got about ourselves. I'm Bob, I'm Australian, I'm a good fella, I'm not so good. Had a bad childhood, I'm unhappy, I'm depressed, I'm fearful. They're all concepts. And to understand this, they're all based on past events, experiences, conditioning, so they're all dead components. Do you think the dead can keep up with life? It can't. Life is ever fresh, ever free, ever new. Spontaneously expressing, vibrating into different patterns, shapes and forms. And it's transient. Like they tend to tell you in the scriptures, this manifestation is my, it's illusion.

It's a vibrating manifestation. It's a phenomena manifestation. Pick up your dictionary, look up the word phenomena. You'll see the definition of phenomena is that which appears to be. Appears to be. So all this you, me and everything are our, we are appearing. To others, to ourselves. And all the rest of this. The pattern, this manifestation, the trees, the flowers, the planets, the space, are all appearances. Seemingly patterns, shapes and forms, seemingly solid. But can you find any static point anywhere? You can say this is where it all begins. And also, can you find any self nature to anything at all? When you say myself, what are you talking about?

Are you talking about that essence as you are? Or are you talking about the imagined conceptual images you've got? So you see it's not the true self. We're looking for self liberation, self realisation, self awareness. And looking at the conceptual images we've got and trying to find it. It'll never happen. And it hasn't happened. And not until you go back and have a look. Where does it all begin? Where does it all appear from? Where does it all come from? Am I this kind of thing? Am I this conceptual image that I believe myself to be? And you'll see it's all labelled in words. And have a look at the word.

And you'll realise that every word you've ever spoken, or ever likely to speak, has been learnt. It's been picked up along the way. Go back to before reasoning started, when you didn't have any words, what could you say about it then? You couldn't say a word or a thing about it at all. Because you had no words to express it with. But you were seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, breathing. All this thing was going on without any words. And watch a little child before it reaches the age when the capacity of reasoning has developed. And see, if it wants something it'll cry or be happy.

But it's not saying I want this or that, it hasn't got any words. But a natural instinctive functioning. It lets out the hunger that's there or the fear. We can't even call it fear at that stage. But the sensation that it's not happy with or not merging or recognising. And tantrums. He doesn't call it anger because he hasn't learnt that word. He doesn't know what it is. It's just something that comes up and will go. It will move on. There is nothing fixated anywhere. There's no static point to fixate on. You'll realise all this manifestation is transient like they tell you. It's mire. It's illusion.

And it's transient. Transient means it's constantly changing. It's not static. And when you have a look at that, realise that body you walked into the room with is not the same body that's sitting there now. And while you're sitting there even, there are thousands of cells dying in it right now. Not one or two. But there are big changes going on. Thousands of cells. Food being digested. All sorts of things happening in that body. Constantly changing. We still identify it with the same I we've taken to believe we are. It's happening to me or I. But what happened before you learnt that word? You don't even realise or know.

But just take the word off right now. And see what's happening without the word. And you'll realise without the word you're still knowing what everything is. You're still cognising the different pattern shapes and forms. Look around the room without labelling it. And you'll know that you're not seeing an homogenous blob there. You're seeing what seemingly appears to be separate things. But can you break them down from that natural actuality? Take this body for instance. You say, it's my body. But you know it's not your body. Because you say, my house, my coat, my car, my shirt. Are you the coat? Are you the car? Are you the house?

You're not. Maybe you're not the body. The same thing when you say, my body. My mind. Show me a thing called mind if you can. And you realise there's nothing concrete there or substantial to say, this is mind. All this is mind. And you recognise there's no such thing as mind apart from thought. Thinking is mind. What we call mind. And if you were a thought, as we believe we are, we are the thought. This is me. I'm Bob. This is me. That's all thoughts, concepts. We believe that's what I am. If you were that thought, the primary thought is the thought I am. The sense of presence, expressing through the mind as that particular thought.

The primal vibration. The movement of energy. If you were that thought, you'd be frightened to lose sight of it. Because if you were thinking of the mind and the mind of thought, and you lost the thought, that would be the end of you. But you gladly give it up every night when you go to sleep. If you were that thought, you'd hang on to it, wouldn't want to lose it. You wouldn't be fearful of going to sleep. You realise you're not the thought. Not that thought or any other thought. You're not the good person or the bad person or the fearful or anxious one. Or the unhappy one or the one who's been abused and had all this trauma and drama.

All these concepts we take on and believe in, and they're seemingly real. Aren't they all based on past events and experiences? What's happening to you right now while you're sitting in this room? And you're not indulging any concepts of thought if you're listening. You're just hearing. Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching. Is it a trouble? Is it a worry? Is it a concern then? No. When the but comes then, what do you do? But if? But what if? Why? How? It translates to some conceptual image based on the past events and experiences. A dead image. And the dead image can't keep you from the past. A dead image can't keep up with life.

Life is constantly ever-freshing you. And you are the life. And people down through the ages in the scriptures have told you that. Christ told you that. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. People thought he was talking about, they said, well, he's the way. He's the truth. He wasn't talking about himself. He was talking about that sense of presence, that word, that primary thought. I am is the way. Like Moses said on the mountain when he was on the mountain. And he had all these people to look after. And they were all waiting for him. They were waiting for him to hear something to try to keep him at peace with his other name.

And these intuitive thoughts or feelings came up to him. And he wrote on the tablets the Ten Commandments. This is all story, of course. They say it's true, but it's not. Nobody here can tell you it's true. It's all imagined. And he asked himself, who shall I say? I've got to go back and tell them these people's commands. But who shall I say sent me? They won't take my word for it. And the thought came to him there. And then tell them I am sent you. I am is my name. And then he realized I am that I am. That I am he was thinking was no different from the sense of presence or the I am that he is.

And can't each and every one of you in this room say the same thing? Anyone who doesn't know I am. But you might know I am as that conceptual image. The good person. The bad person. The unhappy person. Or the individual, or the fearful one, or the anxious one. But just as that sense of presence. And realize presence is this immediacy. Or break it down into pre-sense. Before any conceptual senses, labeled senses, have come onto it. Without any senses. And that pre-sense, are you unaware? And you realize no. I am not unaware. That awareness is there right now. So you are that presence awareness. Not putting any labels onto that awareness.

Because you can't grasp it with a concept. Nobody can tell me what awareness is. It's just a label you've taken on. You take belief that is this entity. Without questioning and looking into it a bit further. But understand the words. Every word you've ever spoken. Every word I can speak has been learned. But the word is not the left, not the thing. There is no word that is the thing. All concepts. Take the word water. If you think it's the thing. Try and drink the word. Will it quench your thirst? Can you swim in the word? Can you wash in the word? Will you drown in the word?

