Sailor Bob at James' Braha in Florida 2004 p1

Did you start with TM? Yeah, I started with TM. I've always been like a searcher, you know, but this, at Beta teaching and your teaching, I think that has really done it for me. But I forget so easily. Life just, you know, takes you out of it. When I spoke to you last week, I was going through something in my life where someone, an old boyfriend came back in my life. And so I just totally forgot everything at Beta when I was back in my old programming. And what you remember or forget is not you, isn't it? Mm-hmm. I say what you can remember or forget is not you.

What comes and goes can't be what you are. I was going to ask you about love. Hmm? About love. Well, what love are you talking about? The love-hate relationship? Which is the mental concept? Maybe even... Emotional love? Or what kinds of love are there? There's the love of being. That should in and of being, knowing, and loving to be. Mm-hmm. And that... There's no conditions attached to that one. No, just loving to be? Yeah. Well, don't you love to be? Yeah, I didn't have a problem with that one. Is that quite natural? Right. But, you know, emotional love that people have for... That's love-hate relationship.

Yeah, that's right. I love him, I love him, I love him. He didn't turn up last night and I hate him. It can change just like that, can't it? So, that'll always be a problem from that aspect. Mm-hmm. You see, it's the dualism. Me and him or her or whatever it is, you see. Now, it's only a me or a separate entity that can have that problem. But are you a separate entity? I'm a separate entity. Have you looked at that? What have you looked at with these things? This teaching? Supposedly, we're not separate entities. Supposedly, have you seen that you couldn't possibly be? Couldn't possibly be a separate entity?

Mm-hmm. I can intellectually get that, but I haven't actually realized that. Well, have a look at it. What is it in you that you call you, me? What idea do you have that you call me? Programming. Mm-hmm. Isn't it an idea? You can't negate your beingness right now, can you? Mm-hmm. You know that you are right now. Mm-hmm. That knowingness is there and you can't negate it, can you? Under no circumstances can you say, I am not. You're still seeking something, aren't you? You say you haven't realized them, so you are actually still seeking them. Well, we say here, right from the start, what you're seeking you already are.

And it's the search that is the problem. Because the search implies there is something to get. But, you see, you start from the fact of your own being. Start from near instead of looking for anything else. You can't negate that beingness, can you? Under no circumstances can you say, I am not. Even if you say, I am not, or think I am not, that knowingness has to be there to be able to say it. So there is still a knowing of that I am not if you're thinking it, isn't there? Now, you haven't moved away from that knowingness. And, as I say, it's the search itself that is the problem.

So that sense of presence or that knowingness expresses through your mind as the thought, I am. To communicate that you are, you've got to say, I am, haven't you? And that I am is a thought. So the thought, I am, is still not the reality. It's the closest you can ever get to it with the mind. And that I am is just a translation of that presence awareness. That sense of presence, the knowing that you are. That presence awareness or awareness of presence. There's an awareness of now, isn't there? And that, the actuality of that is always right now. You can't be aware a moment ago.

Nor can you be aware a moment in the future. And that knowingness or awareness is there right now. But when it's translated into thought, I am aware, or I am this, or I am that, what are we talking about? We're talking about that thought. I am. To which has been added other concepts. I am this or I am that. Whatever you believe yourself to be based on your past events and experiences and your conditioning. And you form this mental concept about yourself, what you believe to be. But if you have a look at that, you see it's insubstantial. You can't grasp that. I am so and so or whatever image you've got about yourself.

It's ungraspable because it's just made up of thoughts or concepts. And above all, it hasn't got any independent nature. By that I mean it can't stand on its own. If you weren't conscious or aware, you couldn't have that thought. You couldn't have any thought without that consciousness or awareness. So it's not independent of that. So it's really not what you believe yourself to be. It's a nothingness. It's only a group of thoughts, images or concepts, which the energy of belief has gone into because we've never questioned it and looked at it, that we believe it to be what I am. Now, and the ancients tell us that that's always and ever our problem.

Selfishness, self-centered, self-will or the ego. It's always the ego or the self-centered that's our problem. Because that ego is always our problem. That ego or self-centered implies a separate entity. Now, if you look at that body and see what it's made up of, it's nothing but the elements. It's made up of air, just space, the land of the air and the space around you here, the water, the earth, the fire. No different from these other elements, but it's seemingly patterning into a shape and form. And seemingly we take that form, because we don't investigate it, we take that shape and form to be what we really are.

So I don't call it God or anything. I call it because we all have our different concepts about God. Whatever different religions we've been brought up as, or if we've been brought up atheistic or agnostic or whatever, we have a concept about that word God. But I think I call it intelligence energy because I think that's much simpler. And I'm not talking about the word God. And I'm not talking about your intellect. I'm talking about the same intelligence energy that functions this universe. Keep the stars in orbit. You know, the stars moving around in orbit implies there's an energy there. And that they're able to move in an origin implies there's an intelligence there.

