Sailor Bob Adamson - Meeting 7th April 2016

I don't teach you anything here and I don't tell you anything. Understand that right from the start. What we do is point toward and ask you to look to where we're pointing to, to see for yourself. Because no matter what your beliefs or what you've understood, there is nothing that anybody can teach you and nothing that anybody can ever tell you. Because what we base this on is not some newfangled idea. You'll see it's the base of all the great traditions. If you look, Hinduism, for instance, they call it Advaita. Advaita translated means non-duality. And they try to describe non-duality by saying it's one without a second.

And they put that one without a second on because even the idea of one implies there could be other than one. So to cancel out any idea that there is anything other than that, we say one without a second. So from grasping that or seeing that, you must realise that there is something other than that. So from grasping that or seeing that, you must realise that there is something other than that. You must realise why I can't teach you anything or why I can't tell you anything. Because you must already be that. Because that is all there is. And that's the Mahavaka, the great word, or the great mantra, I am that.

Now I'm that, this is that. Now that's not only in Hinduism. If you look into the basis of Buddhism, you'll see it's the same thing using different words. And they'll say, non-conceptual, ever-fresh, presence awareness. And they add on to that just this, nothing else. Pointing out that's the non-conceptual, ever-fresh presence awareness. And if you look at that closely, you'll see that's describing you and everybody in this room. Is there anyone in this room who's not aware of being present right now? Or that presence awareness is right where you are? There might be all sorts of concepts going on. But understand the base of those concepts is that non-conceptual, ever-fresh presence awareness.

Just this, nothing else. Again pointing out that you can't be anything other than that. Christianity and other traditions talking about truth, reality or God or whatever label they like to put on it, they'll say it's omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. Not talking about three things. But it's omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. The three aspects of the one. Just the same as steam, water and ice are three aspects of H2O. Now omnipresence means total presence. Omnipotence means total power. And omniscience means total intelligence. So you see that, can there be any division in that totality? Again pointing that everything is that. Another way I put it, I'm not talking to anybody.

I'm not talking to any mind. I'm talking to that I am that I am. To that sense of presence that translates through the mind as the thought I am. Just to this, nothing else. Again, so it's a seeing through and recognising that the body, mind, is not your true entity. It is an appearance. It's a pattern like all other things. It's all this other manifestation. And you're told that in the scriptures too, that this manifestation, it's maya or illusion. It's a phenomenal manifestation. And it vibrates in the pairs of opposites. And it couldn't be any other way. Couldn't it be day without night or silence without sound?

Winter without summer or movement without stillness? So it's vibrating dualistically all the time. And on top of that, when they say it's transient, it's maya or illusion. It's transient also. It's constantly changing. And have a look at that body of yours. You mightn't realise it, but it's changing right now, constantly. Cells are dying in it, being replaced, food's being digested, all sorts of things happening. Just the same as it is in this manifestation. It's constantly changing about it. Not talking to that I am the thought. I'm talking to that sense of presence. Which you can't negate. Anyone in this room can say I am not.

We each know that I am. But you've got this conceptual image that you are this body-mind entity. It's been enforced from the time you first started to reason and been reinforced by schools, society, nations, and everybody else has reinforced it to say you believe you are this person, this entity. And even that word person, where does that come from? Recognise that it comes from an ancient language. I don't know where it was, Latin or something else, but it meant the persona, the mask. Pointing out that we've got this mask of identity. Not the true pattern that you are through recent recognition that you are, but a pattern, a conceptual pattern or a conceptual image.

It's become what we call the person. Again, all these things pointing out, that there is absolutely no duality in non-duality. And we've got this belief that we've taken on and constantly reinforcing that we are this person, this separate entity, this individual. And investigating, no, it appears to be so. We talked about the manifestation is a phenomenal manifestation, made up of phenomena. And your dictionary definition of phenomena is that which appears to be. Pointing out that it is all actually, appearance only, seeming as though, a phenomenal manifestation. But it's the one essence patterning and expressing and appearing as everything. The Buddha called it a cognising emptiness.

An emptiness that is suffused with cognising or knowing. Not that we are cognising anything, but the emptiness itself has enabled that cognising or vibrating pattern to happen. And what we say, what we need to look at these things and investigate, and see whether they are the truth or not. There's a scriptural saying, know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And if you don't know the truth, and you're into this belief you are an entity, this is where all the psychological troubles come from, and come about from. And most of us are constantly relating into the psychological problems to some extent or another, some worse than others.

But we say here, it's not necessary to be that way. You can see through all this psychological stuff if you investigate. There's another point we make, is the false cannot stand up to investigation. If you investigate something and see that it doesn't stand up to the investigation, that it's false, then you are free of it. How can you believe in something that's false again? And you know that from the things you have investigated throughout your life and seen they're false. When you can't put any energy or belief in, are they going to exist or subsist there? And if they had any existence, can they subsist there without a belief going into them?

And that is another thing we point out, have a look at belief. The definition of belief is an unquestioned acceptance of something in the absence of reason. Acceptance of an alleged fact without positive knowledge or proof. And if I ask you, do you believe that you are, or do you know that you are? You'll emphatically tell me, I know that I am. And nobody can knock you off that perch. You don't believe. You've got all sorts of conceptual images about yourself, but the very fact of being, you cannot negate. And all these things point to the truth, the actuality that we are, but we've got lost in the concepts, in the beliefs, ideas and images that have come upon us.

