'You are dreaming the dream you call the world' - Sailor Bob - nonduality on 29 Sept 2019

Okay, so we're starting with the name. We're saying them around. I'm Katarina. Ken. Ken. Charlie. Yes. You heard it. Terry. So we're going through the spell again. You all heard it many times. We don't teach you anything here and we don't tell you anything. Understand that right from the start. All we do is point toward and ask you to look to where we're pointing to and see for yourself. And that's what is necessary to happen. It's not a bit of good to anyone unless they see it for themselves. And it's not anything new we're pointing to. If you look in all the ancient texts, no matter what religion they come from, they all basically point to the one thing, the reality, the actuality, before they contaminate it and corrupt it.

All that other stuff they put upon it. In Hinduism, for instance, they call it Advaita. Advaita translated means non-duality. And they try to describe non-duality by saying it's one without a second, not two. Without one thing. But even the idea of one implies there could be other than one. And they describe that as Sat Chit Ananda Nama Rupa. They're the five factors. Well, have a look at that. Sat is existence. Anyone who is not existing right now, you say, no, I'm existing. Anyone has consciousness, Sat Chit Ananda is existence, consciousness, and bliss, or loving to be. Anyone who is not conscious right now, and you must recognize I'm not unconscious, so you must be conscious.

Anyone who is not happy to be, and none of you has been dead, dead for quid now. So you're already that Sat Chit Ananda. And the Nama Rupa, the other two factors, the name and form, they'll tell you are Maya. They're illusion. They make up this phenomenal manifestation. Look up your dictionary definition of phenomena, and it's that which appears to be. So you and I and everything else in this manifestation are appearance only. Seemingly so, seemingly real. In the patterns, shapes, and forms, which we put the labels, the name and the form. And we've taken on the idea that we are this person, this individual, this separate entity.

And we've never investigated. Our parents taught us words, school, society, and nation reinforcing them. And we've taken on the belief and reinforced it ourself that we are this separate entity. But where does that word come from? Where does that word come from? Where does that word person come from? Doesn't it come from persona? The mask? Pointing out we've got this conceptual image, a mask of concepts. We've taken ourselves to be. I'm Bob, an Australian, good fellow, not so good, a bad childhood. And taken myself, instead of saying that I am that, which is the great mantra, innately you know that you are that already. Everything is that.

When we say that's the chair, that's the carpet, that's the tree, that's the flower, that's the space, that's you, that's me. Already we know that is that. But we've taken on to be the conceptual words with the pattern, shape, and form. The separate entity, the individual. But have a look at that too. And is the word the thing? How many words were you born with? A little child hasn't got any words. He doesn't learn words until he's about two, two and a half when the capacity of reasoning develops. Before that he's got no words. And you realise from that that every word you've ever spoken, or ever likely to speak, has been learnt.

It's been picked up along the way. And you're probably learning new words to this day. You've got a dictionary full of words. I'm forgetting a lot these days. My mind's going a bit beyond me, but I'm forgetting it. And understand that the word's not the thing. The word's only a pointer. Like the map's not the territory. The description's not the described. And the word is not the real. Take the word water. Can you drink the word? Can you swim in the word? Will you drown in the word? Can you wash in it? You can't. Does the word fire burn your mouth? Can you cook with it?

Can you hate yourself? So what's this word I or me you've taken to believe yourself if you investigate it? We've translated it as my self. A self. And we think, we've taken from that idea, there's belief there's a personal self. But there's no personal self whatsoever. They call it the Atman or the self. And it's one self. And I'll tell you, in Buddhism they'll tell you it's self shining, ever fresh presence awareness. It's that self that shines, or the life is the life essence. It shines and expresses through everything. And you are that self. But not a personal self. You never were a personal self, never will be or never could be.

But we've taken on the belief we are that through the words and not questioning it, not investigating it. And that's another thing we point out that the false cannot stand up to investigation. We've got conceptual images on everything. And you know that too. How many things you've looked into, really looked into, and that you've believed in. And seen through it. And you realise that the false cannot stand up to investigation. And this personal self, if you investigate that, it'll fall apart also. You'll realise there's nothing near it. It's a fiction. What we call the self-centre, the reference point or the ego. There is no such thing as an ego.

We've believed in it and taken it to be real. And suffer accordingly because of that. And have a look at that word belief. Your dictionary definition of belief is one question acceptance of something in the absence of reason. It means we haven't looked at it, haven't reasoned it out. Acceptance of an alleged fact without positive knowledge or proof. If you investigate and put your belief into that statement and see if it's true, they'll fall apart. The belief is not the actual. So we need to question and look at are we this body-mind? Or this mind? Or this person? We believe ourselves to be. And you innately know you are not the body.

Because don't you say my body? Don't you also say my house, my car, my coat, my shirt? You know you're not the coat, the car, the house or the shirt. Maybe you're not the body either. And when you investigate that and look into it, you'll see what's this body made up of? You'll realise this body is made up of elements. Air, earth, fire, water, space. If you think you're separate, separate yourself from those elements. Stop breathing. Take the air out of your body. See how long you can last without that air. Take the water out of your body. Your body is 80% water. See how long you can last without that?

Take the fire, the body temperature. You'll soon get hypothermia and die. So how can you say you are this body? And realise that the body is made up of all these elements. Try and separate yourself from those elements. You can't. Try and get off the earth. Live off the earth, you can't. Try and get out of space, you can't. So you're not separate at all. What about this thing called mind? And that you'll say, my mind. But if you think you're out of mind, show me. What do you call mind? What do you think mind is? Show me what this thing you call mind. And you realise there's no such thing as mind.

Apart from thought. And if mind is thought, which particular thought would you be? And you believe yourself to be mind, you'd be a particular thought. And you realise that sense of presence, that knowing that you are, that translates through the pattern, through the thought pattern, as the thought I am. That is the primary thought. And if you were that thought, you'd be the, if you were the mind thinking, you'd be that thought. And if you were that thought, you wouldn't give it up every night when you go to sleep. Like you give away this thought right now. Because you'd hang to it, you'd be frightened of losing it.