Keeps the earth going around the sun, the seasons coming and going. The tides coming in and out. And if you have a look at it closely, it's breathing you. It's breathing your heart out. It's growing your hair and your fingernails. Replacing the cells in your body right now. There's no one there saying, I've got to take my next breath. You don't think that, do you? You're understanding what I'm saying or is it? Right, so as I say, so that's the sort of intelligence I'm talking about. So when the, then we might look in that. So you can't find a center in this body anywhere. It's not there.

It's not there. It's not anywhere that you can say this is what I am. Because, you know, that center is only thought based. And then if you look in your mind and see what mind is, see those elements can be broken down into quarks, electrons, whatever, into pure energy also. So in nature, there's still that intelligence energy. And the very fact that it's vibrating into this particular pattern or that particular pattern implies there is an intelligence there. And the intelligence there is keeping it in that shape. So it's, see, so the intelligence energy that is functioning in the universe hasn't moved away when it moves into this body, has it?

And something separate from the body. And we're searching, in the belief that we're separate, the search is to make ourselves whole or complete. Not realizing that's an erroneous belief that's put upon us by our parents, our nation, our society, our schools. So the search continues. So the search continues out there. The little child likes a warm, loving family around it. If it's got a warm and loving family, it feels much more secure, less vulnerable. And next level, families form into tribes. The bigger and stronger my tribe is, the more secure, less vulnerable. It goes on from there. Nations form into nations because of that insecurity.

And nations fight with nations because of that insecurity. They go to war with them. Never once realizing that. Never once realizing that there is no separation as such. Now when we go along like that and somebody might come along and say, listen, have you ever questioned? Ever questioned yourself? Ever had a look and see what you believe yourself to be? See if that's really true. And when that starts to happen, when you start to look at that, you realize there's no way in the world you could possibly be separate. So that's why we say what you're seeking, you already are. And then instead of trying to get something or gain something, all that's necessary to do is to keep questioning these erroneous beliefs until they all fall apart under that investigation.

And you're left with what you've always been, that presence awareness. The ancients called it, aside from non-duality, one without a second. In the dog-chained scriptures of Buddhism, they called it non-conceptual, self-shining, ever fresh, presence awareness, just this, nothing else. The Hebrews call it, hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God. There is no one or no thing other. They say none other, but that's what they're meaning. There's only that. And all the scriptures will tell you there's omnipresence, talking about God or the Supreme, omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience. All presence, total presence, total power and total intelligence or total knowing. So it's total. Does it leave room for you?

For you, me or anything else? So it's not a new thing we're talking about. It's something that's come down through the ages, through all the scriptures, but even the scriptures lose sight of it. They garble it up. And we lose sight of it. And so we suffer accordingly. But in realizing and seeing that there's no separation, there's no center here, we see that that center or reference point, that image we've got about ourselves, which we add to that I thought, the events and experience and conditioning. And form a mental concept that seems concrete or real. And that is a reference point which we evaluate everything from.

It's judged from near as good, bad, pleasant, painful, love, hate, knowing, not knowing, happy, sad. All these things are referred to that reference point. But when we say it's an invalid reference point and realize that there's no reference point there, what are we going to refer it to? There's nothing to refer it to. We're left with just what is. Just as it is. What's coming up in the moment, just as it is. And what is means it's unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. There's no stance taken. Now when that reference point is there, that is, you know, it's evaluated from there. I like it or I don't like it.

It's good, it's bad. It's good, it's bad. It's good, it's bad. It's good, it's bad. It's good, it's bad. And that's, we know that from past memory where we've referred to that reference point. And we want to alter it, modify it, correct it. Instead of believing it as what is, the thought comes up, I don't like this, so it wants to alter it, modify it, or correct it. And that's resistance to it. And any resistance is conflict. And any conflict is disease. If you're in conflict, you're not at ease, are you? If you're not at ease, that's disease. Keep that conflict going long enough. It'll manifest as disease in your body.

But again, seeing that there's really nothing near any substance or any infinite nature, you've dissolved it. It's fallen away. Nothing there you can grasp. And so, you know, anything that comes your way just passes through. And that frees up the energy. Instead of the energy being conflict, which is disease, it frees it up to flow. And so when you talk about love, from that point of view, it all depends, it's relative, to the image you have about yourself and the image you have about him. So you're not, there's not really a love because you're seeing them from a false reference point and you're seeing them in this mental picture.