How did all this happen? Well, we've taken on this belief out of the body of mind. We need to look at that. And see, are you this body mind? And do you think you are? And innately, you know you're not the body or the mind. Because don't you say my body, don't you say my house, my car, my coat, my dress, or whatever it is. Are you the coat, the car or the dress? You know you're not. So mightn't the same thing apply to your body if you investigate it? Just a label you put on this pattern of energy. And what has this body made up of?

Investigate it a little bit further and see for yourself. You realise this body is made up of elements. Made up of air, earth, fire, water, space. Just the same as the elements around you, in this room and around you, outside you. But have a look at that. Are you these elements? Are you the air, for instance? Can you separate yourself from the air? Are you separate entity, I believe you're a separate entity, separate from these elements? Separate yourself from the air if you can. And you realise you can't separate yourself from the air, you wouldn't last too long if you'd stopped breathing, would you? If you take the water out of your body, your body's 80% water, see if you can live without that element.

And you realise you can't, you die of thirst. Take the body temperature, the fire, and you get hypothermia, you die. Get off the earth if you can, get out of space. When you investigate and have a look at it, you realise you can't separate yourself from any of these things. So in essence, you must be all of these things. But we've seemingly discriminated and separated through the mind and taken ourselves to be an individual, a person. And look at this thing called mind if you think you are. If you think you are the mind, can anyone show me a thing called mind? What do you call your mind?

Can you give it any shape? Any form? Any solidity whatsoever? Can you find a static point in it? You realise it's not there. You realise you can't. And with the same token you say, like you did with the body, you say, my mind. And the very fact of saying my mind, you know you're not the mind. You're not the coach, you're not the car, you're not the house. So neither can you be the mind. And what is mind after all when you look at it? You'll realise mind at the subtle level is nothing but thinking. Thinking is what we call mind. And if mind is thinking and you believe you are the mind, which particular thought would you be?

You'll realise that sense of presence, that knowing that you are, translates through this thing we call mind as the thought I am. And if you were the mind and the mind is the thought, which particular thought would you be? You'd be that thought I am. But if you were that thought I am, don't you realise that you give it up quite effortlessly every night when you go to sleep? And if you were the thought, and the thought is the mind, and the thought went away, that would be the finish of it. But it's not. You wake up next morning and throughout the night that thought wasn't going on, throughout the day lots of other thoughts are going on, not always my I am going on at all, but there's always thoughts going on.

So you're recognising that you can't be that particular thought, you can't be any particular thought. So how can you be this body, mind, entity that you believe yourself to be? Have a look a bit further. Investigate a little bit more. And I'll ask you, when did you begin? You'll say, I began when I was born. But can anyone in this room actually remember your birth? You can go back as far as you can with the mind. You go back to about two, two and a half, around about that age. Before that you don't remember. So how can you say you were born? You, this believed in entity that you believe yourself was born.

You can't. And go back and we'll have a look at this mind we pointed out before as a vibration. See how it functions. And see how mechanical it is in its functioning. It's a very useful instrument, but it's very self-destructing. And if you're looking at it closely, you'll see it's always vibrating in the inter-relative opposites. Have a look and see and watch it. Because you're either in the past, which is memory, or the future, which is anticipation, imagination. It's either good or bad, pleasant or painful, happy, sad, loving, hating, positive, negative. Watch your mind and see if it's functioning any other way. And the boundaries we are putting on it, there's this, words we've learned, good, bad, pleasant, painful.

They're the stoppers. When it hits those boundaries, that's the end of it. And Shakespeare told you that a couple of hundred years ago, and he says there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. The saga doesn't tell you the same thing. There's nothing can trouble you, except your own imagination. And what is imagination? Break that down. It's imaging in. We're creating images and taking them to be real. Those pictures on the wall, they're images. Look behind you at the mirror. The fractions in the mirror are images. Are they real? As what they appear to be? You realise they're not. So maybe this conceptual image you've got about yourself, this belief in it, it might not be real either, if you look into it, if it's only an image.

When you question these things, they'll fall apart. So the little child, it can't do much with I or me, so what we do, the little child now reasons, that's not me, that's not I, but I am little Johnny, that fits me. I am little Johnny, I am the good fellow, or the not so good. And he reasons out there now, before he's seen everything it is, he says, that doesn't fit little Johnny. So that's not me. That's not I. So that's when the sense of separation comes upon us first. We've seemingly separated ourselves conceptually with a word, with an image, with an idea. That is not me, that's not I.

As soon as that comes about, not me or not I, he feels insecure and vulnerable when he sees something. Where before he's seen everything it is, it's all well and good. But when he sees it's separate and apart from him, naturally, being a little child, he's insecure and vulnerable. And so that's when he looks around for security. He looks to his parents naturally, if he's got a good loving family around him, he'll feel much more secure, less vulnerable. And what happened in the old days? Wouldn't families form into tribes? The bigger and stronger my tribe, the more secure, less vulnerable I'd be. And isn't that the same thing?

Isn't that going on to this day? Nations form into nations and nations going to war with nations because of that sense of insecurity and vulnerability. And our parents, schools, society and nations are not recognising this. But there have always been some down through the ages that have recognised it and pointed it out to the others and they're the ones they call the saints, saviours and seers. They're out to save the world but none of them have ever saved the world. But they can give you a bit of direction in the world if you look to what they're saying. But we don't. See, go to what they're pointing out.