But you don't. You gladly give it up every night, willingly and happily, when you go to sleep. So you can't, you must realise you're not that thought. And what is thought after all? And you see thought is just a vibrating pattern of energy. It vibrates into words, into concepts, into ideas. And images. And Shakespeare told us that a few hundred years ago. When he said, there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes us so. And the Sargadatta points to the very same thing when he says, nothing can trouble you except in your own imagination. Break that word imagination down to image in, imagine. And realise that's all we're doing.

We're creating conceptual or mental images, taking the images to be real. Energy belief has gone into them. And we've formed this conceptual image, this pattern, which we call our body-mind, which is just a vibrating pattern of energy. And the word is not the thing. Now if you think you begin with words, you realise you didn't have any words when you were born. And look at that statement in the Bible. You might see it in a different way. In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God. That's all that God is, is a word, a label. All things were made by him, by the word.

There was nothing made that was made without the word. It's all a vibrating pattern of energy. A movement of energy, which form words. And you weren't born with any words. So have a look at that. And you realise, look at the mind. You can't see your other body. What about this mind? And your real little mind is concepts, words or ideas or images, which we've learned or picked up along the way at about two, two and a half, when the capacity of reasoning developed in us. Parents fussing around, you told your little Johnny, your little Billy, and you learnt those words. And you learnt words I and me, and it translated as I am little Johnny or little Billy.

And then when the little child looks out there, he looks beyond that and he says, well, that doesn't fit little Johnny. That doesn't fit I or me. So that's when the sense of separation comes upon us, when with capacity of reason, that doesn't come on us until about two, two and a half, might have been a bit early in some and a bit later in others. And he says, I am little Johnny. Before that, he's got no idea. And that doesn't fit little Johnny. So that's not I. That's not me. And with that sense of separation comes insecurity, and vulnerability. And that's when our search starts.

From then on, we're insecure and vulnerable, seeking to become whole or complete or security. Not realising we were never separate in the first place. Let's look at that body. When did you begin? You'll say, I began at birth. But can anyone actually remember your birth? And you realise you can't remember your birth. They didn't remember anything until you learnt words. And how did you begin? Well, go back as far as your father and your mother. And you can go back as far as you like if you'd like to investigate. That animatic life essence, that pattern, shape and form, that body, that pattern you called your father, enabled in that pattern through the thinking, through the breathing, the heart breathing.

The food. And the food, the essence of the food eating enabled that life to continue in that body. And it got the sperm to form. The microscopic particle. Yes, through the essence of the food eating and the breath, the prana, began to learn words. But before that, through that essence of the food, your father enabled in that pattern you called your father, a little microscopic particle called the sperm to form. You can't see it with your naked eye. But that sperm was suffused with intelligence. It knew what to do. That innate intelligence, it's fashion shaped and formed into. The same look in the mother, that animating pattern, life essence, that formed your mother.

Enabled in that pattern, another little microscopic particle called an egg or an ovum to form. And that ovum knew what to do. It's... It's fastened itself to the wall of the uterus. That same intelligence, energy, it knew what to do. And the sperm knew what to do. It swam to the ovum. It had the capacity of swimming. And it knew what to do. It penetrated the ovum. And when it penetrated that intelligence energy, the life essence in it, doubled the cell, redoubled through the genes and the food essence and the bile and the breath, and formed the little embryo, the little fetus. And that's what you are today.

You mightn't realise that, but that's what you are today. And that's lived you and expressed and fashioned, shaped and formed as you to this moment. And continually doing so. But what were you doing at then when you didn't have any words? You couldn't do anything. It was just fashioning, shaping and forming naturally, effortlessly, all by itself. When the capacity of reasoning developed, which is a useful capacity, that you humans' forms have, which other animals, birds, insects, don't have that particular capacity, developed to the extent we have. They have other capacities developed that are more developed than what our capacity is. The capacity... I'm forgetting. Yeah, the capacity of seeing, for a time.

A bird has a capacity of seeing that's much more developed than what ours is. It has a capacity of flying, but we can't do that. But through the capacity of reasoning, we've learned to build ourselves eyeglasses, telescopes and binoculars that enable us to see better, and planes, helicopters and balloons and kites that enable us to fly. Our dog has a sense of smell that's much more developed than ours. Chameleons and insects like that can change colour. We can't do that. Moths and butterflies form a little chrysalis around the grubs. And metamorphosis into beautiful colours in a butterfly or a moth. But we don't have those particular capacities.

But through the capacity of reasoning, we can do a hell of a lot. But being a vibration, a movement of energy, is self-destructive. Because that same capacity of reasoning tells me I'm not good enough, I'm fearful, I'm unhappy, I'm depressed. And the worst one we put upon ourselves, well, after all, I'm human. We're only human. We're taking ourselves to be human beings. This label we call God, we take to be it's a supreme being. What if you investigate that and take the label supreme off it? And take the label human off? And try and separate the beingness in this room. Without the label, you can't negate your beingness.

And a beingness is another name for that existence. Existence, consciousness, being, knowing and loving the being. So we are that pure being. And being is not becoming. It can never become. But we think we're going to become whole, realised, or liberated, or separated, or whatever. So when we learn all these practices, do all these mantras and chanted, and meditations, read this book or another, go to this teacher or that teacher, you can resonate with some of the things I say, but you'll never get the complete consciousness out of that until you follow the resonation. It goes along and recognise, re-cognise your true nature. Which the Buddha called a cognising emptiness.

And we think that cognising emptiness, we think we are cognising or recognising the emptiness. But it's not. It's the emptiness itself. The intelligence energy that's in the emptiness is doing the cognising. And he made the statement then, that emptiness, this cognising emptiness, is form. And so cognising emptiness is pattern, shape and form in all this manifestation. He turned around the other way and he said, the form can be nothing other than the emptiness. That's what you are. As this pattern, shape and form, you are that emptiness. So fuse with that innate intelligence energy, the activity of knowing, or the activity of being. But we've taken the pattern, shape and form to be real and lost sight of our true nature.