But there's a natural response there, a natural attraction as such, where there's no him or no you. Then it's just like a magnet which will attract to itself. And if it's not meant to happen or doesn't happen, it'll repel it. And all that conflict about, you know, is it right, is it not right, doesn't need to take place because you're not seeing the true thing, the true essence, if you're seeing it through that reference point. You've only got your concept about him and the concept about yourself. Now, each one of us in this room would have a different concept about you. And you've got this concept about yourself.

Which concept would be right? None, because there are only concepts. But if I'm looking at you without a concept, I'm seeing you fresh and new in this moment. I haven't got any concept about you whatsoever. Then there can be a resonance then with your true essence, without having to formulate a concept or a picture about you. So if you can see, take, you see from that that all problems are problems of relationship. And I'm not just talking about the male-female relationship. It's always me relative to this, relative to the chair, the colour of the chair or the table, relative to what I'm eating or relative to something else, you see.

And that's where all our suffering and all our problems come from. That problem of relationship. But in the natural state, in the oneness, there's no relative to. It's just one as is. Always and ever. And that's, I had to go into the early part of it to try and let you see where it's coming from here, you know. The mind. The mind will always keep going. Doing that thing of evaluating. Yes. The good and bad. Yes, but I understand. Yes, while you're embodied, a lot of people can't see. Once they, you know, if they say they see this, they think there's going to be no mind there.

But while ever you've got that body, you're going to have a mind that's going to function in the same way in the pairs of opposites. But in the investigation and seeing through it, you're not bound by it. You've seen through it. And that's the scripture saying, know the truth and the truth will set you free. If you go down to the ocean, you see a lovely blue sea. And I said, do you get a bucket of blue water out of the sea, what would you say? If they get me a bucket of blue water out of the sea, what would you say to that? If he told you, go get a bucket of blue water, what would you say?

Would you go get the blue water? That's right. But you know it's not blue, but you will see it. It appears to be blue, but you're not taken in by the appearance, are you? You've seen through it. Same with this. You're not taken in by the appearance or the concepts you've had about yourself previously. Though they still arise. The blue sea will always be there. The blue sky. The sky is space. There's space in this room. There's no blueness in it. Go up in a plane 30,000 feet, and you'll see the blueness will always be further out. So the blueness is only in appearance too.

You look out, you go down to the beach, you look over where the sky and horizon meet. Now you're not fearful of walking out there and falling off the edge of the earth now, are you? But in the old days, people did fear that. They believed it to be so. But they know the truth about it now, and there's no way in the world you can fall off it. So this illusionary idea or concept we have about ourselves needs to be investigated and seen through. And seeing that, knowing the truth, you're free. The truth will set you free. You're free of that bondage of self.

That's basically all it's about, really. Now, as you say, thoughts will continue to arise, but you see that they're only conceptual. And you know. Look up in your dictionary what a concept is. A concept's never the thing. And we've got a group of concepts about ourselves. They're not what you really are. But a group of concepts about other people. They're not what they are either. No one can tell the truth. Because any time you say something, you have a negative and positive aspect. Yes. As soon as you open your mouth, you're conceptualizing. Right. But we use concepts to point to the truth. Exactly. And that's what I can do.

I can't tell you anything. I can't teach you anything. I can only point some of these things out. And if they've been investigated already and understood, there's no need to even point them. But if they haven't been seen or understood, a little bit of pointing could be of assistance. If you move to look in that direction. If you're not moved to look in that direction, it doesn't matter. It's just like a belief system, or any belief system in the final analysis, once you start speaking about it, because one's idea of God or the truth or whatever is different in each frame of reference. Exactly. A belief system becomes a reference point also.

And a belief, if you look in the dictionary again, a belief is never the thing. Only a belief. So we've got an invalid reference point again. And it's not worth anything. So you've got to just keep digging out those invalid reference points. Now in the body-mind mechanism, there's no one to question. When you die, when I die, there's no one to say, who am I? It's theoretical that you always were and always will be in the sense of the word you use as the potential energy. He's functioning naturally, you know. And like I meant to say, where did this body start from? Did it start with the swerve and the oven, the essence of the earth, food eaten by your father and your mother?

No, it didn't. It didn't come from the earth. It came from the earth. It came from the earth. It came from the earth. Did it come from the earth, the mother and your mother? No, that was, essence of the food was energy taken in prana or chi as they call it. And the essence of the food, well that food was chi, prana and energy. So you see from that that life continually lives on life. It can't know death. Because out of life, when this body, see this body is integrating now, that energy is functioning in a, if you like to call it a positive manner, it turns around at a certain time and starts to disintegrate, you know.

enzymes will start to devalue this. Then it's taken over by maggots and worms and fire or bird and ash and the residual, what's left over, goes back into the earth. There might be a seed there that will be nourished by that. A blade of grass or a vegetable or something will grow in that. Something will eat that. So the cycle goes on. Life is continually and always living on life. That life is that cognizing emptiness with the capacity of knowing, which is the intelligence. So it never had a beginning. It never had an end. It's timeless. We've only got a concept of time because if I ask you what past is there if you don't think about it, you've got to pause a moment.

