This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
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 I am that I am. I mean by that, 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 your thought at any time, you realise 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 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 quench 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 we all 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 if we 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. I'm talking about the universe and see the way it's functioning. Stars in orbit. The Earth going around the Sun. Tides coming in and out. The seasons coming and going.
Implies that all this appearance is suffused with an innate intelligence. And it's not. 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 you to think. And that's what's breathing down. It's 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. That patterning intelligence energy. This body for instance. We think we were 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 elements? Is 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. The innate essence. It's that pure intelligence energy. That intelligence. Those elements can be broken down to sub-atomic particles into no-thing. And they're called space-like elements. Into an emptiness. What appears to be an emptiness. But that emptiness is not a vacuum or a void. It is 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 the emptiness. It's the emptiness that has that capacity of cognizing. And you look at its body and see that you can't find its centre to it, and look closely and see if you can find its centre. 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, achieved the part of, suffused with that intelligence energy, the breath and the food, the same with the mother? Didn't that form the sperm?
Didn't it form the ovum? When it was intelligence energy in the ovum, it knew to detach itself from all the uterus, didn't get there accidentally or haphazardly. When it was intelligence energy in the sperm, it didn't fight its way up to the ovum haphazardly, it swam down. Again, it was the only thing that was suffused with that intelligence. And when those two came together and formed the initial cell, which was the parent beginning of the sperm, and the mother of this body, and that cell doubled and redoubled, suffused with that intelligence again, and that cell was long since gone. If there was any centre of this body, where it began, it would be that cell.
And 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 to substantiate. I've 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? Usually we 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 your 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 when you do 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. That is functioning, shaping, patterning, forming, and all the other manifestations that comprises of this manifest universe. It's all that same intelligence, patterning, shaping, forming. There's no separate, nothing separate or apart from it. Just that non-dual one without a second.