We look at the messenger and set the messenger up as something and forget the message. We ask you to look to the message and so on. So you can't do much with the I, I mean. So we've added to it events. We added to it these events and experiences and conditioning and form a mental image of what we believe ourselves to be. Instead of seeing it spontaneously, we now add to that I thought, I am Bob, the Australian, a good fella, I'm happy or I'm unhappy, I'm depressed, I've got... had a bad childhood. All sorts of things, these things come up and we form a conceptual image.

An image made up of concepts rather than all of that I thought. Instead of functioning from the pure intelligence as we were, now we're functioning from this conceptual image. And that image is what we call the self centre, the reference point or the ego. Now I've got this conceptual image which becomes the ego. And we're told in scriptures to go and get rid of this ego, that's the problem. And stuff it under, stick it under the carpet, jump on it, kill it, do whatever you can to do it, get rid of it. But we won't point out here, if you look at it closely, you'll see it doesn't even exist.

We've been bound to a fiction. We've been bound in this concept of fiction. And look at that ego is the cause of all my psychological suffering. And that's all the cause and effect is. That's all the so-called karma is, is cause and effect. So it's only me that can be anxious. It's only me that can be fearful. It's only me that can be unhappy or depressed. This idea of me that we've added all these concepts to. They are the cause of the me. Now if you ask yourself this question, can there be an effect without a cause? So-called karma. Can there be an effect without a cause?

You look at that, you realise there can't be an effect without a cause. So you see, me is the cause of all my problems. And the effects are my stress, my anxiety. So wouldn't it be imperative if you want to be rid of this psychological suffering, investigate this ego, or me, and see if it is a fiction, what we say on them. Have a look and see how that works. Something comes up and instead of that little child just seeing it as it is and functioning spontaneously and naturally, now he relates it to the me of memory. And something comes up and I like it.

How do you know? Well I've experienced, had this experience before, it was good and I like it. And don't we want to keep the good things, the things we like there? We do. Not realising, as the ancients point out, they're transient. And no matter how much you love them, no matter how you hang to them, how much you want them, they're not going to stay. They're going to come back. They're going to become very ordinary, very boring, very ordinary. They're going to change, die, move away. They'll certainly change, just the same as your body. They'll certainly change. We don't want it to change. So what do we do?

Now we think we've got some power, the me's not acting spontaneously, the I anymore, the intelligence that's relying on that me to act on. So what do we do? Me doesn't want it to be this. What it does, it resists it. Trying to keep it there, it resists it. And don't you realise that resistance is conflict? Any conflict you are, any resistance you are in, you are in conflict. And any conflict you are in is disease. If you're in anxiousness or fear, you're uneasy. And isn't that disease? If you're angry, you're uneasy. Isn't that disease? So the reflex, concepts and all this are disease. And that adds to our psychological suffering.

It doesn't get rid of it. It keeps it there. It keeps you bound in it. Something comes up I don't like. I've had this before and I've got to get rid of it. This time we try the opposite way to get it. We resist it from being there. Again conflict and again disease. So you see why this psychological suffering is always hanging around and we've always been in it? Because of the constant resistance gap. So we say you can be free of that. You don't have to be full of that psychological suffering. We're not talking crap here. We're talking fact. I was full of it for many, many years.

And quite a few of the other people that are in this room now can tell you the same thing. I've investigated and had a look. And just seeing the falseness of it, you know, we can't stand up to the investigation and can't continue to believe in anything that's false. And being transient and not putting energy of belief in it will fall away. And that's the problem. It's not the same thing. It will fall away. And it has done. So the same thing here. We need to, it's imperative to have a look and see if this means a fiction or not. It is for me. It mightn't be for you.

Or it was for me I should say. You might want to hang onto it. It's up to you. So we say we can't do it for you. We can't tell you anything. Can't teach you anything. But if something resonates and you hear something, you will be moved. It will move you. And that resonance, the innate intelligence, as it did here too, will turn you around to have a look at this and investigate and see if it was so. So we need to look, investigate, we need to look along these lines as I say you can. If you want to, if you don't, you needn't say it's a lot of crap.

It's up to you. Everybody is seeing right now. Isn't that a fact? When you opened your eyes this morning you were seeing immediately. But you mightn't realise that same seeing's been going on all day. It was the same seeing as it was yesterday. Same seeing as it was the day before. And you realise if you look at it, it hasn't changed. It hasn't changed at all. But the content has changed. The content of seeing is constantly changing. The same with the hearing. I woke up this morning, the hearing was there and if somebody had called you loudly in deep sleep the hearing would have been there.

But it's the same hearing. That hasn't changed. But the content has changed. So the seeing is happening and the hearing is happening. Ask yourself this. Does my eye tell me I see? Mine eye is not saying to me, Bob, look at this, that's good, that's bad. Does yours? Have a look, investigate and see if it's so. Do you realise why? My eye is not saying anything at all. But it is the instrument through which the seeing is happening. And it's translated by the thought I see which is the instrument of the mind that does the translating of that seeing. And remember now, it's not just I see anymore.