And in that pausing, with no thought there, you can't think about it. You can't think about it. You can't think about it. You can't say there is a past or a future without a thought. The same with the future. Is there a future if you don't think about it? You can't say there is a future. So you see from that time is really a mental concept. And when you're thinking about the past, you're not thinking about the past in the past. You can't. You can't live a moment ago. You're thinking about the past. The actual thinking about it is happening right now. And you can't anticipate or imagine a moment in the future.

When the actual thinking about it is right now. And right now is this omnipresence. So we've never ever moved away from this omnipresence. Again, proving that time is a mental concept as such. So there is an appearance of conceptual time in the mind. So what you are is bodiless, mindless, timeless, spaceless, birthless, deathless, pure presence, awareness, just this, nothing else, as they say. But that's another belief. It's a concept. See, that's the whole thing. No matter how far back you go. You can't go with it. It's a belief. Because as soon as you say these things, you and I and nobody can know anything beyond the phenomenal world.

No, and you don't need to. The fact is that you can't negate your knowingness right now. That's the fact. That's the only basic fact you know. And there is no other time than apart from that now. That's not conceptual. So you look back and you can't say there was a time when you were not. Because you've got to conceptualize. Nor can you say there will be a time when you will not be. Because you've got to conceptualize again. And where is that conceptualizing taking place? In the knowingness of the moment, of the actuality of the moment. So that's all there ever was and ever will be.

It's timeless now. It's case closed. You can't... All flows, you all continue to be. Can't dispute it. That's it. Because when you start disputing, you're on the roller coaster again. Yeah. Yeah. And then you know, we lose sight of that and start the buts and the ifs and all the rest of it. Right, right. You leap right out of that. Out of old habit pattern. That's all it is, is habit pattern and recognizing these habits. You know, you catch them, you don't have to go along with them. But you still have to go along living your life. Well, not you Jack. Living this is, you know, you're being, if you like to say, you're being lived.

Because it was that intelligence energy that drew that body from the sperm and the ovum. All the time it was in the womb, the first years of your life, and it's still functioning and the livingness is still there right now. So the idea of me is... It's so easy to jump out of that. Because every time you start, you jump out of that to I'm living instead of realizing living is just living. And that living essence is no thing. There's nothing we can grasp with a thought or a concept. Yeah. And so this body has sensations, does it? Take that living essence out of the body, it's a corpse then.

You know, you can cut it, it won't feel it. The eyes can't see it, the ears can't hear. It can do nothing of itself. So the sensation is in the body, but they're not in the body. It's that life essence, that intelligence energy that's given the idea of sensations or the feelings in that body. It's that life essence that's doing everything, that's patterning it all, you see. And that is no thing because it's got no shape, it's got no form, it's got no time. And that's where you see we know this in our language. This manifestation we call a phenomenal universe, don't we? It's phenomenal.

Look in your dictionary and see the definition of phenomena. The definition of phenomena is that which appears to be. So it's appearance only. It's only appearing to be so. Now the opposite of phenomenon is noumenon. And if you look in your dictionary and see what the word noumenon means, which the noumenon is the unmanifest, that's the opposite of the manifest, is the unmanifest, the nothingness. The definition of noumenon is that which is. So it's the emptiness or the nothingness that really is the reality. And the appearance, the manifestation, is appearance only, that which appears to be. So we've always been locked in the wrong, not the wrong, not that there's a right and wrong.

Again, because that's the wrong. On the false aspect of it. So that which appears to be the phenomena, in essence, cannot be any other thing than pure intelligence. It's just patterns of that intelligence energy, which is nothing, vibrating into different shapes and forms. So we take the shape and form to be real, rather than seeing through the shape and form into the essence of it, which is still that one and the same thing. That's why when you get it, you start to laugh like a lunatic. Yeah. Big relief, isn't it? Release from it. Yeah, right. Then right away you go back into the air and then start going about your business and forgetting.

Yeah, well, go about your business just like you did before. And even though all that part of our line when we thought we didn't know, or we thought we were looking, we were still that anyway. You know? So it doesn't really matter. But we had erroneous, erroneous, erroneous, erroneous beliefs, or concepts. We've never been, that's why we say we've never been anything other than that ever. You know? Nothing can be added to that, nothing can be taken away. And that's why it can never be grasped by the mind. Because the nature of the mind which is a pattern of energy of vibration is dualism. It's like the manifestation is dualism.

