Bob Adamson - what's wrong with right now? 10th of March 2007

I'm not going to teach you anything. I'm not going to tell you anything. All we do here is point you to something you might never have looked at before. Seeking truth, reality, God or whatever you like to call it. We say right from the start, start from the fact that you are already there. And then you must see from that that the search itself becomes the problem. Because the search implies there's something you're going to get or something you can get. Or something you will get. And that implies some time that you'll get it. I tell you here right from the start, you need to look at this too, that time is a mental concept.

And we base what we talk about, I say it's nothing new. You'll find it in all the great traditions. In Hinduism, for instance, they call it non-duality. And they try to explain it by saying it's one without a second. And they put it in the Bible. They put that without a second on it because even the idea of one implies that there could be other than one. So they say one without a second. We can cancel out that concept or idea or belief. That there is something other than what is. In the dog's end, the scriptures of Buddhism, the ultimate scriptures of Buddhism, they say it's time conceptual, ever fresh, presence awareness, just this, nothing else.

And most of the traditions looking into them, they say it's omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. Not three things. The three aspects of the one thing. Omnipresence meaning total presence. Omnipotence meaning total power. And omniscience meaning total intelligence. And they meant exactly that, total. If they mean exactly that, then you see and grasp that, you must realize that there can be nothing if it's total, there can be nothing outside of that totality. There doesn't leave room for a you or a me or anything at all that can be separate and apart from you. And that's why we say what you're seeking you already are. Another thing we point to here is that you'll never find the answer in the mind.

Because look, for the mind, or what you call the mind, can anyone show me a thing called mind? If there's anything you can grasp, you can say this is my mind. Or this is mind. Because your mind really is thought, thinking. And if you look at thinking, what is thinking? Isn't thinking at the subtle level, very, very subtle vibration? When it comes out as word, or spoken as sound, that's what sound is, a vibration. And a vibration is a movement of energy. So being a movement of energy, if you look at your thinking, you can see it's constantly vibrating in the interrelated opposites. It's not in the past, which is memory, it's future, which is anticipation, imagination.

And within that range it's constantly vibrating in the interrelated opposites. It's either good, it's bad, it doesn't pay for them, happy, sad, loving, hating, positive, negative, watch your mind and see if it functions really any other way. And so we're within that range. And that's why we say you'll never find the answer in the mind. Because the mind is dualism. We're talking about non-duality. The mind is dualism, constantly dividing. And there is absolutely no duality in non-duality. There can't be. There couldn't be non-duality in non-duality. And you won't find the answer there. That's why I say that, you'll see in the book and on the website, that I'm not speaking to anybody.

I'm not speaking to any mind. I am speaking to that, to... that I am that I am. And meanwhile that sense of presence that expresses through the mind as the thought I am, just to this and nothing else. I'm not speaking to you as persons or entities. I'm speaking to that sense of presence. There's nobody sitting here who is not aware of being present. And that presence of awareness is with you right now. And that presence of awareness, if you look at it closely, is always prior to the mind. Because if you pause a thought at any time, you realize you don't disappear, you don't fall apart, you don't stop seeing, you don't stop hearing.

All that was thinking stopped for a moment. And all the other functioning is going on. And then a thought will appear on that awareness, or both thoughts, or whatever you like to call it. So, that's what prior to the mind is. And people spend years and years struggling and straining, trying to quell thoughts and stop thoughts, to be prior to the mind. And simply that pausing a thought for a moment and getting a taste of it, it's constantly there. I don't like to use the term God, because each of us come from different backgrounds. Some of us come from Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, atheist or agnostic backgrounds.

And so we relate that concept, God, to what our background is, what we believe in or don't believe in. And so we can get confused. I talk about God all the time. I like to use the term intelligence energy. And that can confuse a lot of people also. But the simplicity of that is, I'm not talking to your intellects, I'm talking about intelligence. You've only got to have a look out there at a universe and see the way it's functioning, the stars in orbit, the Earth going around the Sun, the tides coming in and out, the seasons coming and going. It implies that all this appearance is suffused with an innate intelligence.