It's what we put onto the seeing. It's me, Bob, the good fellow, whatever it is. This conceptual image now thinks it's seeing. We've given the seeming power of belief into an image. A mental image. It hasn't got any power. We think it's seeing. That's the egoic seeing. The hearing is going on right now. But is my ear saying to me, listen to this, Bob, or listen to that, that's a good sound, that's bad, or you want to hang on to that one? My ear can't say anything at all. But again, it's the instrument to which the hearing is happening. So the seeing and hearing are happening through the eye and the ear, but they're conceptualised by thoughts, both of them.

And the conceptual image is what we're relating to, the image we put onto those thoughts. So have a look at that. And ask yourself this, does the thought I see actually see? Close your eyes, look around the room and see what you can see with a thought. Prove it to yourself. And you realise you can't see anything with a thought. The same with hearing. Does my ear tell me I hear? And remember, it's not just bare seeing anymore. It's me, Bob, the Australian, this conceptual image. We've got about the bare seeing, the image we put on it, and who now thinks this conceptual image is seeing?

The conceptual image is hearing. So you read, the thought I see can't see. Can the thought I hear actually hear? Put your hands over your ears and see if you can think of a thought. Is the thought I am aware, is that your awareness? You realise the thought I am aware can't be awareness. Is the thought I choose? The choice-making. You realise we believe we choose our thoughts. And if you could choose your thoughts, why would you ever have an unhappy or miserable thought? And you realise when you look at it, you can't choose your thoughts. You can't see, you can't hear, you can't be aware.

So this ego that we give so much power to can't do anything at all. It has no substance or no independent nature. I mean by that, it can't stand on its own. See, that's just true. You've got that body there where the thoughts are happening through. It's got the ears, the eyes, the lungs, the heart, and all the organs in it, but it's not there. Take that life essence out of it. How many thoughts does a corpse have? You realise that the corpse can't say or hear anything and it can't do it. Just like a computer's got all that information in it. You cut the power off, what can you get out of the computer?

The same with this body-mind entity you believe yourself to be. You take that life essence out of it and it's got no, it can't do anything at all. It's a corpse. Yet that's what we've given the credit to all our lives. We believe that with this, I can do this, I can do that. And have a look at this and have a look at this and this house was an idea in somebody's mind once. The art on the walls was an idea. The computer, the television, all these things are ideas and people will say, oh, I did that. But could they have lifted a finger, turned a screw, drawn a line without that life essence?

You want to give credit where credit is due. It's that life essence that's functioning, patterning, shaping and forming and expressing through this manifestation as all these things that's doing the lot. And you are that. That's where the Mahavac comes back to. You are that. You haven't been anything other than that. And innately you know that in your language. Because you say that is a chair, that's a carpet, that's a house, that's Bill, that's me, that's you. It's all basically that. And we put labels on it. Bill, carpet, chair and everything else. We put labels or words on it that seemingly differentiate and make it different.

It's the one essence that's patterning, experiencing and expressing as everything. And you are that. So that's what we point to and ask you to look along the lines. And we ask you to put your say in it if you've got one. If you know anything about it. If you want to. If you don't want to. You don't have to. But those that have got a bit of an understanding express it to us. You might hear it in different words, different ways. It might open you up a bit more. But it's not just for the few. We want everybody to tell you that. You've got to do 20, 30, 40 years looking at this and you might get it after all that time.

But have a look at it. People have been doing these things for 20, 30, 40 years. Why haven't they got it? They're intelligent people. They've worked out so many other things in the mind. Why haven't you worked this out? Because we say you won't work it out in the mind. It's impossible to work it out in the mind because the nature of the mind is to vibrate. And when you look at that, you'll see that well, what way can I get out of the mind? And you will look at every direction I look at will always be in the mind. There's no way of looking outside the mind.

So you'll never get through the mind. And then you ask yourself, what way is there out of the mind? And look, the only way out of the mind is full stop. If you ask yourself, what is wrong with right now if I don't think about it, you've got to pause the thought for a moment. When you pause that thought, what can you say without a thought? You realise you can't say anything, but you haven't disappeared. You haven't stopped breathing. Your heart hasn't stopped beating. Hair and fingernails haven't stopped beating. Your hair and fingernails haven't stopped growing. Food hasn't stopped being judged. There's so much functioning going on in that body without the necessity of thought.

So it really is not in that time you're prior to thought. You're beyond the thought. And when you realise that, the next thought that comes up, which it will come up, couldn't come up without what was behind it, that pure intelligence, energy or awareness. So that's another label we put on it, awareness. And ask yourself this, I'll ask you, are you unaware right now? And you'll say, no, I'm not unaware. So if you're not unaware, you must be aware. What did you have to do about it? Did you have to search for awareness? That's what we do. When we hear the word awareness, we think we've got to find something called awareness and look for it.

Spend years looking for something that's already there. And it's just a matter of, no, I'm not unaware. It's very right here, right now. What it is, you can't grasp with the mind because it's got no back, no front, no height, no depth, no beginning, no end. But it's naturally there functioning. But we've got the label awareness, we try to look for this label awareness and get lost in meditation and all retreats and God knows what, trying to find it and all these things with the mind. It won't happen. When that thought was paused, as I say, you didn't disappear, fall apart. You saw the difference between pure intelligence and thinking.