It's vibrating always in the pairs of opposites, which is duality. So how can something dualism appear? Do you know? You know? You know? The things that I find out that are different, I've got two That is duality grasp non-duality. It can't. And we look for years and years in the mind and we never find it purely and simply because the mind can't grasp it. So when we get to here there's no way back. We should be here but we don't because that then you start talking again and you're going on. Yeah. But Jack in the talking this is what he was going to say in the talking it's just like the blue sea.

The blue sea is going to be there. Knowing the truth about it you're not involved in the talking as an entity. See what I mean? Talking and activities take place but the clouds come into the sky. There's not a cloud attached to the sky ever and it couldn't take place anywhere other than in the sky. So we you know this can't take in that emptiness like sky like emptiness all and all this manifestation is going in. It doesn't mean to say it's got to stop or change it's just seeing it for what it is. Knowing that even though it appears to be this that and the other none of it's got any substance or any independent nature.

But even so then when you get diagnosed as having the big C or something you get scared again because you jump back into I'm going to die or I have whatever it is I have. You can understand from that why the people that do understand that lose the fear of death. Yes. Because they know. Even though they're not going to die. Even if they think this body is going to pass which it's going to be and there may be pain there. They know that this you know this body can fall off. It's just like a wave coming on the ocean and then a ripple and then something else.

Has the wave anything been any ever been anything other than water? And when it recedes it'll go back into the water again. But so we're just like the ocean ever changing but never changing. But you can't be convinced of this. Oh yes you can. That conviction comes certainly comes with it. Well that's. That's you know you know. That's the beauty of it. You see it the scene clearly and that conviction arises and nobody can ever toss you out of it. Who can move you away from nothing? Yeah. All the saints, saviors of Christ, the Buddhas and everyone else have never gone beyond no things. No matter what.

What however descriptive they're accepted. Yeah. Yeah. What whatever experiences might be and ecstatic and sublime and all this other crap. None of them have ever gone beyond no thing. And I know for certain that I am that no thing. Don't you? Therein lies the crux of the matter. Like Merrill said intellectually I have to say yes. All the evidence points to that. Yes. Yes. But don't you see our problems are always labeling something. Why put the label intellectual into it? If you haven't got that label. You know. Just the same as we call ourselves human beings and we call God the Supreme Being and thereby create a difference.

But if you understand the word supreme as a label and the word human as a label and you take those labels away can you separate the beingness without a label? This is being a table. That's being a glass with water in it. That's being Merrill. That's being Jack. This is being Bob. Take away the table. The water. The label water. Merrill and Jack. What's left? Being. And being means is-ing. It's not something that's coming or going. It's what is right now. And when you hear this innately you've already known it and you resonate with it. That's why you've been on this track. There's that been resonation, that energy, telling us it's always been there.

But because it's your natural state and it's been grossed over by the acquired mind that grows. the reasoning to start at two o'clock, like a cloud blocking the sun, but the sun is always never in the sky, the cloud never blocks it. And when the resonation happens it's like, you know, the sun breaking through the cloud. It wants to hear it because it's been waiting to hear it all this long. And in that resonation the activity starts to happen of its own accord. And as Balsekar says, you've got the head in the tiger's mouth, and as Nisargadatta says, it's like putting a match in a bale of cotton.

Once your match is in a bale of cotton and starts to small, you can't put it out. It'll small until the whole bale is gone. And looking at that and keep looking at it, that conviction must happen. I was going to say, when am I going to go on fire? You know, I just understood something, Bob, that I'd never gone before. You've told me a hundred times, you know, when I say, well, you get it intellectually, and you say, no, get rid of that word intellectually. If you see a rope that you think is a snake, then you realize it's a rope. You don't know what it is.

You don't say, well, intellectually I know it's a rope. It looked like a snake, now it looks like a rope, and you go, oh, it's a rope. But this thing that we have a tendency to do, well, I know that intellectually. But if you know it, you know it. If you've realized that there is no, you know, that there is no me, that the reference point is an illusion, the me is an illusion, if you know that, you know it. But there's something that makes a person want to say, well, I don't really know it, I know it intellectually, you know it. Again, they've taken all this crap about the hierarchy, you know, someone knows it but I don't, I'm not good enough to know it, something like that.

All this crap we've been conditioned to believe, somebody's got it, somebody hasn't. Everybody and everything is that. If what the ancients have told us all the way down, it's one without a second, there's nothing other, how could you not be that? Why believe that you are not that? Why be in another erroneous belief? Starts from the fact, as I say here, that you already are that. And then all you've got to do is look and see what's stopping you from seeing it. What concept are you holding that's stopping you from seeing it? It's been in the story we make up. Yeah, the stories we make up.