That's not it. It's suffusing everything. And that is what is breathing you right now. That's what's breathing your heart. That's what's growing your hair and your fingernails, digesting your food, replacing cells in your body and even causing the thinking to happen. Is that innate intelligence the same intelligence that's patterning as a tree, an insect, a bird, in this human form, and every other shape and form of this manifestation? Is that a patterning intelligence? Is that a patterning intelligence? This body, for instance, we think we've believed, because we've never questioned it, we are this body. Have a look at this body. What's it made up of?

Is it made up of the elements? Isn't it made up of air, Earth, water, fire, space? Separate yourself from the air, if you can. Separate yourself from the Earth. Separate yourself from space. When we talk about non-separation, we're not talking about the appearance, how it's patterning or appearing. We're talking about the essence of this body. The innate essence, it's that pure intelligence energy. That intelligence, those elements can be broken down into subatomic particles into no thing. They call it space-like appearance. Into an emptiness, what appears to be an emptiness. But that emptiness is not a vacuum or a void. It's suffused with that innate intelligence.

That's why in Buddhism they call it cognizing emptiness. Emptiness with the capacity of cognizing. It's not that we are cognizing emptiness. It's the emptiness that has that capacity of cognizing. And you look at this body and see that you can't find a center to it. You look closely and see if you can find a center. Where did it come from? Wasn't it in the intelligence energy, in the essence of the food eaten by your father, taken in by your father and his breath, the chi, the prana, it's suffused with that intelligence energy, the breath and the food, the same with the mother. Then that formed the sperm.

Then it formed the ovum. And it was intelligence energy in the ovum. It knew to detach itself from all the uterus. It didn't get there accidentally or haphazardly. It was intelligence energy in the sperm. It didn't find its way up to the ovum haphazardly. It swam there. Again, it's the only thing that's suffused with that intelligence. And when those two came together, it formed the initial cell, which was the parent beginning of this body. And that cell doubled and redoubled, it suffused with that intelligence again. And that cell was long since gone. If there was any center to this body, where it began, it would be in that cell.

That's long since gone, and there are a million cells dying and being replaced in your body right now. So you look at this and see that this body is constantly changing. All those cells will be replaced over and over again. So how can you say, I am this body? Something that's substantially been with you all along. And the same with the mind. As I say, look at your mind. Is there such a thing as mind apart from thinking? You can't find it and say, I am this body. Am I this mind? You can say that mind, being a vibration of energy, made up of thought.

And which particular thought are you? Are you this I am thought, which is the primary thought? A sense of presence expressing through the mind, or translating as the thought I am. But you don't need to go around all day saying, I am, I am. If you were this thought, I am. That would be what you were doing. Really confirming a being by saying, I am, I am. But you don't even think that throughout the day. Or hardly ever. But you still are. And that thought's not with you in your deep sleep, or unconscious, or under an anesthetic. That thought is indeed to be constantly there.

So you can't be that thought either. You can't be this body, or this mind. You are that essence. It is functioning, shaping, patterning, and forming, and all the other manifestations that comprises of this manifest universe. It's all that same intelligence, patterning, shaping, and forming. There's no separate, nothing separate or apart from it. Just that non-dual one without a second. That's why we say that you are that. And that's the great, the maha-vakya, the great word that's been passed down through the visions. I am that. Thou art that. This is that. That's that. Everything is that. We know that in our language. We say that's a chair, that's a carpet.

That's Andrew, that's a camera. Take away the label. We've acquired these labels. We weren't born with those labels. We've acquired them all along. Take away the chair, carpet, the label chair, carpet, Andrew, or whatever label you put on it. And separate. Try and separate it without the label. It's all that. These are just places to get the taste, to get the glimpse of what you really are. What's happened is the little child doesn't know he's separate either. He's got no idea that he's separate. He's got no idea he's separate when he's born. Doesn't know that he's separate for the first 12 or 18 months or so, maybe two years.