You can't. The word fire. Does it burn your mouth if you speak of it? Can you cook with it? Can you heat yourself with it? You can't. So what's this word I or me? You've taken it to be what you are. But if you ever look at it you might see it's not so. It's just another word that is of no use whatsoever. Except as an expression to identify. Whether. I is not you. I is not the other. It forms this vibrational sense of separation. And in the totality there is no separation whatsoever. It is the one essence. Patterning, shaping, forming and expression. As everything and you are that.

Everything. And look at that word thing. Label. This is a thing. Carpet's a thing. Mirror's a thing. The chair's a thing. The leaves on the tree are things. You and I are things. All this manifestation is made up of things. The basic screen or the space, the silence, the stillness is no thing. Everything appears like reflections appear in the mirror. Everything in its reality is no thing. Can something come from no thing? Something cannot come from no thing. So all this manifestation, that's all it is. Seeming things. Seeming appearance, patterning, shaping, forming. Dreamlike illusions like they tell you. Which we've taken to be real. That's why I can't teach you anything.

I can't tell you anything. What can one reflection in that mirror tell the other reflection in the mirror? Nothing whatsoever. What can I tell you if there is a real? You're saying I also. Which I is right? You realise everyone in this room says I. How many I's are there in the room? Not talking about the I's in your head. You realise that only that one I, only that one concept or word, I. I. But the. Life onto it is the am-ness. The beingness. Am-ness is part of the word to be. Verb to be. The oneness. So it's not even one. That's another term we use in the Doris Cooper.

There's no word that will actually fit it. One implies other than one. Or two. There's not even the one. It's the no thing expressing as everything. So recognising that, what must you be? Who is superior to you? Who is inferior to you? Who is separate from you? There is no thing that is separate or apart from that essence that you are. Though it's appearing. And it's broken down into all these patterns. So it can express through. Do you think it'll know itself? Or be able to say or do anything? If there was nothing seemingly apart from it to express it as or in? But it's in it.

All the pattern, shapes and forms are dream-like. Pattern, shapes and forms. Which enable us to be identified. And all this play of consciousness or expressions of awareness to go on. Hinduism, they call it Shiva and Shakti. Shiva, the static aspect. The one essence. Shakti, his partner, is depicted as the feeling. Shakti, his partner, is depicted as the female aspect. Shakti dances and the world appears. And the static aspect is the base in which it appears on. Like the mirror is the static aspect, seemingly static aspect in which all the reflections appear. Space is the static aspect in which all the appearances appear on. Shakti dances and vibrates in other ones.

It dances the vibrations. And the world appears. That's all this world is. Well, they call it the dance of Shiva. And we break it down to its simplicity. We've complicated it. And we're still complicating it. See science, physics and all the rest of it going along, trying to find the answer. They've never found it yet. And they will find the answer. But they explain. Understanding and expressing a lot of things. And they help the search going. Because we break it down into this and that and something else and something more. And the next thing and the next thing. The next thing will be it. But I don't do that anymore.

I bring it back to its basic simplicity. There's only that. There is nothing that is not that. It doesn't matter how it pattern shapes and expresses and folds. It's still only that. And knowing it as that, I am absolutely certain that it is transient like everything else. Even like this body. It's going to change. It's not going to be static and the same. I'm not going to come to some state where it's going to be wondrous and amazing and a great ecstatic state where it's going to be a big smile on the face all the time and loving this and loving that. It's bound to change.

Just like the very breath I'm taking is changing. I'm breathing in fresh air right now and I'm breathing out the same. Just like the heart is beating. It's expanding and contracting. It's not static. The body temperature. The sensations that come up with that and it's translated as cool, hot, warm, whatever. And if those things weren't there, what would there be to be expressed in this world? Does nature know anything about the heat? As the earth is rolling around the sun right now. It'll be very cold out there in places where it'll be very hot, it'll be very dry, whatever. The earth doesn't know anything about it.

The sun doesn't know anything about it. It's just the way it functions and patterns. What has happened to us? We've taken on this when we learnt words. Realised that you didn't know any words until about two, two and a half. Look back in your life and see what we are saying before that. Can you remember it? You can conceptualise and say, oh, when I was born this happened and that was in the end. Say it's imprinted in the mind or somewhere around and like that. Is it the actual? Go back and see. And then the things that have happened along in your life, they've been seen as very actual when they were on, dramas and traumas.

Now years and years later, how real are they? If we haven't let them carve an image or a picture of them, or an engravement on the mind, on the thoughts and the thinking process, you're free of that. What is it? Hasn't the body healed up if it was wounded and damaged and things like that? It doesn't. It might carry the scar. The actual thing that happened disappears if you're not relating to it and keeping it there all the time. What happened? We learnt words when we were two. And with those words, the capacity of reasoning came about. Why that little child's not reasoning? He's just functioning spontaneously.

Doing what is necessary, what feels necessary to do or whether it's necessary or not. The activity makes it happen. But now we've learnt words, the capacity of reasoning. Words can be very useful. But they can be very self-structural also because you realise how this mind functions, how the words, it's the vibration. And see that in your thoughts, how thoughts function. It's always functioning in the related pairs of offices. You're either in the past, which is memory, or the future, which is anticipation or imagination, or somewhere within that range. Have a look at it. It's either good or bad, like Shakespeare tells you. It's either happy, sad, positive, negative, past or future.

Look at your mind and see if it functions any other way. Peace and joy or sadness and unhappiness. That's the way the mind vibrates. It's the vibration of energy. And each vibration and the word is formed and the words are founded in the opposites. Good, bad, pleasant, painful, happy, sad, loving, happy. And that's the boundaries. The word instead of being just a description in progress, it can now become the boundary. Good, clunk, that's it. Bad, clunk, get it. Fair, pleasant, painful, happy, sad. And we've encased ourselves in conceptual words. We've built a conceptual world. We've built a cage of concepts around it. And we've locked this believed in entity in the cage.

And you put a bird in a cage, keep it there for 15, 20 years or more and open the door, it won't realise there's a door there for some time. Some time later it might realise a door and, what for, just by accident find its way out. But it won't want to fly out because it hasn't seen it for a while. We've done the same thing. We've encased ourselves in this cage of concepts, not realising the cage is a fiction. Cage is made up of concepts, words, ideas, images. It's a fiction. And that concept of the capacity of reasoning, which we learnt words like I and they and then we, can't do much with I or me, so we add to it these events, experiences and conditions that have happened to us.

I'm Bob, an Australian. I've had a bad childhood. I'm not good enough. My parents tell me I'm Bob, I'm a human being, I'm a person. I'm a good fellow, I'm not so good. I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't do that. All these concepts are put onto this conceptual mob. Now it's got some seeming substance because the I of itself, what substance do you put on I? Any solidity to it? Can you describe that I? You can't until you put concepts on it. So now I've got this conceptual image, I'm Bob and this, that and the other. And that becomes a self-centre. A reference point, as well as the self-centre of the self, where all the selfishness starts from, that self-centre.