I don't use the term God here because you can get confused with that term purely and simply we come from different backgrounds. Some of you might be atheists, some of you are agnostics, some of you are Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, or whatever. If you take the term God, we get confused with that label. I use the term intelligence energy and that's not it either. It's just a label we put on it. When I'm using intelligence, I'm not talking about your intellects. I'm talking about that same intelligence that's patterning, shaping, forming and functioning this manifestation, this cosmos. Forming galaxies, forming stars, patterns, all sorts of things.

It's the same pattern intelligence energy that's vibrating into this pattern. So when I'm talking about intelligence, I'm not talking about your intellects. Intelligence is another word of knowing, the capacity of knowing. An energy is a vibrator. It's the activity of knowing, intelligence energy. And isn't that activity of knowing going on right in you right now? The actual knowing and the ING gives something that's happening right in this emergency and happening right now. And that knowing is something that hasn't got any beginning or any ending. It's going on constantly. So you are that presence awareness actually which is forming in this pattern to express through and pattern through.

But we take on the belief through reinforcing it day in day out. And have a look at the way this thing you call mind functions. You see it's always functioning dualistically. And we've got this pattern now we call mind. And that's where our problems come about. Relationship, relativity. We're relating to this pattern, relating to everything else. And relativity, relativity is dualism. And there is absolutely no duality in non-duality. Problems are relationship. And you can't do much with that I or me, that egoic image we've formed. So we add onto it events, experiences and conditioning. What can you do with I or me? Nothing until you add on I and Bob.

I'm an Australian. Or a good boy or had a bad childhood or whatever. Events and conditioning added onto it and form a conceptual image. And what I believe myself to be. And that conceptual image becomes the reference point. The self-centre or the ego. Everything is related to that self-centre or ego. So our problems are problems of relationship. And have a look at that and see it's so. Something comes up and I like it. How do you know? Well I've had this experience before and it's good. And we don't want the good things to go. We want to keep them there. We want to be all the good things.

So what do we do? We resist them from going. Not realising that they're transient. That this whole manifestation is transient. That's what they tell you in Baudouin. A manifestation is transient. There's no static point in it whatsoever. Constantly changing. Constantly vibrating and changing. We don't want it to go. We want to keep it there. And look at that transient. And realise that body you're sitting in right now is not the same body you're walking in. It's not the same body you're walking into this room with. There are thousands of cells dying. Dying right in this moment of being replaced. Constantly changing. But we think it's something solid and substantial.

But when something comes up and we don't want it to go. No matter how much you love them. How much you want to keep it there. It's going to change. They're going to die. They're going to leave you. They're going to move away. Or you're going to see them in a different light yourself. But they'll certainly change. We don't want them to change. So what do we do? We resist it there. Trying to keep the good things there. And don't you realise any resistance you are in. You are in conflict. Resistance is conflict. And with that conflict comes anxiousness, fear, depression, guilt, shame. All these things come up about that conflict.

And conflict is disease. The anxiousness, the fear and the unhappiness, depression are disease. Uneasiness. So resistance, conflict and disease. Something comes up and I don't like it. Oh I don't want this state. I don't want this. So what do I do? I resist it. Try to force it out. Again resistance. Again conflict. And again disease. That's what our life is. Constantly radiating around us. Resistance, conflict and disease. And it doesn't have to be that way. That's where all the psychological suffering comes about. But from the beginning. It's not a problem. It's a problem. It's a problem. It's a problem. It's a problem. It's a problem.

It's a problem. It's a problem. It's a problem. It's a problem. It's a problem. It's a problem. And there are fear, anxiety, the stress, guilt, the shame. All of this psychological suffering happening to the believed in conceptual image. Me. So you see from that, me is the cause of all my problems. The belief in this me is the cause of all my problems. And the effects are the anxiety, the fear, the depression, the guilt. Isn't that what so-called karma is?! Cause and effect. But what happens if I ask myself the simple question? Can there be an effect if I'm not relating to a cause? Well you don't have to be a road school to work that out, if I'm not relating to any cause, what can the effect be?

Everything just becomes what is. What is means it's unaltered, unmodified, uncorrect, no preference, no partiality, no comparison. They say leave everything as it is without trying to modify it correctly. So me is the cause of all my problems. As I say, we've got all these conceptual images which we've taken on board and never looked at them. And look at some of them, some of the analogies they point out, point to it directly. Go down to the ocean, I'll ask you to get me a bucket of blue water out of the sea. What will you say to me? Don't be ridiculous. Because you've investigated. And you know the water's not blue.

But it appears to be blue. Turn around. Turn away from it. Pull a bucket of water out of the sea, it's not blue. Turn away from it, it appears to be blue. The same with the blue sky, seems to be a blue canopy over us there. Go up on a plane 30,000 feet, where's the blueness? It's not there at all. It's always further out. So the water in a mirage, blueness. Water in a mirage, you look, there seems to be a pool of water on the road, drive up to it, it disappears. All these many, many minutes, the snake and the rope they talk about, you know, all conceptual image.

When you investigate them, they're not true. And the energy of belief goes into them. If we don't question them, it makes it seeming around. So I've got this ego coming up, and everything's relative to this ego, and causing all my anxieties, my fears, my depressions. And then happiness comes up here and there. I get glimpses of it throughout our life. I use the analogy of the... The analogy of the sun, that's a good one to point it out. You go outside on a cloudy day, would you say the sun's not in the sky? No, you know the sun's in the sky, you don't see it, but you've investigated and you know for certain that the sun never leaves the sky.

But it appears to be obscuring the sun. But investigate that. When you investigate and ask yourself what forms the sun, what forms the cloud, you'll realise the sun itself, forms the cloud. Now the vastness of the sun is so great it doesn't know anything about a cloud. Wouldn't know anything at all about it. But yet, through its radiance, through the heat of the sun, what does it do? It evaporates water. The water rises from the ocean, or wherever it arises from, and condenses, cools down, and forms a cloud which obscures the sun. And the sun continues to shine, and again its radiance can... It can cool down or something, it'll evaporate, it'll cool, condense that water, it'll come down as rain, as ice, or snow, you know.