He's getting around. He's seeing. He's hearing. He's functioning. And that reasoning didn't start on him until he was about two or two and a half or something, capacity at reasoning. And when he started reasoning, he's hearing words from his parents. A little Johnny. They call him little Johnny. I'm this, I'm that, and that. And he learns words like I, or, or me. And he starts to reason all this. And as I say, see the mind vibrating and the pairs of opposite. What is the opposite of me? Or I? Isn't it right or I? Or not me? And for the first time when he's looking out there, he's seeing everything just as it is up till then.

Not seeing one homogenous blob. He's seeing things as different, but he hasn't got any labels from it. He's not realizing that they're separate and apart from him, or different from him, because he hasn't discriminated that. But he starts to reason, now that's not me, that's not I. And immediately he knows that, that's when the sense of separation comes upon us. And with separation comes insecurity and vulnerability. That's when the search actually starts. Because that's when then I wish to search him to become whole or complete. Because we believe we are separate. And that separation is there, there's insecurity and vulnerability. And we're geared and taught to look out there.

Instead of looking within and seeing whether we are, questioning it and blaming it. Our whole society, our schools, our nations and everything else is geared to look out there. To acquire, to amass, to gather, to accumulate, as much as we can. I think all these things will make us feel secure. Make us feel less vulnerable. Make us feel whole. And then when these things don't seem to happen, what do we do? We invent a god then. Who is somewhere out there. If we pray to him, or meditate on him, or try and meet him, we will become whole or complete. But you see we've moved away from what the ancients have told us.

We've moved away from omnipresence. Omnipresence means total here and now. It's only this. It doesn't mean any future time. But as soon as we're in the becoming stage, rather than being, we've moved into that concept of time. We've lived that invention. You know, when we die we go to a place called heaven. We've conceptualized another place called heaven. And we'll sit on his right hand side if we're in question. And resurrect at some future time. Down the track. Again. All in the future time. Or we belong to some eastern region where we incarnate. And you see there's always this idea or concept that there is a separate entity that will be able to come back at some future time.

Not realizing that you were never born in the first place. And if you were never born you could never die. You are that. Eternal. Now. Moment. If you like. Always have been and always will be. So what happens to that little child is the same. When this I thought comes upon him, you can't do much with I thought really. What does he do? He adds to this I thought, and this is what we all do, events and experiences and conditioning, all mental concepts that have happened to me. I'm a good bloke or I'm a bad bloke. I've got low self-esteem. People don't like me. They resentful.

I'm fearful. I'm abusive. A child. All these concepts are out of this I thought and believed in. And we form this mental concept or mental picture of what we believe ourselves to be. We've got a mental image made of ourselves. And that was what we call the self-center or the ego. And that becomes a reference point from which everything is evaluated from. And all problems are problems of relationship. It's not just the male-female relationship that we're all concerned with. It's all relative to relationship. Relative to big work, my house, my job, my partner or whatever. It's judged from this reference point against what I see them to be.

Relative to. And that's the cause of all our problems. But what happens if I investigate and see that there's no entity here with any substance or any independent nature? What happens when I look at this thing we call the mental picture? I'm not going to say it's a fiction. It never had any existence of any type. It never could have. It's just a made-up mental picture. What can I be relative to then without that reference point? Where's it going to lodge? Somebody calls me a nasty neighbour or anything. And it either hits that reference point and I get fearful or resentful or angry. Somebody does that and it's not hitting home here.

Where's it going to lodge then? Doesn't it just pass through? Nowhere for it to stay? We call it unfixated awareness. The thoughts are not being fixated on or being taken delivery of anywhere. They just come and go. And activities go on from there. And that could be the release from all the psychological suffering that's gone on. It's only a me that can be fearful. It's only a me that can be resentful and full of self-pity or anger. So I see from that that me has been the cause of all my problems, of all my suffering. And the effects are my anger, my fear, my self-pity.

And that's all that karma is, the so-called karma is. It's cause and effect. So what happens if you see that the cause is a fiction? And ask yourself the simple question, can there be an effect without a cause? What must happen to the effects then if they've got nowhere to lodge? No need to fight them. No need to try and force them out or analyse them and go into therapy for years and years and years trying to work it out. Because as soon as we do that, the answer is not in the mind. The mind will continue to mind and take it out another track and another track and another track continually.