Understand they're only stories. And you can make up whatever stories you like. You don't believe fairy tales. But you enjoy them. So see it for what it is. Play, enjoy the play. . So we were talking about on the way over, always then the, yeah, but comes in. Yeah. Yeah, that's great, but. Yeah, one of those first things that comes in, but, you know. But, yeah. A movement away. We hear it, instead of sitting with it. Right. The mind wants to take over again with a but. Because we expect something to happen, and it's already happened, right? Yeah, that's right. We're expecting the lights to go on and this great vision.

And that would be another experience. And then it would come and it would go. But it doesn't matter here whether there's silence or whether there's lights or chatter or anything. They're all experience. What I am is the experiencing. The base in which they appear on. Just like, you know, you are seeing right now, aren't you? You're seeing. You are the seeing. But when that seeing is divided up into I see, and I see the lamp, well, the I see becomes the pseudo-subject, and the lamp becomes the object. But don't you see they're both contained in seeing? Without seeing, there couldn't be a seeing, could there?

And without seeing, there couldn't be the seeing. So the seeing and the seeing, the pseudo-subject and object, are contained in the seeing. They're just two ends of seeing. They're not two different things. They're one thing in two different aspects. They're two different patterns. So then all of this in the final analysis is the conditioning, the yeah buts and everything, is the conditioning over the basic I am or... Yeah, like the cloud in the sky. Yeah, those are the clouds. Like the cloud. But the conditioning, what, you know, again, if you ask yourself, what conditioning is there if I don't think about it? And you pause, and you're not thinking anything.

There's no conditioning there in that instant. No conditioning. The other way, we try and analyze the conditioning and go on, like peeling the skin off an onion. Take one skin off, there's another one there. You can go on forever doing that and still never get to the end of your conditioning because another but will come in. That's why I say you'll never find the answer in the mind. It's the nature of the mind to divide. And it'll continue to divide. We go down one path, we think we got to the end of that, but it never satisfies us. It'll range off into another path there.

And continue to divide down that. And that's why the psychiatrists and psychologists have got to divide it up in subconscious, superconscious, all different types of consciousness, thought, feeling, and emotion. Which is one and the same thing. Continuity of thought becomes feeling. They break it up into all these divisions, and it's not their fault. They're trying to work it out in the mind. But you'll never find an answer there. And you know, you're intelligent people. That's the clock functioning. Intelligent people. And you've worked out many things in the mind, haven't you? Over the years, you've worked out many things. But the meaning or what life is, or the essence of this, we've never been able to work out in the mind.

Why? If you're intelligent, why hasn't it happened? You might pause and think, well, maybe I'm looking in the wrong direction. That's all it amounts to. We've never turned back and looked and questioned ourselves until somebody points it out, maybe you're looking in the wrong direction. And that's what happened. It took 40 years of everything unknown to mankind to find out the simplest thing, right? But you see, that's the thing. We start to say there's much of shame, but it was now then. It's now now. And all that idea of shame and it should have been sooner or what, disappears in that. Sixteen years of myself was on the searching.

But you know, I was saying the same thing about the time that all this time has been wasted. Nothing has been wasted. It's all just as it is. Really comes back, it was only now, anyway, all the time. And it doesn't really matter when you see that anyway. So you know, even though you didn't believe it or couldn't see it, that you were that anyway, that you were being lived. And if all the dramas and traumas that took place in my life hadn't happened, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you now. And you wouldn't be here visiting me. And have a look again, going back to the sperm and the ovum.

Who was growing me? Who was living me then? It was happening effortlessly by itself. So it grew me, brought me out of the womb, brought me into childhood, boyhood, adulthood. And I thought I was a doer when I started reasoning, but I never was. All that had happened beforehand, continued to happen afterwards, whether I thought I was a doer or not. But, you know, if I was a doer, I'd be making sure I took my next breath or had another heartbeat left. But we don't think of these things at all. They're happening naturally, you see, effortlessly. That's the natural state. That's the natural functioning. It's only the thinking, you know, that all that acquired mind, being like the cloud that's seeming to be what covers that natural state, but it's still functioning there.

That's why it resonates when it hears this. It's been waiting to be recognised again, for so long. Which, when I say so long, I'm getting into the concept of time. But I've got to make a story out. You've got to do that. You know, you talk to people, you say, well, what do you mean you're not thinking? What's wrong with thinking, you know? We wouldn't have medicine, we wouldn't have anything if we weren't thinking, reasoning, what have you, you know? Yes. The mind's not the enemy. It's a wonderfully creative instrument. One, it's being a vibration, you know, it's got its positive aspect, which is wonderfully creative.