Water, ice, rain, ice and snow, it condenses. All the same thing. H2O. So you have many different pattern shapes and forms which we've divided up into different words, concepts. So we've got this me. Everything becomes relative. Something comes up and I like it, something comes up and I don't like it, I resist it. All that's going on, all the time. So wouldn't it be imperative to see and have a look and see if this ego, which we believe to be so real, is true or not? We ask you to look along these lines and see for yourself. Everybody is seeing right now. Everybody is hearing right now.

Isn't that a fact? Ask yourself, does my eye tell me I see? And I realise that my eye doesn't say, look at this, Bob, look at that. This is good, this is bad. The seeing is happening through the eye. It's the instrument with the seeing's happening. But it's translated by the thought. I see. The same with the hearing. You're hearing right now. And my ear's not saying to me, listen to this, Bob, listen to that. It can't say anything at all. But hearing's happening through the ear, and it's translated by the thought. I hear. Now ask yourself that and look at it a little bit further.

Thought comes up, I see, and realise, you mightn't realise, but it's the same seeing you had yesterday, last week, and as far back as you can remember. But we think the seeing's changing. The seeing doesn't change at all. But the content changes. When you wake up in your bedroom this morning, the content of your seeing was different to what it is right now. And it's constantly changing. The same with the hearing. The content is changing. But it's the same seeing, the same hearing, that you're having all the time. Now investigate that a little bit further. The seeing through the eye, and the content is not the same seeing.

But ask yourself this. My eye doesn't tell me I see. Seeing through the eye, the eyes. But can the thought that's translating it, not a pure thought anymore, it's a conceptual image, can a thought that's translating it, can the thought that's translating it, can the thought I see actually see? And shut your eyes, look around the room, and see for yourself. Whether you can see with your eyes closed, what you're thinking about. Or with the things in the room. Can you see the things in the room with the thought? You can't. So you realise that the thought I see, you can't see. The same with the hearing.

Can the thought I hear actually hear? The thought I see, can't see. The thought I hear, can't hear. Can the thought I choose, choose? We think we choose our thoughts. But why would you have an unhappy, a miserable, or an anxious thought if you could choose them? The thought I am aware is not your unawareness. So this thought up entity, can't do anything itself. The conceptual image, the thought up entity, or the ego, can't do anything. The seeing, the hearing, the breathing, the heart beating, the hair growing, everything, the functioning is going on. All spontaneously and naturally. But when we put the eye on it, the conceptual image, we will leave ourselves up and take it as a personal entity.

That's when we get lost. And that's where we've been lost. Now you think you're going to find the answer in the mind through all these meditations and all this work. But you won't find the answer in the mind. They tell you that in the scriptures too. Because they tell you that the answer is when the mind is not. And they call it the peace that passes all understanding. Again, that's pointing out it's the peace that can't understand. That means it can't be grasped with the thought. The peace can't be grasped with the thought. The peace is always naturally there. It's the basic screen on which everything appears.

The empty space and the silence and stillness. So which words, vibration or sound comes out of the silence, movement, pattern, shapes and forms vibrate out of the stillness. So you are that space-like awareness. But the entity can't see, can't hear, can't be aware, can't do anything at all. It's a total fiction. That's what we ask you to look into and see for yourself. You'll never get a peace of mind. The answer is when the peace of mind is now. And you've been looking in your mind all these years on your search. Meditating, doing this, doing this. Why haven't you found the answer? And it might just dawn on you, well maybe I've been looking in the wrong direction.

I've been looking in the mind all these times, trying to work it out with this meditation, this book, this satsang, or hearing this or hearing that. I've never found the answer. What way is there, if the answer's not in the mind, what way is there outside of the mind? And you realise every way you look, will always be in the mind. Always. And the only way out of the mind is full stop. And if you ask yourself a simple question, what's wrong with right now if I don't think about it? To do that, a thought needs to pause, or you need to see beyond the thought ring.

What can you say without a thought? Can you say it's good? Can you say it's bad? Can you say it's pleasant, painful, happy? You can't say anything at all about it, the thought. But have you stopped breathing? Without the thought. Has your heart stopped beating? Has your hearing, your fingernails stopped growing? Has your food stopped being digested? The functioning is going on, but you can go quite well without the thought, without the feelings, without the emotions. Like in deep sleep, where are all those things in? But as the breathing, the heart beating, and the fingernails stop doing it, the life essence is going on. Then you might understand what Christ said when he said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

He wasn't talking about himself, which people set him up. He was talking about that sense of presence, the same sense of presence that you and I are, that translates through the mind as the thought I am. But that I am is not it. It's the word we put on it. But a translation, the sense of presence. You are that sense of presence. And presence, or knowingness, is existence right now. So you are that reality. You've always been that reality. That's what we point out too, and ask it a question. If you've got any questions or any doubts, tell us your versions. Let it resonate if it resonates.

And that's the thing. It can just be, you recognise the art of resonance. It's something that hits you seemingly, what we call, in the heart. Like the capacity of listening. The art of listening. When you're listening from your head, with your thought, your mind, you're not hearing. Because you've got your concept, and I'll have my concept, whatever has been said will be a concept. And you try to work it out with the concept of it. But when, as they say, it's non-conceptual awareness, the great perfection is non-conceptual awareness, you look through the concept. But they say the true listening is listening from the heart. When they're talking about the heart, they're not talking about the physical organ, the heart.

They're talking about the heart as the core, or as the core of your being, or the centre of the spirit. And you know what heart to heart is. Because when you've been earnestly trying to help someone, or listening to someone's story, you'll say later on in relating to someone, my heart went out for them. And you know innately how it did. You opened up, really opened up. And that's when the heart to heart, when the true listening has gone. When it's head to head, it'll become concept to concept. And realise that everybody in this room will have a concept about you. And you'll have a concept about everybody in this room.

And you have a concept about yourself. And when you question that and ask yourself, which concept would be right? And you realise there's no concept right. Because all a concept is, is a mental construct. You've got a mental construct about them, and they've got a mental construct about you. If there's no concept right, no mental construct right, who can ever be superior to you? Who can ever be inferior to you? And what would you want of the other person? Without a concept. And the Buddhists tell you that also, and they call it a non-conceptual awareness. They say the great perfection. They call it the great perfection.