I've always got something about it to bring up in some other thought. I see that the answer is not in the mind and know whichever way I look in the mind will be in the mind. What way is there out of the mind? Isn't it just full stop? And what happens if you pause a thought? Anyone can pause a thought right now and then just stop. Even if it's only for a second. And notice what is there. When that thought is paused before another thought happens. Have you stopped seeing? Have you stopped hearing? Have you stopped feeling, sensing, tasting, touching, smelling? All these things are happening quite habitually, quite by themselves.

All that's happened is the conceptualising has stopped. When that thought is paused before another thought has started. And the Dao Chin teachers will tell you that the great perfectionism, that's what the Dao Chin means when it's translated, is great perfection. Now give it even one sentence. The great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. Simple as that. And that's the simplicity of this, what we point to. Single and simple. Seemingly too simple for the mind. You would say it can't be this easy. And you get involved with another story. Or people have been searching for 10, 20, 30 years doing all sorts of meditation. Things like that. Oh no.

They'll have a vested interest in this search. What about my 30 years of meditating? What am I going to do with that? Rather than drop into search, being what they are, they'll carry on for another 20 or 30 years trying to find it. But it doesn't happen. And I wonder why so few people seemingly get it. Or what we call get it. We say here often at the start that everybody already is that. You can give it. There is no person or entity that needs to get it or can give it. We say start from that fact that you are already that. If you are that omnipresence, omnipotence, omnivisience, how can you be anything else other than that?

We point you towards that and see that's what you are that already and always have been. You'll never find the answer in a concept. That's just about it. That should do you anyway for a while. It's everybody right. Everybody is that already. And it's much easier to see today because we've got all this way of communicating through good translations of ancient texts which weren't translated the way they are today with computers and everything like that where there'd be only one or two in a small village isolated somewhere and only be able to pass it on to a few around because they have no means of communicating with one another.

So very few would hear about it. And although they do, not everybody would be attracted by it. And so that's where they got the idea that it's only for the very few. But today with all the things we've got, the computers and everything, texts and people that understand it, pointing to it, quite easy to see, quite easy to be grant and realise that you are that. And they don't get the idea that a lot of us do, oh I couldn't possibly be that. They're far greater than what I am. It's a lot of crap. No one better or worse than what you are because you are in essence that.

No matter how they're patting you, experiencing you, or shaping you for me, everybody can contribute to the show, so get into it. Any doubts, any questions, any arguments? Well Bob, the other night it came up that this idea, and it's not an isolated idea, I think you'll find most people have the idea, that there is, oh, I should be doing better in life, or there are places I should be getting to. And it was sort of briefly brushed over, but I would have thought, if we listen to what you say, there cannot be any, that can only be a mental projection from a self. In other words, to have a belief, there has to be a believer.

To have a goal, there has to be somebody created to have that goal, to work towards it. And it can only exist in the linear part of the mind that creates time. So, no believer can't be a belief. So where would the goal cling onto? You've got to have a look, you've got to realise, you've got to perceive, that there is no entity that has any power or any independent nature. And we'll point that out again, we'll go through it and point it in, for those that haven't. Everybody is seeing right now, isn't that a fact? Everybody is hearing right now. But ask yourself this, does my eye tell me I see?

And does my ear tell me I hear? Mine doesn't, does yours? But the thought comes up and translates, I see. The thought comes up and translates, I hear. The thought, then ask yourself, can the thought I see, can it actually see? Can the thought I hear, can it actually hear? Can it? No. The thought can't see, the thought can't hear. So the thought I'm aware, can't be your awareness. The thought I choose, can't be the choice maker. But see, the thought has got no power to do anything whatsoever. When you realise that, that there is no entity there, you know, that thought is just a thought.