Self-centreness, a reference point, everything is related to the self. Or the ego. And that's all this ego is, a conceptual image. Hey Bob, this is an egoic image, I'm going to be myself. And I'll tell you that in the scriptures too, that ego is the only property you've ever had or ever likely to have. And they say you've got to sublimate it somewhere, you've got to stamp on it, you've got to kill it, you've got to get rid of it, throw it out. And we try to do that. What would we be trying to do it? Only the egoic image that you think is real, you'll be trying to get rid of the image.

And they tell you it's like trying to wash away blood with blood, it doesn't happen. So it's no good relating to that image. And that's all it is, a mental image and a dead image of that based on past events and experiences and conditioning. So everything becomes relative to this image. And isn't relative relationship or relativity? And isn't relativity dualism? And what are we looking at? We're looking at non-duality. Where the duality and dualism and non-duality have disappeared. Where there's just that equilibrium there, there's no duality and no non-duality. It can't be separate. Just the same as you can't separate this body from the elements.

The body's made of air, earth, water, fire, space. Separate yourself from the air, earth, water, fire, space. If you can, you can't. So while we're relating to this egoic image, we're going to be in trouble. Instead of trying to sublimate the ego and get rid of it with the ego, have a look and see if there's anything there. Investigate. We tell you, and other people do, the false cannot stand up to investigation. If something is false that we're believing in, investigate it, go into it, really have a look. And if it's the truth, you won't be able to get rid of it. But if it is false and you really question it, it'll fall apart.

Because there's nothing substantial there for a place there where it can stand. No static point anywhere. We ask you to look at this ego. If something comes up and now instead we've got this egoic image, and everything comes relative to that, something comes up and I like it. How do you know? Well, I've had this before. And it's good. And what do we want to do? We want to keep the good things we like. We don't want to let them go. We want more and more of them. Keep the good things there. Not realizing that they're transient. No matter how much you love them, no matter how much you want to keep them there, they're going to change.

They might die, they might leave you, they might move on, something will happen just the same as your body is changing, so are they, and so is everything around you. This house is changing constantly. Down the road, the things in the road are constantly changing. Out there in space, everything is changing. Nothing's static. But we don't want those things to go. We want to keep them there because that's where the happiness is in those things. Or we think it is. We don't want the things to go, so what do we do? We try and keep them there. Got to hang on to this one as much as possible.

Keep it there. I want it. I like it. Not really. It's not going to change. No matter how much you love them, they're going to change. So what do we do to keep them there? Trying to keep them there is resistance. We're resisting it from going. And when you are in resistance, you are in conflict. You're in conflict with that thing because it's trying to move on. You're trying to keep it there. Isn't that a conflict? And the conflict makes you unhappy, makes you uneasy, makes you anxious, fearful, depressed, guilty, jealous, envious. All conflict. Anxiety, fear, depression, self-pity, and everything. Uneasiness. And another word for uneasiness is disease.

While we're in struggling, we're in resistance, conflict, and disease. And isn't that what our body's going on all the time? There's always some conflict and resistance and some disease coming up, and anxiety and fear. Something comes up and I don't like. We don't want this one. It's there and I don't want it. So what do I do? I resist it again. This time trying to get rid of it. Instead of trying to handle it, I remember resisting it from the opposite. Trying to get rid of it. Again in conflict. And again uneasy in a bit. That's where our life is full of psychological suffering. This conflict is continually going on.

If you want to live without it, get rid of it, you've got to recognize it and see the truth. It's a fiction. So it's me. Everything becomes relative to this conceptual image. Or ego. Now wouldn't it be imperative that you had a look at this reference point, this ego, and see if it is real? See what I'm relating to, this me, is what I actually am. They ask you to investigate along these lines. Everybody is seeing right now. Everybody is hearing right now. Isn't that a fact? Everybody is tasting, touching, smelling. The functioning is going on. Heart beating, breathing, hearing, fingernails going. All spontaneously, all naturally and everything.

So you're seeing right now. And don't you realize it's the same thing you had when you woke up this morning? Same thing you had last week, last year. It's the same thing that's been going on all the time. The seeing hasn't changed. But the content has changed. What you were seeing this morning, what you were seeing yesterday, last week, and what you're seeing right now, the content is constantly changing. The same with the hearing. Open your eyes this morning, the hearing was there. If it had been called loudly and deeply, you'd have heard it. The hearing wasn't too far away. You think the hearing has changed, but the hearing hasn't changed either.

It's the same hearing you had. Right, there's a hearing and the seeing is going on. That's a fact, isn't it? Well, ask yourself this. Is my eye telling me I see? My eye is not saying, look at this bottom, look at that. That's good. That's bad. I realise from that my eye can't say anything at all. It can't think, it can't speak, it can't do anything. But it is the instrument through which the seeing is happening. And that instrument, that seeing is translated by the thought, I see. How would you translate or recognise a thing without the thought, I see? But what's that thought? It's not a pure seeing anymore.

It's not a pure seeing. Now it's me, Bob the Australian. The conceptual image I've got about it thinks I'm seeing. It's me that's seeing. Same with the hearing. Hearing is happening in the morning, hearing is happening right now, and you realise the same hearing is going on all the time. We think that hasn't changed. They think that's changing, but it hasn't changed either. The same hearing, the content again is changing. It's the content that's continually changing, the vibrating patterns of energy. The actual seeing and hearing. My eye, my ear doesn't say, listen to this, Bob. Listen to that, that's good. It can't. But it's translated by the thought, I hear.

Again, not a pure hearing anymore. It's the conceptual image that Bob thinks is hearing. So the seeing and hearing are happening. Look at it a bit further. Seeing is happening. Seeing through the eye, I'm seeing. But can the eye actually see? Thought, I see. Can the thought, it's translated by the thought, but can that thought, I see, actually see, to prove that the thought, what it's translated by, is conceptual image? Can the thought, I see, actually see? Well, prove that to yourself. Close your eyes and look around the room and see what you can see in this room, what objects you can actually see with the eyes closed.

You know what the objects are and you can imagine some of them in your mind, but you can't actually see them with the eyes closed. So you recognise that thought, I see, can't see. It's the things happening through the eye and the thought, I see, can't see. Put your hands over your ears and do the same thing and you realise that the thought, I hear, can't hear. You recognise you're not unaware right now, so you must be aware. Is the thought, I am aware, or I am unaware? Is that the entity, the thought-up entity doing it? Or is that what's happening is translated again by the thought?

The thought, I check. The thought, I choose. We think we choose our thoughts. Why would you have an unhappy or miserable or anxious thought if you could choose the thought? So you realise the thought, I see, thought, I hear, thought, I'm aware, thought, I choose, can't see, hear, be aware or choose. The egoic image, the conceptual image, can't do anything at all. And have a look at that. That life essence goes out of the body. What can the corpse do? You've got the eyes. You've got the ears. You've got the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, all the organs there. But of themselves, they can't do anything at all without that life essence.