The great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. Awareness without any concept. That's the absolute. What can you add to the absolute? Nothing. You could add the smallest thing to it, it wouldn't be absolute. What can you take away? Nothing. Take away the smallest thing, it wouldn't be absolute. That's the same with the great perfection. Perfection is a totality. And you already are, and always have been, and always will be, that. That is what I am. And you know that yourself. I am that. That is what I am. The great perfection. See how we can, we can convoluted it, put it into different concepts, ideas and forms, contaminated it, corrupted it, with the word, and the word is never the real.

Now, it's easy to return what you've never left, or see completely, your natural state. The natural state meaning as in nature. And as in nature, that means you are nature. Nature itself. And just a pattern, shapes and forms, which that nature, that life essence expresses through. Take the life essence out of that body. You've got a corpse. But that corpse is, before it starts to rot, has got the heart, the lungs, the eyes, the ears, the kidneys, the nose, the mouth, all these organs are in it. But without that life essence, that animating intelligence, it can't do anything at all. It's useless. Just like a computer is a good analogy, a computer's got all that information in it.

Punch those keys all over it, and run the mouse around it without the power on, what good is it to you? It's nothing. So you must realise from then, without that life essence, you are nothing. You must be life itself. As Christ says, that I am-ness is the way. That sense of presence is the way. It's the truth. It is the life. And you are that. So that's all we're pointing to. I'm forgetting a bit there lately, all the ages creeping up. There's still something there. Away you go. That's pretty good. We certainly wear ourselves out with constantly thinking and reacting and feeling and not being able to shut the whole thing up, don't we?

I've noticed that... You recognise that. Yeah. Good. On the occasions when it does stop, it's incredibly restful. Yeah. So we know where to go. Relax as much as possible into that restful state. And that's what they say. Abide as that. Settle down and rest in it. Or another way of putting it, rest in its uncontrived singularity. It's only a singularity and we contrive all sorts of concepts and thoughts on it and make it seem more than one. But relax back into the uncontrived singularity. There's a comment from someone who's watching us. A comment from someone who is watching us. John, he says, I am not what you think I am.

I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am. We live in perception of perception of ourselves. Find a way out of the echo chamber. Yeah. The echo chamber, as he calls it. There's no echo on it. There's no sounds before it starts. And it does that. Sir Bob, do you feel that mantra, japa, meditation and other traditional spiritual practices are not of much use? Well, they're a good way to quieten the mind down a bit initially. Initially, you've got to go beyond the mind. When they say beyond the mind, it's prior to the thought. And you can't pause the thought, but in looking, the thought will pause of itself.

And do you agree that the more thoughts, the more misery? Isn't that so? Again? Isn't that so? You do agree? Yeah. Thank you. Yes. The mind never ceases for instance, you know, and it keeps going on more and more and ever and ever. And that's all that happens. The thought seemingly continues. Go to sleep at night and you dream. Yeah. In that dream, your body's doing all sorts of things and all sorts of activities have taken place and thoughts and feelings and emotions, everything is going on. When you wake up in the morning, what happens to it? It all disappears. And you might remember part of it, but not for very long.

And when you wake up, you don't realise it, we wake up to this dream, and this dream is a waking dream. And the only difference that you can tell between this dream and a sleeping dream is this dream seems, has a continuity. It seems to continue every night, every morning from where it left off the night before, but the dream comes along and disappears, it's gone. And how does it continue? Always in thoughts, feelings, emotions. And realise thought, feeling and emotion are one and the same thing. Thought's very subtle, goes a little bit stronger, it'll become a feeling or an emotion. And the emotion or the anger or the tears or everything else will go.

It's just like steam, water and ice. Different patterns are the same thing. It's all the same thing, patterns shape and form endlessly. And watch your thoughts and see, when you wake up, something comes up and you'll say so and so, and then but. And the thought goes on again, or what if, or why, or how, or when. The story keeps continuing. And we never try to quieten the mind at all. We go on in the mind thinking we're going to find the answer in the next thought, the next concept. Or we work it out. Certain things can be worked out in the mind. That's where it's very useful.

It can be very useful. But it's also self-destructive because it vibrates in the opposite order. I want to add something to that because, I mean, it doesn't matter. We kind of all assume that this is the case. But with the thoughts, it's not necessarily that all thoughts are creating a misery. Obviously, creative writing is not going to cause the misery or the poetry that is pouring out of us. But it's not necessarily that all thoughts are creating a misery. Obviously, creative writing is not going to cause the misery or the poetry that is pouring out of people. It's not. It's just we assume, and that's correct, it is about self-referential thoughts.

It's about the thoughts that are applying or relating to the me. So if someone didn't investigate and they assume there is a little human or a little dwarf there pulling the strings and being responsible and controlling the world and not doing a good job, then the thoughts will be self-referential. I am this or what they think about me. Or all that self-obsession. Or all that self-obsession that comes about from assuming that there is a self-center. So those thoughts, the more of them, the more of those thoughts, the more of suffering, obviously. But there are thoughts that don't cause the suffering. They could even potentially be self-referential thoughts that are not taken seriously, that are laughed at.

They won't be causing any suffering. And any sort of thoughts that are coming, even as a commentary, which is completely unnecessary, if not taken personally or resisted, is not a problem. A problem is only when it is related and when it is resisted. You'll have to speak up. We'll have to life-isms. Life-isms doesn't know anything about it. In the fapping shape and form that I call life-isms, fapping shape and form is manifestation. That's the wondrous way that you can vibrate and express. But what's it all? That body can be broken down into elements, into energy, into no-thing again. Seemingly solid and substantial. So does every other pattern.

And there's no two patterns the same. And that shows the wondrous intelligence of all that's being expressed in all this amazing variety and diversity that it does. And you've got exactly the keyword, because this is a beautiful analogy, the way Bob presents it, because of that word vastness. See, the usual way we look at the sun, is I am tiny little human being there on the earth looking up, and the sun is just a little ring on the sky far away. And it's very, very easy to obscure, because few hundred to few thousand meters away from me there are clouds. And that's it. But really the vastness of the sun is realized when you actually stop looking from the perspective of that little human being on that tiny little planet.