It's just a thought. It's just a thought. It has got no power to do anything, and it has got no independent nature. It's not something that can stand on its own. You can't have a single thought, unless that life essence is there. You've got a body, and a brain and everything, and how many thoughts can you have without that life essence? So you see that the thought, which we believed ourselves to be, this imagined thought, has got no power to do any of these things. So it never did have any power. So, if that's understood, and you've functioned from that point, with any idea that comes up that I've got goals or I need goals, who's having that idea?

It's not the entity. That's what comes up and might put you wrong. But while you believe you're an entity, yes, you're in duality. And that, you know, you're causing problems to yourself. The thoughts will come up the same as they did before. They're never, they can never be attributed to an entity if you see through it clearly and know that there's no... See, discipline's come up in its mind here, something might come up, chat about that, might come up as false thought, that thought will come up. There's no thinking of it. Just thinking. Well, don't go there. Well, that's just a concept. There's no argument about was this coming from a me or not me.

And that's what goes on when people first look at it. Oh, was that my me talking or not? And you see that the me never had any power at all, never had any independent notion, was total fiction. How can it ever come from a me? Absolutely. But while we're in ignorance, what they call ignorance, we ignore our true nature and believe in their periods. While we're in that ignorance, ignoring our true nature, and believing there is a me there that is functioning, we get caught in all these traps. You said, what do I want to know about that for? And I couldn't really answer why you'd want to know about that, I suppose, but it interests me.

Yeah, well, that's right, but it doesn't interest anyone. It seems that, doesn't it? Some people are attracted to it, some aren't. It doesn't make any difference. They're all that anyway. Like some seeds on that tree out there will fall into the ground and sprout, others won't. It doesn't matter. The ones that don't sprout will be fertilised with other seeds that are in the ground. See, what we do when we believe in that separate entity, we put the boundaries upon ourselves. And the boundaries we put upon ourselves are only words. Because they're only words. This is good, this is bad, unpleasant, painful. I can't or I will or I can.

We take those boundaries off and we're out of here. We're out of boundary. We're out of limitation. Then what inspires you to do things, to take action or to make choices? I mean, if you're saying you've sort of been, I guess, looked along in a current of energy or intelligence and you're not making... I mean, if you understand that you're not making a conscious choice, then how do you motivate yourself day to day to get things done or to teach your children the right thing or grow your business or, you know? I'm having trouble understanding how you... If you're not thinking for yourself, how do you progress in the right direction?

Well, you know... Well, tell me this. Do you choose a thought? Do I choose a thought? No. Because thinking comes up. Yeah. Do you choose to breathe? No. Breathing's happening. You know, life isn't motivating. You know, it goes on. Thoughts will come up. I'll do this or I'll do that. It comes up by itself. But I have to choose what I teach my kids. What I believe they should know because they're fairly unaffected. You know, it would be nice to teach them this philosophy, but how would they then function in our society? Well, they'd still go out into society and learn from other kids. They'd still, you know, go through the belief in that self-centred.

And you can choose the quality of your thoughts and you can choose the quality of your breath. Can you? Yeah, I believe so. I believe consciously you can choose the quality of breath. There's a choice maker there. Well, I could say I am. But I physically can say, breathe deeper, Catherine. And then I physically breathe deeper. And so therefore there is some sort of reaction or there's some sort of movement towards me saying breathe deeper, whether it's me. But the thing is there's an attitude or there's an action reaction or a thought reaction which allows me to breathe deeper. Have a look and see who this me is that's breathing deeper.

Sorry? Have a look and see what this me is that you think is breathing deeper. But there can be a conscious thought that says, okay, I'm going to breathe deeper now and my physical body breathes deeper. Yeah. But you've got to say, who has that conscious thought? Is there a thinker there or is it just thinking? I actually haven't thought enough deep about it to give you that answer. But I do know that there is that action reaction. I'm not disputing the thought. I'm just saying that going back to you, you choose, when you say, do I choose to breathe, you mightn't choose to breathe naturally, but there can be a quality of breath, like in terms of, yeah, there's a quality of...