This house was an idea in somebody's mind once. That's all it was. So it was the technology, that tape recorder. And the phone was an idea in somebody's mind once. So, you know, it's wonderfully, all the art, all the, you know, all these things were ideas in somebody's mind. But at the other end of the scale, it puts the boundaries on it, the limitations, when it tells me I'm not good enough, or after all, I've got low self-esteem, or, you know, I'm no good, I'll never get anyone in my life, or this will happen on that life. Or this will happen on that life. It's self-destructive.

See, at one end it's creative, and at the opposite, it's self-destructive. It's destructive. And the boundaries we put upon it are labels, just words. I'm not good enough. Well, this is wonderful, you know? In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. The Word is the label. That's all we put upon it, you know, when we start thinking of a reason, a label. But the Word can never be the thing. That's another thing that needs to be looked at. See that the Word is not the real. It's not the actual. By that I mean you can say, water, water, for the rest of your life, and you won't quench your thirst with the Word.

You can say, fire, fire, fire. Does the word fire burn your mouth when it comes out? You know? And try and sit on, you know, the label. You can write on a piece of paper, chair. Try and sit on the label, chair. See? Or another way of putting it, the map is not the territory. You're coming up from down wherever you're coming from. You probably had a map. Now you could pinpoint it on a map. That's where it is right there. Pinpoint it on the map. But it wasn't the territory. It wasn't the actual. But it was a pointer on how to get there. So that's what we do, wouldn't you mind?

Use it as a pointer. Because that's all I can say. But you get to the nitty-gritty of this, and everything is explained in the frame of reference you are using. But... other people which there are none of think you have to be a mental case to think you're not the doer. Yeah. What other people think, if you're saying that you're not the doer, and that conviction has arisen, doesn't matter what other people. Let them stay in their bondage. You know? And that's what we're talking about. We had somebody here this morning who says, when I go out there again, I'll be back in the world and we'll get caught up.

And they'll say, yes, purely and simply because 99.7... 99.7% of the world are in that self-centred. They're never investigated. And if you listen to them and go there, you can seemingly be trapped in it again. But if you continue to investigate and look and see for yourself, instead of them dragging you in, you'll be able to drag them out. They can never trap you back in. Because you know the truth. And you're free in that truth. They're still in their self-centres and reference points. You know, in their conditioned beliefs, erroneous beliefs. And they will have the problem. You won't. So I think we have something else in common.

I understand you were in AA or something many years back. Yeah, still am. But I'm not very active now. I don't get to many... Well, 50 years ago I was in AA too. Oh yeah. I made it a year and I've been sober ever since. Good, that's right. I got that message, if you don't take one drink, you're not going to take another. Yeah, that's simple enough, isn't it? So it was very simple when I got that. But it wasn't simple the first year. No. It was very, very... Again, we had to, you know, you had to get used to it. And the conviction of it, again, so it's the same with us.

You keep pondering and looking at it and getting used to it. Yeah, I got 44 up. What about? I think it's more vacation. When I had nine years, I took a small vacation to see if I was an alcoholic or not. And there I says, well, I guess I am. But it didn't last very long. What do you mean a small vacation? Well, I wanted to see if I'm an alcoholic. I was sober nine years, from 26 to like 34, 35. I'll have a taste. And I was doing really good until I strangled my wife and I thought I killed her. And that was the end of that five years.

So what do you think of this place? This is the first time you've ever been in the States. It is for me. Barbara was in San Francisco. Well, is there anything other than that? No. One without a second. Well, you must be that. There's no getting of that. Well, what I'm recognizing right now in the conversation and seeing other people is that, you know, a couple of months ago when I was talking to you on the phone and stuff, I was asking the same exact questions. And I kept thinking that how does a person ever get to that point of really knowing that they're not the me and they're not the reference point.

And I just don't question it anymore. I mean, I get caught up in the reference point. Something will happen and I'll think, oh, what happened to me? I feel bad. And then I'll remember there is no me. It's a concept. It's a mental construct. But I don't have this thought that I have to get to the point of losing that reference point. I know the reference point will come up when it comes up. When it comes up, it'll either take a second to remember it's fake. It'll take an hour to remember it's fake. I don't think it's going to take even an hour to be honest.

But I mean, the point is it's understood. And for that, I am eternally grateful. And in a strange sense, it's like I don't know how I got here. You're always there. I was always there. That's for sure. If there's only that, that's simple enough to see, isn't it? You must always be there. Oh, I see that. I was always there, but I didn't know it. I didn't know it. I had no clue. How do you know you didn't know it? That's interesting. Wasn't there a knowing there to be able to say either I know or I don't know? Could you say I didn't know it without that knowingness?