Because when you think of the sun, which is so much bigger than the sun, the earth is bigger than the tiny little earth, and the little ants on that earth, the points, the ideas. When you actually realize you are the sun, you are that shining radiance, that life essence that is radiating out, what can ever obscure that? You know, there is a cloud of thought coming, but it's still, the aliveness is still shining out of you. So you are the sun now, the earth and the clouds are so far away, you don't even see them, you don't even notice them, when you are with your shining radiance.

But of course the habit of the mind is to travel in and out from that. Otherwise it wouldn't be ever fresh. It wouldn't be fresh and new all the time. So it travels into the energy, the attention goes into that entity and looks out again, and the radiance is obscured, seemingly, because it isn't. If it was obscured, there would be no experiencing at all. It is, the life essence is the prerequisite, the presence awareness is prerequisite to experience everything, including thoughts, and obscuration and suffering. But the way, the beautiful way Bob is actually showing it, the vastness of the sun. Sun is not a tiny little thing that it looks like from the earth, from the perspective of the sun.

It is the perspective of the human. Human perspective is just the perspective. It's not the truth. It is, well, seemingly the seeing, hearing comes out, it stems out from that vehicle. The same way like the computer has the camera, it stems from that direction, that vehicle. But knowing the truth that it is just a vehicle, it's just a radio station or transmitter, receiver, or whatever, whatever the analogy, it's not who you are. It is your lookout. It is your little camera. The radiance that emanates from it is much greater than the sun itself. That life essence, the light, energy is light. That's why Christ could say, I am the light of the world.

You can say the same thing. It's that energy of light which is the life. In him was light, and the life was the light of men. You are that. And when this one is actually in a field of light, a field of attention, when that aliveness or that presence is in foreground, in front, when the attention comes back to the fact of being or fact off aliveness, that's when the love of being steps in. Because otherwise, like Bob was mentioning today, you didn't say the Sat Chita Nanda word, but being knowing, loving to be. It is... Yeah. just the word you explain you explain the the being yeah explain the being you explain the consciousness or the awareness part of the being and and the the loving to be part is usually the one that is the most problematic one the loving to be shines forth when the awareness of presence is not distracted obscured by the clouds it's not it's when in when the attention is unfixated it's unfixated it's like you aware of of your aliveness of your presence and then the senses are are fulfilled they are fulfilling their function rather than the whole capacity cognizing or knowing capacity going to the head and telling themselves stories and dramas then obviously there is no capacity left to acknowledge that loving of being bob do you feel that gravity and love are much the same thing you love is you pull towards love aren't you and you recognize love in yourself so they probably would be it's an interesting concept and it's all the same thing anyway and being repelled is also some yeah is is being gravitating towards the opposite ofpuishy or you know resisting something is is caring loving for that limit itself when you realize yourself not to be a limited self then resistance is not necessary anymore but it's still love it's everything can translate back to love I heard nice definition of love that from the physicists that love is a tendency of the consciousness to Lower the entropy because the Generally, physicists believe that the world is random and is kind of going more and more random and the consciousness is going more and more complex and organized.

So that is just a sweet, just another concept. That's all the one anyway. All the same thing really. But the trick is to actually realize that, isn't it? Yeah, I use the term, there's no two in and a stick. No one and a stick, I should say. Everything's got two ends on it. So the good and the bad are actually the same thing in different aspects of the land. So we want the good stuff and don't want the bad, but see the other stuff's going to ... But it's constantly changing, it'll change anyway. There's no cloud stitched on the sun blocking it out. I mean, there's no thought stitched on the sun blocking it out.

There's no stitch in our heads that are blocking out. They change constantly. When we fixate on them, it causes problems. The great perfection is unfixated awareness. And we're not fixating on anything. Leave it as it is. Sorry, what's unfixated awareness? The great perfection. Great perfection. Great perfection. Yeah. I pointed it as be utterly awake with the five senses wide open. We are seeing, hearing, and perceiving. Tasting, touching, smelling. No, that's a ... We're usually open to one sense. We're into the hearing or the thinking or something. I think even though the others are going on in the background. Like I've spoken to you, you'd hear a car going past there or see a movement in the room.

So the other senses are working, but we're not noticing so much, because the focus is going into the hearing. Be utterly awake with the five senses wide open. is wide open and be utterly open with unfixated awareness. When you're not fixating on one to the exclusion to all the others, then you're totally living. Why are we living from the one all the time which we usually are, or not from the me? We're not keeping up with life. When you're open to everything, you know, you can switch to whatever it is in the moment. Put your energy in, the energy will go in. And you won't put the energy, but the energy will naturally go there.

And under Bob's chair there is a cat. He is the greatest master to actually demonstrate how it is to live with unfixated awareness. He's constantly open, he's alert, so whatever attracts the attention, he will naturally follow. There is no contriving anywhere by translating or relating to the self. Because as far as we know, they don't have this default mode network in the head that creates the narrative self and comments on everything and interprets everything as relevant to me. So they function completely naturally. The cat's one is under the chair, another one is roaming somewhere also. So this is what, it doesn't suggest that we should come back to the state of being animal before the thinking.

No. The thinking can be utilized. Thinking is a wonderful instrument. But it doesn't really have to just debilitate us the way it does. Like the, you were asking the attention, five senses wide open, six senses wide open. It's fine to think. It's just that the, how you say it, you utilize the brain or the mind and other than... Yeah, the energy goes functioning. That brain wouldn't be of any use to you if that life essence wasn't going through. We think we could put the whole thing on the brain and this, that, and that. But how many thoughts can a corpse have if he's got a brain?

How many feelings? How many emotions? Nothing can happen without, you know, take the life essence out of the body and that's the end of you. But the amazing the amazing ways it's formed, pattern shapes are formed. All the all the nervous system, all the organic system, the heart, everything in it, the breathing capacity, there's a wondrous pattern to express through. And we couldn't form anything at all without it. This room was an idea's mind when somebody's mind went. People say I built that. I made the bricks. I did the art on the wall. I did that. Could they have lifted a finger, turned a screw or done anything at all without the life?