Isn't that learnt? I sort of agree. Isn't there a learning that you carry with you that then allows you to... What influences your choices from that point on based on your experiences and your learning, like whether you do a lot of yoga or...? It's all acquired. Our whole mind is acquired stuff, learned stuff. I don't mean to say, who is learning? Is there any... I don't see any idea there with any independent notion that does this. See, who's growing you right now? Who gave you that body? Was it this entity that formed it from the word or not, which you believe yourself to be? But to think and choose, to function, to breathe deeper, any of these things.

See, that's the way that pattern of energy is patterning, which each pattern is unique in its way of functioning. And we all think pretty much the same way in the pairs of opposites, but there's no thinker. Can you explain that duality a bit more? You're talking about that our brains or our minds are always existing in a duality. See, this whole manifestation is dual. A whole. It's all appearance. It couldn't be silence without sound. It couldn't be stillness without movement. It couldn't be day without night. It couldn't be summer without winter. The whole... For it to manifest is dual. It's dualism. With us, the seeking process, that's a dualistic process also.

See, the past or future, good or bad, pleasant, painful, happy, sad, always functioning in those opposites. And that past, future, they're all labels we put, all concepts we put on. In nature, the dualism is happening. Winter's not saying, when it was winter, well, shit, I wish it was summer, it's too cold, you know. The tide's not... Incoming tide's not fighting with outgoing tide. Day's not struggling with... The light's not struggling with darkness. It's taking care. With us, we're getting one of these opposites, and as soon as the opposite comes up, we resist it. We don't want it. If it's something good, and it starts to move away, we resist that.

We want to keep it there. There's a constant resistance. And the only resistance is conflict. And conflict is a siege. You're not at ease if you're in conflict. And that's what's going on constantly. And you can't do anything about it. That resistance. Because that would be the end. People leaving and you can do something. All that happens is, you recognize. There's a recognition of resistance. And that recognition must be from its opposite. It must be from the point of no resistance. And that moment you'll notice a very, very subtle relaxation. Look at that. And all these things will come up, you see. Do you consider yourself an irresponsible person?

No. No. So it's innately there, that responsibility. Innately that responsibility will function. Right. And if you were functioning or acting as an irresponsible being, there's no way in the world you could be responsible. Right. So you can't learn these things? Pardon? You can't learn these things? Well, if there's learning to be done, it won't be done by you. Or acquiring, what I call it, right? All the learning is. It's happened to you. It hasn't been done by an entity. That's the whole thing. Are you not continually learning? Yes. There's continually learning going on. Yeah. You aren't doing it. No. No, I get that. I get that.

Yeah. There's no learner there. See, the I-N-G on it, the learning, is the actuality, the activity. The seeing is the actuality. Then you say, I see. And you've created this you-know subject. Yeah. I see the whatever it is, but you put a label on that, and you've created the object. But they're both contained in the seeing. Seeing. And there couldn't be a seer without seeing. And there couldn't be the seeing without seeing. Same with experiencing. There couldn't be an experiencer without experiencing. There couldn't be an experience without experiencing. And thinking is the same way. There couldn't be a thinker without the thinking going. There couldn't be the thought.

So that's the actual. The I-N-G gives it something that's happening in the immediacy of the moment, an activity that's going on right now. It's not something that was or will be. This is the actuality of this moment. The only living that can ever happen is right in this moment. You can't live a moment ago. You can recall a moment ago. When you're recalling it, you're recalling it in the now, in the immediacy of this moment. That's the only life it's got. If it's not being recalled, you haven't thought about it, don't remember it. So it's recalled. And you can't live a moment in the future.

You can imagine and anticipate the future that you're having out there today. That's all imagination and anticipation. But the actuality is right now. You still haven't lived this moment. So you see, you can plan. Plans will be made. It won't be you doing it. Plans will be made. But what can be done about it in this moment is done. It's let go to whatever it is. Whatever it is that has carried out. And that will be this moment also. Seeming choices will be made. There's no choice. Life goes on the way it always goes. But you need to understand and see that there is no entity there with any independent nature that has any power over self.