So what's doing it all? Is this thinking, conceptual image you believe that's running the show and doing all this, can do it anything without that life essence? It can't, never can, never will. So give credit where credit is due. Give credit to the life essence that's breathing you, burning your heart, growing your endorphins. Throw the little why, the conceptual image out. It can do it. It's never done anything. It never can and never will. Drop it. Let it be without. See, learn those words too. We think all this thinking is going on within. The seeing, the hearing, the tasting, and the going within. What if you put it without?

Instead of seeing it in, put it without, outside. We use that word without. We don't take the meaning with we're out. That'd mean you'd be without thought. Without feeling, without emotion. And realize that with the air, the prana, and till you breathe in, the life essence comes in. That's where the life essence comes into the body. Go back to when you were born and look at through the umbilical cord of the mother. The life essence came from the mother into the umbilical cord of the fetus. And that's the life essence that's been functioning ever since. And that's where it's aligned. It's aligned with the breath with that breathing, abdominal breathing.

And when you breathe in the thought, you take it within. You inspire it. Instead of letting it out, we leave it there. And let the breath go out all around it and that thought's still there. What happens if you let the thought, as they tell you in the scriptures, let the thought ride on the breath? Just let it go out with the breath. Then it's without. Then you are without that thought. But we don't, while we keep it there and leave it there, we beat ourselves up with the word or the thought continually. And it'll go on forever and ever. So when they ask yourself what's wrong with right now if I don't think about it, you need to look and see if you pause the thought, be without the thought for a moment.

What can you say without the thought? Can you say it's good, bad, pleasant, painful, happy, sad or gone? And where do all the good inventive and useful thoughts come from? Don't they tell you that in the word? Well, you could read them too. I had a great inspiration. Einstein said that. He had a great inspiration. He was , tried to work something out for years and years and couldn't, went to sleep one night and the inspiration came to him. And the other people have said this, had a great inspiration, wrote this book or did this and did that or invented this or it is, you know.

Do you realize when you break it down and it came in with the Prana, the life essence you breathe in from the atmosphere, the intelligence, there's one life essence, there's what you are that's forming this body. that's forming this body, patting it, living it, and expressing through it. And then doesn't I am that take on a different man? You're not just mouthing some words, you're mouthing something that you're actually knowing. The knowing that I am. Can you say you are not? That's what we point to. That's what we ask you to look at. And that's what you would realise. It's not anything new. It's there for each and every one of us.

If there's a movement there to have a look and investigate it. And you'll find, like I found, in spite of myself, it brought me to it. And the belief that I was this person, I was the great this, that, and that, I was going to do this, that, and that. It brought me to my knees, brought me into the gutter. And it also took me out of it. By me starting to recognise, to open up, instead of being closed-minded and shutting self-doubt, I was able to open that mind up. Be open and aware. And the recognition was there. Re-cognise. They call it the cognising emptiness.

Not that we cognise emptiness, but cognising is that natural function going on. Or knowing. That's why the Buddha could say emptiness is form. And form is nothing but the emptiness. And the cognising emptiness with the chatter going on, we lose sight of the actual cognising emptiness. And then the losing sight of what needs to happen. That needs to be re-cognised. And that word recognition or recognising takes on a different meaning again when you see what it's pointing to. There are others here that will be able to point it out in different ways, properly expressed. It can be expressed in thousands of different ways. And it's each one's own experiencing.

Not the experiencer or the experience, but the experiencing will translate into the experience. And that's what we're talking about. And that's what we're talking about. The ing will translate the experience, and generally translate it into the experiencer and the experience. But just be the pure experiencing, the pure seeing, the pure tasting, the testing, touching, the smelling. Before I see, I think, I hear, we are divining. Start living from that and seeing what changes, whatever. And get into it. All sitting in that silence and stillness now, what's coming up? How amazing functioning it takes you. It takes you on this journey into knowledge of separation and duality.

And that brings you back to where you never left. And yet you go on this merry chase. You go on this merry chase. You go on these little pathways, these little stories, these little jewel stories. And you go on these little pathways, and then you come back to where you never left. You know that, you know. What are you going to do? Let it happen. I take you into the rough and the smooth, the good, the bad, whatever. It'll change. It's been an interesting journey. Is there a difference between the state of, I don't know how to call it, full presence or beingness. Is there a difference between that state of really being compared with the moments when, as an example, when we just play.

If I'm just playing with kids and there is no thought, I'm just playing. Or I'm just painting. And in those spaces there is no thought. There is just being and something is being done. Like if I paint, or when I do art in general, there is no thought about I want to do this, I'm not trying to do any art. It's just painting. Is it the same thing? Of course it is. No discrimination. See it all as the one thing. There is no one in its stick. Each stick has got two ends onto it. So when it's a thin end or the thick end, instead of discriminating and saying I like this, I don't like that, see it all as the one.

Just as you're doing now. It's the play. It's the fear, it's the anger, it's everything. It'll lose its intensity and you can't get the same intensity in it if you're not relating to the conceptual image, may you? So is it the same than those moments that we say I was lost in the moment? Or I was lost in the action? You know this idea of I was lost in it? Is it the same again? Yeah, well who was lost? If you haven't put that eye on it, were you lost? Did you disappear? Did you stop breathing? Did your heart stop beating? Or did your foot go...

You weren't lost at all, only conceptually. The ego was lost. It wasn't there. In this moment of inspiration or being in the zone or being like fully with the activity with five senses wide open there is no space anymore in the attention to construct the false image and translate everything into the image. When you are in the creative act or you are with children or you are fully absorbed even in listening of a wonderful music or anything, that activity that attention is 100% engaged with the environment. There is no attention left to create that false self-center which will translate that this is happening to me.

It shouldn't be happening the way it does. So, in absence of that translation or that cloud that says I, this is me, this is my, this is... You basically lost. The I is lost, the ego is lost. There is no ego because ego is just a mental activity. When the mental activity is the construct of I am my past, I am my body-mind whatever, if that activity is absent, ego is absent. And what happens is there is a traveling lighter. It's a traveling lighter. Same as when you are painting or you are playing with kids and you are not taking up all your energy in the mental construct.

There is a sense of traveling lighter. You know? Because you are not utilizing all that energy on the image you have about yourself. So, there is a lightness of being, a lightness of being and it's only a pointer. But it's, you know, it's exhausting taking up all that energy on... I don't know how to... Yeah, and you know everyone knows that. You know that when you are obsessing we all kind of been there or still are there but we are not obsessing about ourselves. What people think about me, am I doing right, should I be doing something else? When you are happy and when you are engaged in this creative act you don't really have any space for self-obsession.

You are not even taking credit for what is going on. You don't even have the commentary oh, I am doing well or I am not doing well. There is no self-obsession. There is no idea about this is happening to me. There is no commentary going on. This commentary is the only ego as we know it. There is no physical thing called ego. There is nothing. Ego is believed into existence and it comes up from mental activity of taking credit for actions and the whole past of taking credit for actions and relating to that image. So this is actually a taste of the freedom. Like people said, oh I had an opening there was no me, it was just activity.