So it's the absolute that you are is functioning, expressing through you. And you are the absolute. You couldn't be anything else. An individual, I'm in the world. And when I'm not an individual, the world is in me. Whether you are an individual or not, you're only appearing to be an individual. You still are the world and everything in it. I think it's very interesting what I heard Bob say that the search can become the problem. Yes. Can you speak a bit more about that? When you're searching for something, you're starting from behind the eight ball. You start with a belief in me that's going to become realized or liberated or whatever they like to call it, whole.

Enlightened or whether. But there's no becoming in being. Becoming implies a future time. When you look at the concept of time, you'll see that's a fiction also. Is there a past if you don't think about it? Without a thought you can't say there's a past or a future. But you'll say, oh, I was in the past. Also you'll say, well, try and live yesterday. Try and live a moment ago. You can't. Try and live tomorrow or when you leave here. You can't. The actuality is always in this omnipresence, total presence right now. And it's a spontaneous emanation. When does now begin? Try and grab it, you'll say it's beginning right now.

When does it end? As it's beginning, it's already ending. So it's got no duration. That's all time is, is duration. But there's no duration. There's only seemingly so. It appears to be duration, but it's spontaneous. Ever fresh, ever new. And it's the same for space, that that's also an illusion of course by the ego. Can you find a centre to space? Can you find a circumference to it? Can you find a static point in it anywhere? But why do I think I can walk around in it? Why do I believe I can walk around in it? That's what you're doing. Without that life essence, could you take a step?

No, but I was asking about space. Yeah. Well try and postulate something outside of space. Think of something or postulate something outside. What would it be in? Again? What would it be in? Try and postulate or think of something outside of space. What would it be in? I want you to think. A different dimension. What would that dimension be in? Well that would be in space. Yeah. So space is no thing. There's no static point, no shape or form. But and all these pattern, shapes and forms are things. You and I are things in space. Can something come from nothing? Space is no thing. Well something came from nothing originally, didn't it?

No, it hasn't. During the creation of the universe, surely something came from nothing. Yeah, it appears to be real. Can you say, see this is a thing? It's still looking for the so-called big bang or the static point where it begins, but there's no static point in it. They say they're getting close to it and they might be, but they won't find the answer in the mind. Because there's no thing expressing as everything. The best analogy to look at it is to look at the dream at night. Like there is such a colourful, juicy dream. There are people there, there are buildings, there are different sceneries and they all come from nothing.

They all come in a... Yes, but they haven't sent space probes into your dreams. They have sent them to Jupiter, Uranus, Mars and Venus. And the data has been returned to Earth. Yes. In this dream, that's right. I mean I was actually dreaming about having spaceships and going around and having data from different planets. I've been in very, very different spaces. I spent 17 years at sea where there's very, very little going on. So my dreams were really going wild. So in these dreams, yes, they sent to Jupiter. In my dream they sent it to Chiron or whatever. We think this is real and the other one is not.

And this is the problem. This is how well it is representing, how well it is fooling us to believe that this is more than appearance, that this is more than illusion or maya. We think this is physical, this is real. And that's the point. That's the point of the whole appearance. If it wasn't that well done, nobody would buy into it. There would be no questions, no seeking, nothing. I'm sorry, I still don't see how you having dreams illustrates that the space missions were an illusion. Oh, you're talking about actual space missions. The probes to Jupiter. Yeah, yeah. I thought I mentioned probes to Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, etc.

My cousins are planetary scientists. That's an amusement for the mind. Where are they now? Yeah. See, maybe Bob... Sorry, where and what now? All the missions. Bob, maybe you can repeat the story about time. Where is the time when you don't think about it? Look how... We covered time. I'm onto space. Yeah, yeah, this is the same thing. Look, you were imagining something that is not here in this present moment. And you believe it into existence together with seven billion other people. It sounds... Yes, it sounds outrageous, but take that possibility into account. I don't know if you have time, but I did come to hear Bob's views.

Okay. Can you say it? Well, as I said, where does space begin? Can you grab space? Can you say it's real? All this manifestation are things. That's the planets, the stars and everything else are appearing in that seemingly thing we call space. But space is no thing. Can something come from nothing? Space probe is a thing. So you're saying if I smash my foot into this lamp and blood comes in and stains your carpet, none of that really happens? Not actually, but it appears to. It'll appear to be so. It'll appear, you know, you'll feel pain and anxiety and all the rest of it. And so will you use imaginary carpet cleaning to get the blood out?

Wish I could because where my pressure cooker exploded the other day and there's food all over the place, I'd like to get a space cleaner to clean it up. Was that catastrophe imaginary as well? It appears to be real, just the same as appears to be real. It's all appearance only. And as Nisargadatta pointed, realize you are dreaming a dream you call the world and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your concern. Your concern and my concern is, everybody's concern is, we love one part of the dream and not the other. He says either love all of it or none of it, don't separate it, and the rest will be taken care of.

It'll work itself out naturally, of itself, as it does. Nature's working out itself quite well. No doubt the world is functioning as it should. There's a dorada a few hundred years ago when I wrote it. The world's functioning as it should. Tsunamis come, ice ages come, and us, less than rains of sand on this manifestation, are going to change the world. And look at that, little germs have worked out plagues and things like that, have worked out killed millions of people. And the wars are the next things that kill you, we're killing ourselves. Life ceased to be and there's nothing that's going to change. And Miss Argetta says, there is only life.

There is nobody who lives a life. He took it a little bit further, he says, life lives on life. Out of life, more life comes. The food you eat was life at one time. Very rarely, think about it now. A lot of other things I've forgotten too before that, you know. But where it was great importance once was just as it is. A lovely man, you couldn't help but love him, you know. Very ordinary, very, you know. He could be very bad tempered though, couldn't he? No, people said he was an angry man, that was their concept of him. He'd get out in the morning and get excited and all that.

But he wasn't his. But nobody knew that. You don't think he was banging on a knack to wake various people up? He couldn't have cared less. But he must have cared to some extent surely to open his home all the time. Well, just the same as here. When I came back from India and people, I started talking. People said, did Miss Argetta tell you to talk? That was the big thing all the gurus got to do. I said, no. And if he told me not to talk, he couldn't have stopped it. And it was the same with him. He couldn't have stopped it. It comes out of your spot the same as it'll come out of you, spontaneously and naturally.