The pure intelligence was breathing in, beating your heart, growing your hair, anything else. And thinking was paused. So let's get into it. Every cell in your body is suffused with that intelligence. Now can you say it's, you know, can you pinpoint a cell that's separate from the body for a start? I guess when I look at different parts of my body, they all seem kind of separate. They seem to be. Seems to be one body. But what we pointed out before, it's made up of elements and not only just can't separate cells from the body, but can you separate the body from out of that awareness or space or elements?

Can you separate it from the elements? We pointed that out. Take the water out of it. Can you know how long the body lasts? So you'll see it's all the one essence. Though it might appear separate, it does appear separate, it appears to be, but realise that's appearance, recognise the appearance. But it's the one essence, patterning, shaping, forming and expressing as everything. And it seems individual personalities and all the rest of it. But even those patterns, they're seemingly separate. They're still the one essence. That can display and express in different shapes and forms and every possibility you like. And it displays as seeming separate entities and individuals as persons.

That's the wonderful, amazing display of it all. It's a good analogy about waves and the ocean. The waves are not separate from the ocean. They are formed by the ocean and arising from the ocean. So it's like the forms arising from emptiness. The vibration arise from the space. So they're not separate, but they're expression of it. We call it life energy and this Aghanata tells you there is only life. That's all there is. It's all life. There is nobody who lives the life. And it added onto that life lives on life. Out of life, more life is continually coming. There's no room for death in it whatsoever.

Patterns shape, form, play around, patterns break down. But the essence of it all goes on. And there's a short passage from Lord Krishna. He says, I am even the glint of light in your enemy's eyes. These things are nothing new. They've been put out there all along. And we miss a lot of them. Till you come down, something moves you to investigate and see for yourself. And it says, nothing is what it seems to be. Seeming is only an appearance, how it appears. I was walking by the creek today. And I realised that if, the way we think of everything is that everything's made up of parts and they all seem to work in a democratic way, as if they all had their own self nature.

If everything did that, it would fall to pieces. If there was one atom or molecule that had its own self nature, if they all go around, it would be impossible for anything to form. Damn. Cancer cells seem to behave this way. Something resonate? Good. Do you know why it resonates? Because you've already cognised it. It's already been recognised now. But we tend to brush it aside and don't believe it. That's why they call it the cognising emptiness. Cognising means the knowing emptiness. And it's not that we are cognising the emptiness, but it's the emptiness itself that does that. So we've observed, it's been cognised many times.

Everybody's had a taste of it, no matter how. Whether you've never looked at some so-called spiritual thing in your life, we've had a taste of it. I've often wondered, how did that happen? Why did I see that? It gets obscured again. But the thing is to recognise it. That's where recognise comes in. We recognise it. And we recognise it again and again until the reality you can't negate anymore. Bob, can I ask a question about why we need to recognise it? In that, if you think about animals just do what they do, why do we need to kind of almost remember this? Because the human pattern is given coming specifically from the self-centre, from the reference point, the ego.

I, me. That's believed to be the doer. But it's not the doer. It hasn't been. I do this or I think that. People don't like me. And that belief, when you... That's out of the road. See how the spontaneous and natural functioning comes about? Effortless. What I call effortless living. It doesn't mean to say you won't sit there doing nothing. The body and mind will be taking a very active part. But there's no personal doership to any of it. Spontaneously. How do you learn how to do that, though? So it's almost like something's gone awry in our development that this is probably for us to sort of...

Not to do a little bit, you know, remembering this. It's just a recognition. Are you the thinker? See, there's thinking going on. Then you'll say, I think. You've formed a subject, a thinker. And that's that conceptual image you put words around. I think this thought. And the thought becomes the object. So thinking has been divided into subject-object dualism. But ask yourself, can there be a thinker without thinking? Can there? It's the language that we use, kind of, almost. Can't be a thinker without thinking. Can't be the thought without thinking. So they're not separate at all. The thinker and the thought, the seer and the seen, the done are not separate at all, only conceptually.

Because the two ends of the same stick. Shakespeare said, nothing either good or bad, but thinking is... Is there such a thing as good or bad if you're not putting the label on it? Still the same, yes? I was finding your thing about breaking the mind down into just thoughts a good way of getting rid of time. Because when you're between the thought from the past, and the thought from the future, then... Actually, I was using your left eye as the past and your right eye as the future, and looking down the middle, because that's where I think I'm pausing my thoughts. But, yeah, then time just sort of seems to go for the other concepts too.

Well, instead of having the thought focused on good and bad, pleasant and painful, open it up. Let it expand till it becomes the whole and swallows up the good and the bad. It's just pure thought. So it's not stuck in space all the time, it's just opened? No. We're not going to one end and the other. Like you've got a set of scales with a seesaw, you know, you want them going like this. Where is... What's in the middle? An equilibrium where it's equal. Now, instead of having that narrow equilibrium, that'll... Just not think of anything at all? Yeah. The thoughts will now come up and it's just not going to stay.

Not going to stay the same all the time, but, you know, you're not going to put one more into one than what it is in the other. And so that's what I think is significant. A great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything is clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. Heaven and earth are set what? Infinitely apart. Yeah. So we've divided it through that distinction. But have a look. Even in the saying that, what's heaven? Another name for sky or space, isn't it? We look up to the heavens, we've got an earth, the thing that's spinning around.