Everyone has it. Everyone has it in the morning before the download happens and then they know who I am what I am going to do next. Everyone has it in the moment when the desire gets fulfilled. It doesn't mean that desire gets fulfilled so I am happy because I got what I wanted. No, I am happy because I have no desires anymore. And in the absence of desires there is no me clinging and wanting. So there is fresh breath. Travelling lighter. And also the moment of completely forgetting ourselves in the moment in the creative act. There is no construct that is taking credit or translating.

Those are also moments of joy. Like swimming in the ocean or whatever, feeling the water, feeling the sun. Bob is often giving an example of walking on the beach and feeling connected with all the elements. And totally divided attention between the five senses. There is not much going on into the commentary. Those are moments that are blissful. That are just natural way of being. Just like animals are being. Without that mental clouds of I don't want this, this is wrong. I am not that yet. I have to become someone. I have to figure it out. There is nothing wrong. The best way Nisargadatta described it.

Nothing wrong. The moments when there is nothing wrong are the moments when there is no ego. Because ego is the cloud that makes everything wrong. Not this. Not like that. Just the commentary. But in that recognition you are back in conscious contact. So in the recognition that you got trapped into the story again. The minute you recognize it you are back in conscious contact. And I know what you mean about when you are painting or you are playing with children. I sing. People often come up after I sing and say, oh that was really good. And I think, who are they talking about? You know.

I don't know how to explain it. It's like a... It just showed up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny. And playing with children and seeing their spontaneity. Yeah, so. And that's what Bob said all along. We've known this all along since we were little children. We've known this. And so we want more of it. That's why we are here. Who could be launched? It starts from the fact that you are already that. If there is only that. Who was ever lost? Or what was ever lost? Every one of you here and now are that essence. Life. Is life out of any of you? Not at all.

As I say, I once was lost but now I'm found. Now I'm found. Not tomorrow. Not last week. I was blind and cannot see. Take the blessing of the light. The light is off your eyes, the conceptual image, and you see. You see without the concept. So I say, start from the fact that you are already that. And instead of trying to struggle, trying to get rid of this false ego, which won't happen, discard what is blocking the seeing. What concept or idea or image. Put it without. Get rid of it. But there is another aspect with what you are pointing out, Sebastian. That's kind of interesting because the ego is waving or dancing, doing its thing.

But another thing you say when you are utterly present, completely present, the attention doesn't really go out anywhere, it doesn't engage. It's just back on itself. That's a different quality. It's also absence of ego. But it's also the presence that gets so much of the attention that it's overwhelming, that it's almost blissful in its own presence. So if the above states, if we are looking at something that is beyond both of the states, the state of pure presence with no distractions, or the state of complete absence of taking credit entity and just distractions, just the dance of life. And now, both of those states are happening in that space like awareness.

So this is the moment when the self-aware universe, when the realization of that spontaneous action activity happens. When you kind of, part of the attention steps out of the dream and is witnessing the dream. Like there is a knowing about being in the zone. Knowing about painting or playing with children. Those are usually just kind of hints because the life is, the intention of life is to express itself, is to dance itself, wave itself. So it will right away swim back into expression. But the moments when it actually kind of steps out and just becomes aware of itself. But again, those are just waving, glimpses.

Those are also changing phenomena. The changing phenomena of recognition out of recognition. Seeing the knowing of its own activity and falling back into the expression. Like watching an action figure, really. Yeah. And as Jane says, the moment she uses conscious contact it is a 12-step description for, because a lot of people, Bob got to know by 12-step program. It is about coming back to that life essence. So the moment you recognize that there is some activity going on, you obviously witnessing them from outside of the activity. So you are already beyond the mind. You are already pure consciousness. Aware of the movement inside of you or outside, whatever.

Just the movement. So you are already being a stillness. You are already the activity. So this is what she calls conscious contact or we can call it a moment of awakening or recognition or whatever. Or the great switcheroo. You are switching back from the content and back in the context. So, you know, there is the train zipping past and then you are back on the station. It is another good way of saying it. It is. Good painting too. It is a mental image. It is helpful. It is interesting because it doesn't matter where you go looking for a question. It is still coming from the mind.

So there is nothing. You can't really ask a question. Exactly right. There is nothing to say, nothing to do. Here is the question. Yeah. I can cancel this other route then. Yeah. He sometimes says about the whole bag of butts. Oh, he mentioned today in the spiel. And you know, you've got this innate knowing. Knowing that you are. And then you go to your head. But what if, but what if. This is all coming from the whole doubter personality. The doubter aspect that comes and has a story. But it is necessary as it seems to exhaust it first. Yeah. It seems so. I mean not for everyone.

But for me, I think it is necessary to go to this realization with maturation process, with getting older, or with just interacting with the big family where is a lot of love. And it just happens. So it doesn't really have to be this way that you have to become seeker, go to the head, have thousand questions, struggle and just break this wall with the thinking and then give up on it and then go back to the, oh my gosh, home you never left. It is so beautiful to see people who didn't really have to leave the heart and enter the head to start the spiritual search and exhaust all that conceptual dilemmas to just step out of the thinking back again to the life and as it is expressing moment to moment.

I have a lot of friends like that. Yeah. A lot of people, the elderly people that I am helping they are like this. I mean it is just happening. It is like you question the reality of the dream. Yes. I love what Nisargadatta says too. Some fruit on a tree goes plop and it falls off the tree it is ripe ready to eat. Some fruit takes a long time to ripen. And it is all good. You know it is still all good fruit. It is just, yeah, some ripen and some ripen and some ripen quicker than others. As far as that, I was just reading about that.

I think the way I understood that was that the fruit will fall it doesn't take long to fall but it takes a long time to mature before it falls. So in other words you don't just look at when it falls it is ripe but it has taken a long time before it ripens. What we have got around even time is a mental concept. I believe in on time or right or wrong time. What time is it if you don't think about it? Is there a past if you don't think about it? You can't say there is a past unless you think about it. Is there a future if you don't think about it?

Just as I was in the past I would say try and actually live a moment ago. Try and live last week or yesterday. You can't. Try and live tomorrow. You can't anticipate imagine what you are going to do when you leave here. But can you live a moment in the future? You can't. You can't imagine what is going on right now any time at all because you can't tell me what you thought a minute ago now unless you recall it. And you can't imagine or anticipate anything unless you are moving away from this present moment into some future time. So past and future are concepts, images.

People tell you you have got to try and stay in the now. Try and get away from this momentary now moment which is spontaneous. When does now begin? Have a look. When does it start? You have got to say it is starting right now. You are not talking about now yesterday. It wouldn't be now. But what is the now? As you are saying now even it is ending. The word ends and it is finished. But it begins again now. Now again. It is all spontaneous. It has got no duration. 20 or 30 years of search doesn't matter a thing at all because it was now all the time.