Because that's the cause of all your problems. And that's what happens. It's still acting spontaneously and intuitively when what comes up. Something will come up and say, no, I refer it to the me of past memory. And I didn't did that last time. I don't like it. It loses its spontaneity. And you learn to rely on that spontaneous intuitive function. And that knows better than what you and I do. Being a responsible person and someone else not a responsible person. You know, like you say, everything's automatic from being conceived up until, you know, until you're born. And then people take divergent lives. Look at all the different lives that are here and the choices that are made.

What I don't quite understand is the variation. Like what defines people's personalities or people's responsibilities or people's choices? Is it just the ego or is it... No, that's the intelligence energy. Again, in the genes it forms that particular pattern. It comes through in the sperm and wherever it came from. It's given all the way back. All this diversity and the whole manifestation is in marriage of millions of different shapes, forms, patterns. Everything, no two things are alike in all this. Some will be from our reference point good. Some will be bad, you know. But it's all just as it is. How did experience come into that, like childhood experience?

And how much did that affect the formation of your personality or your character traits? Is that...? Whatever you take on board, you know, seemingly affects the belief in the entity, that you become fearful, unhappy, resentful, angry, all that and more. All these concepts are added on to that image that you believe yourself to be, because of that sense of separation. And that self-centre or ego, you know, it's always looking out to self-gratification. And when that doesn't happen, it gets fearful, and all these things happen to that. Well, then when we got that there, we were in trouble. That's all our suffering comes from then. No destiny, anyway.

Yeah, right, okay. So I was going to ask, isn't destiny a future projection? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Destiny must belong to somebody or something. It's just a mental projection. Yeah, got it. You got along pretty well after that point. No, no, no. Well, yes. That's like the other night when he's... See, a mental projection the other night when it came up like, I should be doing better. Yeah, yeah. That can only come from a reference point where you have a certain expectation of yourself that should be getting to some future point in time. Right? Now, it could be completely different. Like, I might have a reference point where I might say, well, geez, I remember talking to a guy, his greatest goal in life was to get a forklift driver's licence.

Right? He's thinking that was it, you know? If I get my forklift driver's licence, hey, I'm set. Right? If you talk to somebody else, right, he might think, well, when I star in my first Hollywood movie and make $30 million, a movie, all right. See, it just depends what your individual reference point may be, which is all different. Every single person. Every single person can have a different expectation of some imaginary future they create for themselves. None of it's real life. Isn't that why there's so much pain? Because society or the bulk of people all compare reference points and feel inadequate to everybody else's illusion of their reference points.

So we're all feeling inadequate and it's all illusion. I get it. That's exactly it. I'm like... Everybody in this room will have a different concept about you. Yes. And you've got this concept about yourself. Which concept would be right? None of them, probably. Right, exactly. None of them. And when you say that, you couldn't give a shit what anyone thinks. That's right. All that set-up, you know, this pose, I've got to be like this, I've got to be like that to please people. And you can never please everyone. When you've got that reference point there to refer to, who cares? And that's the beauty of it.

When you see that there's no reference point here, you must know whether they do or not that there's no reference point in there. And that leaves you in the box seat. You've got a great advantage over people. You see where they come from. The pain comes when you believe in someone else's reference point of view as well. You know, like that you buy into what you think someone else's perception of you is. Yeah. Because that's an illusion as well. Yes, and it doesn't fit your reference point. It's conflict. Their reference point. Yeah. And you think that's not the reference point you're going to get. What you're saying?

Yes, but except that there's no people carrying it. Okay, yeah. All the people are that dog. John Howard is that. Everything is that. Yeah, sure. And it can change. You know, all this diversity, the patterns, shapes and forms are constantly changing. And that's what dualism is. It's transient. It's constantly moving and changing all the time. And the definition of reality is that which never changes. What's all appearing in it has never changed. You've got that mirror there. Have a look at that mirror. I noticed it when I first walked in. I thought it was pretty impressive. You want to see the cat. You see all those reflections in the mirror?