Now, can they ever be apart? I don't know, I'm still stuck in between your eyes. Didn't follow. You recognise they can't ever be apart. So it's only through the discriminating thoughts that we seemingly separate them. Yeah. I feel it's safer not to even think about them. Another thing, you go to the South Pole, can you go to any further south? Not unless you jump off. Well, you've got to come back, haven't you? If you go anywhere, you've got to come back. If you go to the North Pole or something, you can't go any further, you've got to come back. And when you come back, where do you go?

What's in the centre? The equator. The equator, the equalness. Equalness. And that, expand that equator till you've taken in both the North Pole and the North Pole. And it's an equilibrium. I began to understand this more, but I noticed that I used to, when I leave work, you know, sort of review the day. Oh, I've got this done, I've got that done, that wasn't so good, but... And I'm just finding that it sort of kind of begins a tiny bit, so I recognise it. And it's not like I'm stopping it, but it just doesn't go on, there's no interest in that. And it's like, when I look at it, it's like, well, there's so much right now, right here.

I'm walking and all these people and... It's happening right now, so it's not an interest. Yeah. Like it used to be. No. Reviewed. So when we're dwelling in the past and the future, we're missing out on life, because this is the actuality of this moment. This is the only time anything can live, right in this moment, this is the eternity. This moment has no beginning or no end, it's spontaneous. And it becomes more attractive. Yes. At first I thought it was becoming, or would become, more boring, but it's not. No, because it's all fresh and new. Every moment is a fresh beginning. And also things, as you often point, being utterly awake with five senses open, you don't miss out on hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, just being gone in thinking.

That makes the present moment profoundly alive and beautiful. Good. Yeah, and it's a lot, those senses. Can you talk about love also? When you mention about love for a being, or loving to be, or being warm to oneself, the Sat Chitananda, that's... Well, that's what they call the five factors in Hinduism. Existence, consciousness, bliss, nama, rupa. Existence means being, consciousness means knowing, and the bliss means loving to be, and the nama and rupa means name and form. Now the existence, consciousness, bliss, they are the reality, the nama and the form. The nama, rupa, the name and form are the appearances. Now another way of putting that is being, instead of awareness, knowing and loving to be.

Every one of us knows to be. None of us can negate the beingness. And the knowing of that is there. Another way of putting that again, there's many ways. Awareness, consciousness of being, of the being, is bliss. And the Nisargadatta says, have an affectionate awareness of being. The affectionate, that's be warm towards yourself, be warm towards that awareness of being that you are. Don't hate yourself, just warm up. And you'll notice that'll come back. It'll come back to you. Another beautiful way he put it, when I know I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I know I am everything, that is love. That's the bliss, and the wisdom is the knowing.

And between those two, my life fluctuates between the two constantly. It vibrates in between the two, those pairs of opposites. That's the being, knowing, loving to be. Constantly and ever. When I am everything, that's love. It means I recognise the same essence of myself in every form, as well as in the formless, which is the wisdom. Yeah. Our usual idea of love is that love ain't hate, a pair of opposites, you know. And I love her, I love her, but the bitch did do this to me and I hate her. That can switch over like that. The innate pure intelligence is love of being, the bliss of being.

Every one of us loves to be. You can't negate that. And as soon as we get into the pairs of opposites, then the me, the ego comes into it. We get into all sorts of strife. It doesn't have to be that way. That's all we can put out there. It doesn't have to be. It was that way here, and it was that way for others too, as I say here. But today they will tell you the same as I tell you. It doesn't have to be that way. Then I was seeing, like, your face with the, like, the past bits and the future bits. I was left with the middle.

And it was just like a sense of love, briefly, because it was like no baggage, no thoughts about the past bits, no thoughts about the future bits. I kind of didn't hate them and I wasn't pushing them away. And just like this weeny sense of love being what's left popped up. But I don't get the everything. When does this moment begin? You'll say it's beginning now. Just as you think about it, it's beginning now. But when you say it's ending, you say it's ending now. So you see it's spontaneous. It has not got any beginning and end. There's no static point when you can say it begins and say it ends.

So past and future are concepts. It's timeless, spontaneous. Time is a mental concept. And people say, I was in the past. Well, I'll say, well, have a look and see if you can go back and live a moment ago. And you realise you can't go back and live a moment ago. You can't go back and live last week or last year. But you can recall it. And the only actuality you're giving it is when you're recalling it right now. Because nobody in this room can tell you what you thought of a minute ago now unless you recall it. It's gone. But you can recall it and bring it back into the now.

The same with the future. You can anticipate and imagine the future. But you can't live a moment in the future. And the anticipation and imagination is right now. People say, I was in the future. But it's not now. So you never, instead of trying to stay in the now, like people tell you, I'll say, try and get out of it. Try and get out of it right now, this now. And you realise you can't. So that's taken all that problem about trying to stay in the now and practising staying in the now. It's impossible because you're never away from it. It's immediate, you see. Chris said two things to me the other day and I wondered if you could comment on them.

This is Chris. He told me that you're going to go on a retreat. It should be a silent retreat that is more spiritually beneficial. And then he said he'd been on a retreat and he realised something and I said, what did you realise? And he said, I realised that I'm a special boy. Good on you, Chris. You stick to that. You're the chosen one. That's why every week… Stay tuned for next week. Mekesaw, yeah. What are you going to tell Christopher Chang, Sweeney? What am I gonna tell him? Don't try so hard. Bob said I'm too stiff. He's trying. Bob, I've been thinking maybe about, like thoughts don't have a location at all.