Seemingly long, seemingly extended, but why? It seems to be the ripening process. And this is only in the dream. Because 20 or 30 years didn't matter. 20 or 30 years happening now. We are kind of creating the whole past with the whole ideas. That I didn't get. I am slowly opening. I am slowly getting this. I am slowly. This drops away slowly, slowly. This is all happening now. This is the story that we have now. But right now if you ask yourself what is wrong with right now think about it. There is no fruit, there is no ripening, there is no concept and there is no problem.

And there is no one who needs to ripen, no one who needs to get it. Because without the thought you already that. You already the nothing. Because you only have to have the thought to have the idea that there is a me who is in the process of ripening and who is slowly getting or slowly discarding things. This is all thinking. The moment the thinking ceases there is no ripes, there is no fruits, there is nothing. It is just this moment as it is. But it is helpful analogy for the individual. If the individual still strongly believes itself to existence and it strongly believes in its own authenticity.

That kind of gives an individual kind of a hope. Because individual is totally time dependent. Because without time of course there is no possibility to create the mental image. Because without time there is no past. So who am I without the past? I can't tell. There is nothing without the past. So I love how limited all the pointers are. Because if the pointer was it everybody would have got it long time ago. But every analogy has limitation. Analogy of mirrors, analogy of ripening, of fruits, of falling. They are all rooted in time to start with. They are all having an image, a mental representation. So they are all limited.

They have to be. We are using dualistic language to express something that is before the language or underlying the language. And every language has an image. I remember sitting here in 1988 going what the hell are they talking about? And trying to get it with the mind even though I knew, even though I had been told and even though it had been pointed to that it wasn't in the mind. And I had been told I wasn't in the mind. And I was told I wasn't in the mind. And I was told I wasn't in the mind. And I was told I wasn't in the mind.

And I was told I was in the me. And I've been told that the me was the past. And I've been told that it's all these things. And I think I got it and then I hadn't got it. And then I think I got it and then I hadn't got it. And like you said in the very beginning it was the mind exhausting itself. The mind, you know, exhausting itself looking for all these scenarios. In the end it just gives up. And you are trying to make sense of everything. It gives up, in the end it just gives up. Because there's no more questions. Yeah.

So everything, like you say, every point is limited, but at the time it's all part of the play. It's all part of the play, yeah. It's all part of that unique pattern of energies journey. Because, yeah, it's all unique. Yeah, and then apparently if we say, if we kind of adopt the time just for the heck of the story and the beauty of the expression, then we come to the point where the identity was constructed also in seeming time. When Bob says you are two, two and a half, you have enough words to have mental representations or symbolic language and create images, then you start create the image of yourself and then you start relating.

So two and a half, it seems in time. So the whole construct was conditioned alongside with growing up and adopting more words, and selecting out of this homogeneous blob more of the labels, believing them into existence. So then the ripening, it seems like the reverse process of discarding, discarding, getting less of that weight, traveling lighter and lighter until, oh my God, back to the womb. But this is just a story because this is just a dream. It's just what an extraordinary idea. The dream is a lucid dream. You can actually see it for what it is and just leave it and just love it as it is because it could have been nothing.

And in fact, there is nothing. We just kind of collectively project that magnificent expression out of plain nothing or cognizing intelligent nothing. So the stories are to be totally appreciated and loved because the stories are how life is actually showing itself to itself. How it has the glimpse of itself. How it has the glimpse of its omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, of its magnificence. And without creating the individual who is relating everything to itself, the story can't exist. There is a little bit of an appearance, of a mental image, of a picture when you know the story as a story. But without the past, nothing has a meaning.

Like Mary was saying here, the mind is constantly making, making, trying to get, trying to get depth and meaning to everything. How magnificent. When you see it, of course, because when you get trapped by it and you, and you buying into it, it can be tremendously traumatic. But then, you know, without that trauma and without that suffering, the possibility to actually see through the dream is very rare or non-existent. You have to fall asleep to wake up. There's no other way. That's right. You have to fall asleep to wake up. That's interesting too. Sorry. That's okay. You know, somewhere in one of the Bibles it talks about Adam falling asleep.

Nowhere does it say does he wake up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's so, yeah. What were you going to say, Bob? Yeah, I don't know exactly. We've been talking about that, about images. There's no good intelligence. Nothing can trouble you except your own imagination. In the Bible it tells you, thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven images. People think they're talking about worship and stone idols and cats and all that sort of thing. But it's the graven image we engrave in our heads, keep them there, that are troubling us. Imagine. Nothing can trouble you except your own image, imagination, what you image in. Yeah.

And it's not that we should or we could take the images out of our head. That's impossible. That's part of the play. But just recognizing, just recognizing them. That's enough because, yeah, that's when it becomes really beautiful instead of being threatening. You're standing on the place. Yeah. Don't get in. And I used to love what Bob used to say to me too, just in that cognizing a bit. Just be in the emptiness, be warm towards it, love it, give it a little wink and a nod. You know, love it, you know. And that's how it is, I had had it. To have an affectionate awareness of the being.

That's the being knowing loving the being, affectionate. And again, not that you can choose it, but with the recognition it just naturally opens up. A bit more about... I just can't get my head wrapped around this past time. The way I understand it is there's no time and space in the dream, right? I mean, sorry, there is time and space in the dream, but because the dream is not real, obviously you're saying there is no time and space. Is that the way it is or am I missing out something or what? Well, this is the waking dream. Yeah. There's no space in the dream. There's no space in...

There's no time in the dream. There's no time in the dream. There's no time in the dream. Sorry? I say there's no time in the dream. This is a waking dream. There's no time in it. I say, is there a past if you don't think about it? Well, if you don't think about it, nothing happens. Nothing. All right. If nothing happens, you're not in the past or the future. You're just with the nothing that's happening. There's a seeming past and future, a seeming concept of time, duration. So there's a seeming of past and future present. There's a seeming of past and future present and whatever.

It seems that way because nothing is really happening here, I understand. It all depends which way you look at it. Yes. It depends which angle you look at it. And look at it and recognise, you know, see the truth of it. Know the truth and the truth will set you free. What are you free of? The belief in all these images. Belief about time and concepts and everything like that. Question those beliefs. See if they're real or not. And also have a taste whenever you can to see. Taste. Taste, you know, like, okay, you're interacting with life and you know that past exists only when you think about it.

Yes. Try and live as if there was no past. As if you are actually discovering things for the first time, as everything is fresh and new. As you don't know what everything is. Take a cup and think, oh yeah, I know what it is because of the past. Because I've seen it before, I'm recognising it. Right. And it's that childlike curiosity of like lifting a thing and, yeah, okay, if I didn't really know the past, wow, I can see it fresh and new. It becomes interesting. The life gets new taste to it. When we drop off the past with the assumptions and with the conclusions, of course not when you're driving a car or whatever.

