This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
This idea of a still mind, Bob, can't really exist because the nature of the mind being duality has to swing between the opposite polarities. So it can't be all good or it can't be all bad. Well, have a look at your mind, you know. So I say pause a thought. Just pause here. You can pause your thought for a moment. Then there's no mind, there's no thinking going on in that moment. You haven't disappeared, you haven't fallen apart. You're prior to the mind in that moment. That is the difference between pure intelligence and thinking. And that needs to be discriminated because the mind so closely aligned to that intelligence has come to believe it is the intelligence itself.
We think if we stop thoughts and blank out, that's the finish, the end of us. It's like putting a piece of iron in the fire. The fire will get red, it'll get hot, it'll pick it up and it'll burn. Take it on the qualities of the fire so it believes it. If it was like our minds, it would believe it is the fire itself. Take it out of the fire, it can't do any of those things. Take... Awareness away, you know. If awareness is not there, how many thoughts can you have? What use is the mind then? So when it's a seed and understood that the mind has got no substance or any independent nature of itself, can't stand on its own, then what it must have do?
It naturally aligns itself then with intelligence. And what comes through spontaneously, it translates that instead of thinking it's going, you know, got the idea that it can run and tries to do this and do that and all the rest of it. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get ourselves out of trouble. Yes, and that explains why somebody who has perhaps looked into meditation, I mean, you know, 30, 40, 50 years can go past without them realizing that the mind appears within the stillness. The stillness was always there, was never not there. Exactly. And see, they're not seeing the stillness, they're caught in the mind.
And they're trying to use the mind to find the stillness. When the stillness is there... All the time. All the time. There's more stillness in this room. There's more silence in this room. Same outside. The very idea of meditation is some believed in entity trying to still the mind, trying to become silent. There's an entity trying to get somewhere. And that's the very conflict that's going on. The belief in an entity trying to get somewhere. There's no meditator, nothing to meditate on. Where's the believer? He cancels the meditation. He cancels the meditation out. Leaves your presence unaware. Presence unaware. Which is constant man. Another way of looking at it, everybody woke up this morning, just that bare wakefulness was there.
And into it almost immediately came thoughts, ideas, concepts. And you got up and went about your business. Showered, shaved, got dressed, had your breakfast. All sorts of activities went on. Got in the car and came here. Sitting here listening to this garbage going on. All that. Now how's that wakefulness? The wakefulness itself, not what's gone on. The wakefulness being touched. Hasn't changed. Has anything been added to it? Anything taken away from that bare wakefulness? The content has come and gone. It's constantly coming and going. But the wakefulness itself has not been touched. Now could it take place outside of the wakefulness? If you're in deep sleep, where is it?
You might get a dream state in deep sleep, but that's taking place in deep sleep in the deep. The dream can't take place outside of sleep. You can recall a little bit of it. The actual dream itself is going on in sleep. This is going on in the wakefulness. Yet the wakefulness has never been contaminated. The wakefulness itself, by any other drama that's gone on through the day, or any other day, all these fearful thoughts you've had, and anxious thoughts, have all taken place on that wakefulness. The wakefulness itself is ineffable. It's something that can't be grasped, inexpressible. But it's something that can't be negated.
Without it, nothing could have taken place. That is what you are. That is what you are. Yes, so if there's no meditator to do the meditation, you wipe them all out. There's no thinker doing the thinking. There's no doer doing the doing. There's no believer doing the believing. They're all gone in one foul swoop. Everything is perfectly resolved in the unknown. It just takes care of itself. Which is access to that old, you know, aphorism about this is a dream, but when you truly wake up, this reality is just as much a dream as the dream, which I've always had trouble grasping with my mind.
But this gives me, this just gave me a little bit of access to it. So you never grasp the answer in the mind. No, no, no. It makes more sense to know that you don't need an answer. No, because there's no question. No. Well, it's Sunday morning, Bob, and I'm not going anywhere now. There's probably thousands of people under the impression that they're going somewhere to get something, whether it be a church, a synagogue, or even us coming here. There's this, as long as there's a separate identity that thinks it can get somewhere at some future time, you're still in mind. Well, you believe you are.
You never were in mind. There was a mind, but we believe, and the energy has gone into that belief, making it seemingly real. When you know, you know, when you understand the definition of belief, and unquestioning acceptance of something in the absence of reason, acceptance of an alleged fact without positive knowledge or proof, what are you going to do with your beliefs then? They won't stand up. A belief is not the fact. It's not the actuality. It is a belief. Now, any belief can never be the fact of the reality until it's seen. If it's questioned, looked at, and seen as the fact, well, it's no longer a belief.
The only fact you're absolutely certain of is the fact of your own being. There is no one who can negate that over any circumstance. No one can say, I am not. But knowing that you are, just in its ordinary nakedness, ordinary purity, I am, you know, and knowing that you are without that thought, even I am, is always constantly there. And you see, what happens there, first, like the way from us, and from then on, everything is added onto that. Events, experiences, conditions, added onto that, their awareness. So the awareness is not contaminated by any of it. It comes and goes. Like the mirror. See that mirror over there?
It's full of reflections. And you can't say the reflections are not there. They appear to be there, they appear to be substantial. But when you walk up to the mirror and try and grasp the reflection, what can you grasp? You can only grasp the mirror. Because there is nothing there. So you can't say they're not there, they appear to be there. And you can't say they are there, because when you go and try to, they're not.