So like when a thought appears, it doesn't appear anywhere. But it's the same thing for the other senses really, isn't it? Like the seeing doesn't really have any location, the sense of sound, because you often think that, you know, the idea of... Yeah, I guess, yeah, lately it's like sounds appear in consciousness, so they're not separate from it either. So it's almost that idea kind of expands. You know, there's no static point. And there's no self-nature to anything. No self-nature to it at all. We take it automatically to believe that it's a self-nature. But when you look for it, you can't find a static point or any self-nature to anything at all.

But it's all appearing, all patterned, shaped and forming. Yeah, it's like for me, thought's the one thing that it doesn't, you know, if you think you are the body, like where does thought come from? Where does thought appear? And the normal thing is, oh, it appears in my head or my mind or whatever label you want to give it. But in reality, the experience of it, it doesn't actually, it doesn't have any borders. So it's interesting to kind of look at that. And then so like a thought arises in awareness, so there's no boundary to awareness. Like so awareness isn't here, like inside the body.

Anyone unaware in this room? I hope not. Well, how many awarenesses are there in this room? Can you separate and isolate your awareness if you think you're aware? You can't say you're unaware, so you must be aware. But you can't give me a description or a static point or any size or shape what it is. Just like when you go out in a nice green paddock of a frosty morning and every blade of grass in that paddock's got a spark in it, every paddock's got a sparkling drop of dew in it. Every drop of dew is sparkling away from the light of the sun. How many suns are they?

So one sun in a spattering shape in the middle of the lot. The same here. The same with words, you know. There's a sort of a belief, common belief that words have got power. And I was at a luncheon a while ago and the social sort of thing and there was a lot of discussion going on and I said words don't have any power whatsoever and the reaction was astronomical. People actually stood up and said, No! Words have got power! There's only one power, omnipotence, total power that functions as total manifestation and everything in it, including the words, the thoughts, the ideas, the images and everything.

And you are that. That's the way I think. You've never been anything other than that. Already there. Stopping that. It might be what we call a lack of confidence. Poor me, I can't do that. You need to get that confidence. Know it. Recognise it. You just expanded my mind. You were talking about, you know, sight isn't anywhere in particular. Speak out. He just expanded my mind when he was saying that, you know, sight isn't anywhere in particular. That means that, I mean, maybe you guys all realised it, but just now I got that, all the seeing that, everybody seeing here is the same seeing. Like, everybody goes, yeah, sure.

It doesn't have any direction. Right. Imagine, I guess I can't say that at a luncheon, though. Yeah. You can. Yeah. I'll give you a sandwich throwing at you. I'll give you a big bite eating it. Well, I don't know, I'm saying it here. Nobody's thrown me out yet. And I expect a bit of backup. Well, you always go to lunch with friends, though. You don't want to be friends. You know, just sitting here and listening to this, it's making a huge difference. It's almost like you don't have to do, make a lot of effort. You just are reminded of it, sort of made aware of it.

And then it sort of happens on its own. Yeah. It's a free mind. Bring it back in the mind in a different way to what it was thought to be. The old mind ceases to be. You see it in a different light. Yeah, and it does it on its own. Yes. Yes, it's a natural spontaneous function. Yes, you're not fighting it. Yes. Yes, you're fighting it. Then you've got this war kind of... Bit of encouragement? Yes. Good. Like you were saying that Nisargadatta didn't ask you to speak, but he couldn't have stopped you. He couldn't have stopped you either. Because this was just coming out.

It's just spontaneous. It's how it expresses. Thank God. But he loves you. Yeah. It feels strange. It's like I'm aware that I'm carrying on with this, you know, being a separate person thing, even though I've, you know, looked a bunch of times and seen that, you know, there's no separation there. You've seen it. Well, if you see that and recognise it, what's the way out? Full stop, I guess. Yeah, stop doing it. Yeah. Try and, you know, not just carry on living naturally without relating to any believed in entity. I feel almost this like defensiveness or a kind of like, no, no, no, no, no, not yet.

Like I don't want to... Almost similar to like you're going to jump into a cold pool and you know it's going to be cold and you're like, oh, just do it in five minutes. Just do it in five seconds. Literally in ten seconds and then you surprise yourself. Yeah. And see what you're doing there? You're creating some kind of stupid story about life. Yes, you're not stopping. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. And just pause the thought for right now even, you know. See, do you disappear, appear without a thought? Like you gradually... We gladly give up this I every night we go to sleep, give up the thought.

And yet we're frightened to pause the thought. We're frightened to pause the thought during the daytime now and the livingness. Because you give it away quite freely every night. Go to sleep. You don't disappear. You wake up in the morning. So you can... A point that you can live without thinking going on. And if it does stir in the night, just dream. And in your dream you can see being... Doing all sorts of activities in the dream, be in all sorts of places. Yet your body hasn't moved off the bed. There's no words coming out of your mouth. When you wake up, you're in a dream.