I mean, you know, just be practical about it. But it's a really sweet thing to experiment with that pointer, to play with it. To just be really childlike, be curious about the world and see it fresh and new without the past. Without the labels. Bob often says, try and see things without the labels. Because you look around and you right away label, you know, like we label people. And we have, yeah, this person didn't make a good impression on me so I'll be locked with that concept for the rest of my life. Never give them another chance to show that I was wrong. Or this, oh, I don't like this colour or this car or this food.

Never experimenting. Children experiment all the time. They're curious. They're not locked in their conceptual frame of strong opinions or judgements. They're just free about life. And that's... Yeah, we're basing our present decisions on the past, don't we, really? Yeah, yeah, we do. Well, there's nothing wrong. To a certain extent, this is a learning process. And it is completely unconscious process like, you know, the animals do that too. Like, you know... Like, if they learn that the stove is hot, they won't sit on it anymore. Or if they learn that certain fruit or animal or whatever. But we have commentary going on top of it. And that commentary is what actually clouds it or what makes it rigid.

Like, you know, you may have distaste towards certain food. And then the story comes, oh, I hate it because this is so unhealthy. Because someone got poisoned about it. And the whole roughness goes with it. The whole identity, this is my. And somebody says, oh, yeah, but I think that's quite nice. Oh, you're so wrong. Yes, I'm not going to be hanging out with you. Yeah, this is happening. Continuous judgement. Yeah. And naming of claim. See, you go outside on a sunny day. And you'll say, I sat in the sun. Did you actually sit in the sun? No. You sat in the sunlight. And you wouldn't have mind.

So it was in the past. Were you actually in the past? No. You were going back in a memory. Bringing a memory into the same you now. What you call a memory. So it was always the now. When you say try to move from the now. I really like that. You can't. It's like pushing water uphill. Yeah. Yeah. I think when other people say, you know, try to live in the present. I think what they really mean is. Attention. Because we got a habit, like you just said. Yes. We got a habit of thinking what we did yesterday and what we're going to do tomorrow.

Exactly. And we don't even know where we're standing on today. You know, at this second, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. If you listen to Eckhart, I mean, he says, you know, live in the present. But I think that's what he means. Of course. Of course he means attention. You know, I think he knows that. Absolutely. We are in the present always. And there's no way of getting out of it. Of course. But our minds, the people's minds. Of course. Always go to the past and the future. What are we going to do tomorrow? What did I do yesterday? Blah, blah, blah. And when I'm thinking of the now, I think that's what they mean.

That's the way I understand it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. You're right. Totally. Totally. But see, the pointers get a little bit used up. And they need a little bit of a fresh look at it. Because the whole mindfulness become a fashion of something to be in the present. But can you really be out of it? Or who are you? Who is there who is in the present? So, this sometimes taking the opposite direction. It's not to discard. Nobody is saying that, hey, Cartoli is stupid or is wrong. No way. He's gorgeous. But see, the pointer of being in the now, you cannot ask who you are.

You are the now. But at the same time, you know, yes, attention flows somewhere else. Imagination goes somewhere else. Just a habit. In the now, you're imagining future or imagining past. Of course. It's always happening now. It's either way. Yeah. It's not to tear down the pointers. It's to have a good time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you just have to so shoot. It's in your thinking. EQ. Yeah. So, that's the main thing. This is the end. Which is the most important? But never the end. Ok. Anybody want to do that?

What? That's the beggining. Yes. to the knowing? How deep does the knowing go? Obviously there's lots of talk here and it seems like, you know, getting into manifest consciousness here, and that's a point where the eye can kind of expand, experience something, referring to manifest consciousness. But, you know, you talk about things like nothingness and emptiness, which is obviously unmanifest. It's all totality. It's all one. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, it's all totality. Whatever limitations you're putting on it, what concepts or limitations can you put on it? Only concepts in the mind, I think. So there's nothing deeper, nothing, no limit to anything, but there's only limitations we put on our thoughts.

Because, like looking, last year it said, and, you know, there's no limit to anything, there's a lot of, and even Papaji and stuff, and there's a lot of description of, well, obviously Rama didn't say anything. He said very little. He transmitted what he transmitted in silence, which is a beautiful thing. But the, obviously the absolute state of things is an unmanifest state of things. It's outside of this consciousness or what we can experience as, as, as we live. Yeah. And that's, that's the perfect way to put it, as a conscious state. Even if you get down to the bare basics of consciousness. Well, of course.

You know, the flip side of that. And in Zen as well, you know, there's the flip side of that, the point where things actually really turn where there is nothing there to experience it. Yeah, you talked about the absolute state. Would there be an absolute if there was anything outside of it? Sorry? Would there be an absolute if there was anything outside of it or inside of it? Absolute is absolute. Absolute. The totality. Yeah. Yeah. Any dividing of it or adding to it, it wouldn't be the absolute. Yeah. And we can talk about it. Yeah. But in terms of the knowing of it. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

The knowing of it. I mean, we can speculate and... But you're knowing right now? Sorry? Are you knowing right now? Am I knowing right now? Yeah. Are you conscious? There is a knowing. Yes, there is a knowing. A knowing. Is that divided? Yes, I think so. Sometimes it can be, and other times it's not. So it's sometimes it is divided, other times it's not. Yeah, but I'm saying when there's the sometimes and other times, there's still the same knowing now, whether it's sometimes or other times. I don't know. Yeah. But can you know that? Well, you're knowing right now, aren't you? I am knowing that.

I'm knowing now, but I'm knowing the absolute. Yeah. Well, knowing is the absolute. It's absolute knowing. It's knowing. It's the absolute knowing. Yeah. There's a lot of division going on in your knowing. There's a lot of like seems to... Only when you think about it. Because see, when you're actually not thinking, there is a pure knowing, and now sometimes divided, sometimes not divided. The divided, not divided is already a thought. And that thought is already kind of including in the knowing. The knowing is the pure space in which the thought happens. And that's it. And that's the end point. Yeah, because when there is no thinking, there is just pure knowing.

And there is only the absolute. There can't be anything outside of it. It wouldn't be the absolute. Take the smallest, minutest thing away from it, it wouldn't be absolute. Add anything onto it, it wouldn't be the absolute. And I tell you in Buddhism, the great perfection, they call the absolute the great perfection. The great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. That awareness is with you right now without putting any thoughts, concepts. You can only divide it or make it bigger or smaller with a thought, feeling or an emotion, yeah? That's what you're all thought. And also think that there is something bigger or beyond the non-conceptual awareness.

This is also a thought. Start with that. You are the absolute right now. That's the same, you are the knowing right now. And it's not knowing this, knowing that, or knowing less or more, just pure knowing. Being, knowing and loving to be. That's yet another. The nama, rupa, the name and form are my illusion. I'm not a form. I'm a being. I'm a being. That's a form. Illusions appear on the absolute. But they are the absolute. And when without the thought, there's also no one to really question whether there is more or there is an end further. Without the thought there is absolutely no problem.