Yeah. You can't say they're not there, can you? No. Because you go up and try and grab a reflection out of the mirror. Yeah. That's the first thing you learn when you're a kid or a cat. It's true. You go, oh, wow. But you know, you can't get there. You can't grab those reflections. You can't say they're not there. But then you can't say they're not there. It's just a reflection. It's a reflection. It's a reflection. It's a reflection. It's a reflection. It's a reflection. It's a reflection. You can't get there. You can't grab those reflections. You can't say they're not there. But have a look at the mirror.

Is it contaminated ever by any of the reflections in it? No. So don't say that as a manifestation. What you are is that mirror-like, self-shining awareness. There's never been contaminated by any of the things that appears or happens on it or occurs in this world. No, there's nothing. Each pattern is that also. Each reflection in the mirror is only mirror. You can't get there. You can't get there. It's a reflection. Also, if we take the appearance to be real, rather than seeing, so just relax and let the reflection be. They work themselves out. Are you saying we only feel contaminated if we hold on to the past as a thought?

You know, that feeling of like I've got pain from something that happened to me. It is. It's only because I'm going back to the past to replay it and that's the only, because right now it doesn't exist anymore. That's right. What's wrong with, so the title of the book is What's Wrong With Right Now If You Don't Think About It? And just pause the thought right now. What can you say? Can you say is anything right or anything wrong, anything good or anything bad without a thought? But you haven't disappeared without a thought, haven't fallen apart, there's just that naked awareness there, there, God being there, knowingness, whatever that is.

That's that. And it's not contaminated by any concept. People say about my conditioning. What conditioning is there if you don't think about it? You'd lose it all just like that. You take it up again and start another story. Is the aim not to get rid of thought but just not to be affected by it? See the capacity of reasoning in this pattern as a human being is very necessary, very useful. This house was an idea in somebody's mind once. The television was an idea, that camera was an idea in somebody's mind. Very useful at that end. But when it vibrates to the other end, oh I'm not good enough, I can't do this, you know, it's creative at one end but being a vibration when it vibrates to the other end, it's self-destructive.

Puts all these images and labels on us. Is that the duality? Is that part of the duality? Pardon? Yes, that's the way it vibrates you see, the duality. You realise that there's nothing here to be destructive, you know, to be self-destructive. It's not a fiction, we're referring to it constantly. What's going to happen then? So that thought that made the camera, the vibration that made the camera, which you know, what you can conceive, whatever you dream you can conceive, that kind of concept. Like one day one person woke up and thought I'm going to find out what I'm going to do with this. And then they thought about how to make a light bulb.

And they worked. And they made a light bulb, to much to everybody's amazement. That to me is a thought made manifest. So I can understand about negative thoughts and people's perception of negative thoughts and sort of, and just allowing them to be. What about the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the consciousness of your imagination and being able to, to bring that into a reality, like an idea into reality and that as a thought process? Yeah but I meant that there's no entity doing it, but that thought … Oh yeah, yeah. I'm not … so it's, it's, conceptually it works, but the actual ego that's involved with me, I mean the appreciation of the fact that we live in a world, you know, that we're … it is a creative environment.

Yeah. It is a creative universe. And then I might carry with me the gratitude every day that it's abundant with gifts that allows me to go, okay, well, you know, maybe I've got this idea and... Some idea might come up and an exodus happens. It's there. It's a light bulb. It's like you've got child prodigies, or something. They go, that burn will require, and that's where it comes from. And that then comes out. The Mozart's, the Einsteins, and all the rest of it. They go down the street, everything's God, this is God, that's God, and he comes to the village. And all these people came racing out of the village and say, quick, quick, get out of the road.

There's an elephant gone mad in the village. Everything's God, everything's God, and they kept walking around. And the elephant turns around and he says, what, are you talking about, what, mother cut! The elephant came out and grabbed hold of him and picked him up and threw him in a tree. Smashed a couple of his ribs and broke an arm or two. So he was all patched up and in the hospital. The guru comes and visits him and says, hey, what's the idea? He says, you told me to see everything you'd got. He says, I saw that elephant go as God and look what he did to me.

He says, you're not in full body to see the people that told you to get out of the road as God. But wasn't true. And you passed them by. Though you're in the syringe and their lines don't mean a thing. Why don't you let me try?