Knowingness has always been and will always be. Even saying I don't know it is an erroneous statement, isn't it, from that point? It's the knowing. Right. I used to do a meditation because when I got into a Veda, I read that all these people that had awakened, and I'm talking about the kind of dramatic awakenings, write all the books and the, oh, I'm in heaven and all that stuff, they would all say when they got there, they realized they had always been there. So I used to meditate and say, what the hell are they talking about? Because if that's true, I must be there now and just not know it.

So I'd meditate and say, okay, what's here that I, this? When you say the subtlety is that I didn't know it or I should know it or I will know it, you know. But the thing you can't negate is that knowingness that's with you now, that consciousness or awareness. Different concepts were used to point it. You know? What? The different concepts we're using to point to us. Right. But the knowingness. The knowingness has always been there. Yeah, it must always be there. That's what I say. That knowingness is pure intelligence. And that's what intelligence as the energy is. The reference point didn't know it though.

The reference point had no clue. The reference point is a fiction. You've investigated that and seen there's nothing substantial there with any independent nature. Right. It's a fiction. You know, it's just like walking down the street on a dark night. You walk past a light pole and you see a movement behind you and you think somebody's after you so you hurry along to the next. And as you pass the next pole you see this movement behind you going faster so you race along to the next one. And you finally look over your shoulder and see it's only a shadow. Another great sigh of relief in seeing it.

And you're going to hurry along any further, you know. You've been suffering under an illusion. Something was chasing you because we never investigated it. Except that the illusion wasn't real. The story that I didn't know it, the story that I was suffering wasn't real. The story that there was a me getting suffering isn't even real. The only thing that's real is the... That which is happening in. That which is happening in right now. But isn't it necessary to have this body-mind mechanism that what is translates through it? To have that pattern, yeah. To have this package in order to be even. If it wasn't vibrating into patterns there would be nothing.

You know. It would be in its unicity, in its oneness. There's nothing, there's no, you know, nothing to divide. It's just as it is. It's just like space, empty. But the emptiness of space, you know, space is emptiness but that emptiness, you know, cognizing emptiness suffused with the knowingness, suffused with that consciousness. And that is the capacity of knowing which is intelligence. And that intelligence vibrates as such and different patterns appear. But it's still that empty. It's still no thing in essence. And you can't grasp no thing. See, in its unicity it can't know itself. Now, what's the very first thing you see? Seeing right?

You're seeing right now. What's the very first thing you see? What is the very first thing that I see? Yeah. What you're seeing right now, what's the very... Everything. Oh, well, what's everything? What's the first thing you see? The label. What are you seeing? That's what he's asking. I'm seeing Delphi's Delph and I'm seeing you. Is that the first thing you see? Well, I don't know because I, until you ask that question, I wouldn't be able to think about what's the first thing I see. Well, I'm not talking about, you know, just actually, what are you seeing? What's the very first thing? This is where we miss it, you see.

The very first thing you see is space. Isn't it? You don't know? I see what fills space. I don't see the space. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I say. You see what fills space. You see the content of space. Yeah. But you don't take any notice of what the content is taking place in. It's taking place in that emptiness, that space-like emptiness, isn't it? So the focus is always on the content. Yeah. Now space is no thing, is it? You can't see it, as you say. Yeah. You can't define it. It's got no center or no circumference. So using that metaphor which they do, space-like awareness, using space as the essence of awareness, so space can't see itself in its natural state.

But the content of space can really be, you know, space is a thing. It's nothing. So something cannot come from nothing, can it? So the content of space must be nothing in essence because of the content. Now, if space can't see itself, what happens? A pattern of energy forms around it, and that energy is light, and it's shining out of your eyes, and the very first thing you see is space. So from that point of view, space is able to recognize. But if that pattern of energy wasn't around us, well, I'm trying to explain, you know, without any patterns in it, you wouldn't know it.

So the very first thing, that's the only way space can know itself, is through a pattern of energy around it. And when you look here where your eyes are, how many eyes have you got? When you try and see how many eyes you've got, the eye can't see itself. You've got no eyes that you can see. There's just an open space here in which seeing is happening, you know? So space is seeing space, and the content. The same with awareness, you know? Instead of taking any notice and focusing on awareness, we focus on the content of awareness, the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions, the patterns of energy in it, and everything like that, and we miss what the essence is, the content, the space, the awareness itself, and we focus on the content, just the same, as we don't focus on the space.

Yet it's obvious. It's the most obvious and evident thing, which is no thing, in this room or in the universe, is space. There's more space here than what there is content. Even if you take the largest galaxies, you know, in the universe or in the cosmos, there's still, you know, the vastness of space still encompassing, till it's less than a, you know, from a distance, less than a small knot. It's the most obvious and evident thing, and we miss it. So awareness is the most obvious, and we focus on the content. I stepped off on the wrong foot there.