It's just... Without the identification. I mean the thought's okay, but it's the identification with the thought. Yeah, it's following the thought and believing a thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because your thought, when it's ignored it doesn't, it's just part of the . It's just clouds in the sky, yeah. So non-conceptual awareness. Non-conceptual, no, it's a form of non-conceptual awareness. It's a form of non-conceptual awareness. Yeah. non-conceptual awareness, is that the same saying, awareness without thinking? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Without putting any mental concepts, all right, either, or whatever. And it doesn't mean that you have to stop thinking, because non-conceptual awareness is happening whether you are thinking or not thinking, whether there are thoughts or not thoughts.

Just like space is happening whether there are objects or not. Silence is happening whether there are sounds or not. So non-conceptual awareness is underlying all the concepts, all the thoughts, stream, commentary, everything. So that's why we say you are already that. You are already that non-conceptual awareness. You are already that sky-like consciousness. But there are clouds and the trains that you are embarking, or whatever. It's just a habit. It's just the habit of the energy to move towards whatever attracts it. But it doesn't mean that you are not. It doesn't mean that this space in which that movement happens is obscured in any way. It's just recognizing you as the space, as the train station, rather than the...

The train that just came by. Yeah. And you always are. No matter what's going on, you always are. And that's the truth of your own being. Yeah. In the book, the Nisargadatta was reading, he says, you are the witness, always. Witnessing. Yeah. Put the in on the end. Because if you say witness... It already assumes the entity. Well, already the witness. Yeah. You are the witness, always. Yeah, it's a pointer. It's again a pointer. It's a good pointer. I mean, you know, it's Nisargadatta, and it was pointed by quite a few people who were visiting. I obviously never met Nisargadatta, but Bob did, and few others did.

And they all acknowledge that Nisargadatta was using pointers to point particular person who is locked in particular point. So if the person is locked in the identity with the body, it would put him as, no, you are the witness of the body. But if the person is locked in the idea of a witness, he would say, no, you are the space in which witness appears. Yes, that's right. So it depends who he was speaking to. Some pointers would be relevant for you. And yes, at some point, witness is a fantastic idea. But then, who is witnessing the witness? Or where is the witness happening? Or, yeah, so it is like, you know, like one could imagine the journey.

It is certain place in the journey where you have to pass, and when you pass it, you know you've passed it. But journey is only seemingly so. There is no journey. But at some point when, yeah, the pointers... The never left. Yeah. The never left. Yeah. So having a certain function is like, you know, the thorn to remove the thorn, and then you throw away. Pointer is never the thing. You use it, and you throw it away and move on. None of it was working. You just told them to go home and do good works. That wasn't one of the early chapters, am I? That's the great thing about reading I Am That.

It's like sitting in satsang, really. Yeah, it is. It's a very interesting one. Yeah. It's like sitting in satsang. A lot of it I don't understand, but, well not a lot, sometimes I don't understand. But then it goes back to understanding, and then maybe not understanding. It sort of goes from one way or another. Yeah, keep reading it and you'll start to jump out of the project. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. When Bob first gave me I Am That, he said, read it, then read it again, then read it again. Yes. By the time I got through it three times, I, yeah, I got it. So I'm only halfway yet.

I'm going to go on with it. I only read it once. That's just what happened to you. Yeah, I understand. Of course. It was always different, yeah. Yeah, it's getting better from satsang. I started reading it too late. It was already too clear. Because, see, if you know what is Nisargadatta actually pointing, then you will see every pointer, because it's just one, it's just one. It's not that he's pointing at this, this, this, this, ten different directions. He's always pointing at one, and so does Bob, because there is only one, non-duality one. So, I'm not saying that Bob is pointing at one, but I'm saying that Bob is pointing at one.

So if you know that the pointer is to one, you can very easily unpack it from the end. That's how I happened to read Nisargadatta only recently. I mean, I just didn't happen to do it before. And I just read it in three days. Oh my gosh, so simple. Oh, how brilliant. Easy. Every pointer was clear, because I know where he's pointing. But you also know, because you actually had enough of insights. You know where he's pointing. So now you can unpack it from behind. You know what he is kind of, you know, what is the end point. What is the direction. What you said before about him talking to different people, you're right, because every chapter, it's somebody else who's asking the questions.

Yes. Like the one yesterday, he was a doctor. So somebody else is a painter or somebody, you know, different people asking different questions. Obviously, as you said, you will answer them accordingly. Yes, to where they are. To their understanding, to where they are. And also for the same reason, for me, I was coming back to Bob Smith. I was waiting for a couple of years, and then I booked up individual session, and that was the end of the game. So because he was actually taking me from where I am, the answers, the questions, and the guidance was totally coiled down to where I was stuck.

That's why it's wonderful to be in a group and to listen to all the people expressing and discussing and so on. But it's absolutely priceless to call it a day. Call him or speak to him one on one and really address the individual stuckness. The time thing, we assume that time implies movement, which means there's a comparison. So, but if you actually really, really look at that, all that's being compared, all that's being compared from what is actual is something that's not actually there. Right. So if I take my phone, we say, okay, it's located in that space, that point of time. It's located there.

Okay. Then I move it to there. So, okay, it's located, it's now located there. Compared to what? Compared to a memory or an idea that was once there. Everything goes back to your memories. Time is really based on a function that we use, which we call comparison. Yeah. That's very important. And comparisons are obvious. And you can see that. That little example that I just gave you, watch that for yourself during the course of the day. Just a bit of knowledge at times. Just watch it. You know? But not based on a comparison. How do I know I'm here today? Well, because I've got a memory of yesterday.

What was yesterday? What's that? Always just an idea. The actual is always present. The actual is always, always, here now. The only time we come out of that is when we compare the here now with, and you can see that. You can really see this. You can really see that. You can, you can see it. Like you can literally see that. I love what John Lennon says. Time is a concept by which we measure our pain. It's all related to a me, to the past, to the future. It's all in time. It's all conceptual. Because right here, right now, there's no time, there's no me, there's no past, there's no future.

It's purely an idea. Purely just an idea. Literally. Literally an idea. Bob says it all the time, you know. Try and go back and live tomorrow. Or try and move into the future and live into the future from here. You can think about it, but you can't live it. Yeah. I understand that 100%. Look, everything is, even if you think of the past, you're thinking of it now. Right, so the idea of comparison is a... It's outside of presence. It's outside of right here, right now. What would one be comparing the absolute presence or the right here, right now with? What would you compare that with?

An idea. Just an idea, a mental concept. Just an idea. That's all. And you can see that. I use it as it is. No preference, no partiality, no comparison. Time. We just talked about time. We just, yes, there is no time. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.