What happens to the dream? It disappears. And the dream character, the person in that dream, whatever the dream, disappears along with the dream. And you're left with this dream character. Realises this is just a dream character also. But it seems more real because it's got the talent. So you just have to pretend like you're... The room is dark and you're getting in bed. Stop thinking. It's okay then. I have a question. You really can't make yourself stop. I mean, it's either going to happen or it's not. No. No, you can't deliberately stop. But if, say, there's... Sitting here, something went down the sound right back and you didn't quite catch it, what would you do?

You'd automatically pause to see what... Try and work out what that was. So the same thing. The automatic pausing will come of itself. But trying to stop, you're right, we can't stop a thought. And you can't start one either. And you can just make it worse by trying. Yes, exactly. You can just build up more of a resistance. Yes. Stress. But you can stop a sentence. You can stop a sentence. No. I do anyway. Where it starts to go, whoa, whoa, whoa. It is not you. Yeah, well, you let it go. Let go of it. Yeah. It's not deliberately, you know, trying to stop it.

It's just in the letting it go. You move it into something else. I have a question. Before, well, before you said that there used to be all this psychological crap that came up for you and for many years it hasn't anymore. So was there a point that you suddenly realised that it wasn't coming up anymore or did it gradually kind of dawn on you? It gradually dawns on you. Yeah. That it's all over, that it's not coming up anymore and it won't come up anymore. It might come up but it's not involved in it anymore. See it for what it is. Recognise for what it is once you see it for what it is.

It's lost its sting. It's lost its intensity. You still think and see and feel the same as everybody else. But what is it that stopped? What is it that has stopped coming up? The belief that it has some power or independent nature of itself that the thought can stand on its own. It can't. And sometimes, you know, there'll be silence there and after a kick it in it's scared to get it going again if I want to think something, you know. It just naturally drops off. Do you see the psychological thing before it even starts or do you get the bump and then you see it?

Well, the sensations, you know. It starts. All it is, psychological self-awareness, is the sensations come up and we label them. Fear, anger, guilt, shame, remorse, like that. Before the labels. Yeah. But to see a sensation without putting the label on it that's fresh and new, you know, what you called fear before which you loaded down with fear, all the previous fears you've had, it mightn't be fear if you look at it fresh and new without labelling it and seeing it just as it is. It mightn't be anger. So you catch it before it takes hold. So it wouldn't get to be excitement either because that would be another label, right?

So it wouldn't get to be excitement either, it would just be erasing heat or something. No. Well, not even... No. You don't have to label it anything. So do you mean that emotions don't really come up for you anymore or... Yeah, they'll come up. Yeah. They'll come up but they're not the same. But they're just not as intense. Yeah. They're not the same. Yeah. They're not the same. In what way? Well, you can't put the belief into them anymore, the same intensity. Yeah, so I can get, you know, emotional, very emotional about things. And if I fixate on them, they'll stay around like they used to for a long time.

I let them go, they've got nothing to fixate on and they dissipate. So you don't have to do anything to make them dissipate a... They self-dissipate. No, well, who's going to do anything to take a stance and say, I'm doing it, you know? There's no... Naturally, of themselves, the spontaneous activity will come up. Just the same as when you breathe in spontaneously, you've got to breathe out. You know? Things like that. The opposite's come up. So they come up by themselves and they dissolve by themselves without you having to do anything. Well, there's no... There's no me that's yet doing it. No me that ever did it.

That was the belief before, that I did everything. Do you have the thought that was a sensation formerly known as fear? Pardon? Do you have the thought that that was a sensation formerly known as fear? Well, naturally, it's recognised what, you know, what it is. It's not all just a pure sensation until you identify it as such. You know? A sensation's going to take on its whole shape and form, just the same as the seeing. Just the same as you go to the water, ocean. The ocean's still going to be a blue sea, but the water was never blue when you investigate it. You go down to the ocean, you're still going to see a blue sea.

And you might indulge in it for a little while, a beautiful blue sea, but you know the truth about it now. And knowing the truth, you're free of the belief that the water was ever blue. The water in a mirage or a rainbow. You go outside and you see a rainbow there. Fly up and try and grab a rainbow. You can't. It's got all those beautiful colours in it. You can't. You look into it, investigate it, you see what formed the rainbow. All it is was the sun shining through the mist. And the sun shining through the mist on the clear sky formed all these colours.

So you just know all of it, about it. There's no rainbow with any solidity or any substance. Like in the house, you've never got this crystal hanging in the window. In the afternoon, the sunlight shines through the crystal. It breaks up into colours and moves around a bit. The colours are moving around all the wall. Try and grab a colour off the wall. You can't. Go back and look in the crystal. Can you see any colour in the crystal? You can't. Recognising the truth of these things, you're not bound into them. What's the story? It's so pretty. Yes, enjoy it. It is pretty dancing around like that, so enjoy it.

But know, know the truth about it. To know the truth, or if it's an intellectual knowing, that's not what we're talking about here. Right? That's how it translates as an intellectual knowing. It's a knowing, how it's... It's just a subtle... I had it before, I can't say it now. It's just a knowing. Yeah, it's just a knowing. And no one is knowing, it's just knowing. That's right. Thank you. Cognising. Cognising. There's no one there saying, I know. No. It's just knowing. No. Mostly there is, there's somebody who claims... As soon as we bring an hour into it, we've brought a subject into it. Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Bob. Thanks, Bob. Thanks, Bob. Thanks, Bob. Thanks, Bob. Thanks, Bob.