It's like a data set. He fired a lot of arrows at you. Yeah. He'd continually knock me off my perch. All my beliefs and all the concepts I had which I thought were really great, he'd negate them. Left me with nothing. Another thing he said was, when I know that I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I know that I am everything, that is love. And he says, between those two my life flows. It is. We're constantly functioning in the pairs of opposites. Whether we call it wisdom, love, hate or whatever they are. That's how thinking functions. Good, bad, pleasant, playful, happy. No more. You would say that thinking is always there.

It always comes and goes. It's just not to cling to any of it. Yeah. Thinking, the functioning is seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, thinking, smelling. The ING on it is that something is happening in this immediacy. Not was happening or will happen. Thinking right now. Thinking's happening. What's your next thought going to be? You don't know. Thoughts arise. Then you say, I think. So you say, I think you've formed a subject, a thinker. Me. I think this thought. That's become the object. So thinking is seemingly divided into subject, object. But can there be a thinker without thinking? There can't. Can there be the thought without thinking?

So thinking is the actual functioning. Same with seeing. You're seeing right now and you say, I see. I see the chair, I see the table. Related is down on the so-called subject, it's conceptual. And the chair, and that's become the object. The thought, I see. It's become the subject. That goes with all the functioning. Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. It always can be divided into subject, object. Duality. But there can't be a thinker without thinking. There can't be a seer without seeing. Seeing, hearing, that's the functioning, natural functioning. Undivided is just what is. It seems to me like we can easily get lost in and what I really appreciate about Bob's teaching is that you keep bringing us back to being here now.

Yes. Yes, as I'm saying, the stories go on and on and on. But, whatever. Have you ever smoked? Yes, I have. What do you do with your butts? Put them in an ashtray and throw them around. Throw them out. When you throw all the butts out, you do that. And what else do they want? There is a question about the sixth sense. Someone's asking about this. What about the sixth sense? It's there. It's like with everybody else. That's what it's there. Yes, the thing that, you know, people sometimes use the idea of sixth sense as some sort of a parallel, psychological sense. We use it the way Buddhism uses it.

Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and thinking. It's the intuitive hunting. The thinking in Buddhism is considered sixth sense. Is it? Yes. And there is also someone asking about the process of enlightenment, if you can say something more. As if it was a process. There's no such thing as enlightenment. They tell you in the scriptures that it's ignorance. They call it ignorance. Not that we're dull or stupid. It just means simply that we're ignoring our true nature and focusing the conceptual belief we've taken on. Enlightenment means you're just unloading. If we'll unload some of the crap we've believed in, it'll be a lot lighter. And that includes the past.

Yes. Whatever happened a moment ago. See again how we struggle to try and get out of something we're never in. We've only believed and taken on the belief. We struggle, oh yes, I can't do that or I can't see that. That's something beyond me. And I tell you straight then, you are the absolute. There is only the absolute. And absolute includes every possible thing you can think of or not think of. Or the great perfection. There's another way to put it. Another thing I like is sometimes pointing when people are saying that oh but Jesus said that or Jesus said that. And you say have you been there?

Have you seen that? Have you heard that? No. You only believe what somebody else told you. Yes. That's why I say investigate it. The false can't stand up to investigation. If it's true, it'll be there. And we won't be able to get rid of it. There's so many things we've seen. Like I said the blue sea. We believe the sea's blue. Who believes it today? When you look at whether the sea and the sky met the horizon, people say don't go off the edge there. You'll fall off the edge of the earth. Who would believe that today? And who would believe that the probe could get to all these planets and things you were talking about before?

Well we don't. But they do. So when they question your beliefs, you know, you can never get to the moon. People believe that earth is flat today. A lot of people believe that. But it is really not. And we can agree with that or disagree with that. We can smash somebody else's beliefs and tell that they are idiots. But what for? We are not really dealing with beliefs here. We are dealing with what you said, what is actually presently happening. Doesn't matter what happened a week ago, what happened in Africa. This is all in conceptual, this is all in thinking. While here we have this great opportunity to forget about all the concepts and ideas of what happened in the past, in childhood or on other planets.

But just really be with whatever is happening presently. And just be aware of the content of the space and of the awareness itself. ... that belief that creates, or seems to create the appearance of space. Time. If there is absolutely no locality, no locality, can there be space or other? Pure, absolute pure absence of thought altogether. No sense of me. Just... completely gone. Is there a location then? You need a thought to answer the question. There is no location. There can't be anything else. It just all is. I'll point that out. There is no static point. But if there is no location, how do you get to the shop for food?

You don't. You don't. So short lifetime? You don't actually do anything. You don't actually do anything. Zip. Zero. Nada. You're not doing anything. There's the idea that me is doing something. In your dream you might have got to the shop in a dream. When you woke up, where was the shop? Where was the dream? Where were you? You know, Ramana Maharshi helped cook the breakfast many mornings. He wouldn't have said the same. He wouldn't have agreed with it. It appears that way. I can say I'm growing my hair. I'm digesting my food. I'm such an omnipotent doer. I'm going shopping. I'm going eating, cooking, digesting, growing cells.

I'm replacing bone cells in my body. It's being delusional. Everything happens. Life is leaving everyone. Life is breathing everyone. Seeing is happening spontaneously. I'm not doing it. If I go shopping, I'm not doing it. There is the functioning of the body. There is the body. Just like the cat is lying there, it's not doing it. Life is living it. So Bob, do we stay until you kick us out? Or is there some procedure for winding up? It's going to finish in a minute or two. Okay. When that no such thing as time comes. We say you need to question it to yourself and look into it.

Because nobody is ever going to give it to you. Nobody is ever going to tell you. But you'll resonate with something and it will take you further. What brought you into looking at this in the first place? Something you might start off somewhere and it will take you further and further. And as it goes along. Insights come up. Little insights, little more. Ah. That's what that was. About the time. About the time. Time. Time. Yeah. Time is quite a thing. Thanks, Bob. Thank you.