Sailor Bob - nonduality - Nothing unreal exists...

James, Richard. James, Monica. Ah, okay, I'll let the games begin. You know what it's all about, non-duality. It's not a matter of becoming or gaining anything, but what is so-called enlightenment, realisation or liberation. You think you'll acquire that or become that. It's a matter of discarding all this conceptual rubbish we've taken on board over there, the erroneous beliefs, the energy of a belief that's gone in and made them seem to be real. That's why they call it ignorance in the scriptures. Not that we're dull or stupid, but what we're doing is ignoring our true nature. . . . and focusing in on the conceptual image we've taken on board in the belief that there's something real there, and something because it's troublesome we think will gain some enlightenment or realisation.

If you ask yourself the simple question right now, what is wrong with right now if you don't think about it, what can you say? Thought going on, you can't say it's good, bad, pleasant, painful, happy, sad, anything at all about it. What they call in Buddhism is called no-mind. And as Beggy, the Zen monk said in the 16th century, everything is purposely resolved in the unborn Buddha mind. That's what the no-mind is called, the unborn Buddha mind. It means that the pure mind is still there, but there's no concepts, thoughts, feelings or emotions contaminating it or corrupting it. And like a cloud covering the sun, it's obscuring our true nature.

We say no-mind, we don't mean to say it's all a vacuum or a void or complete emptiness. That's pure, because if you pause a thought, or a thought stops for a moment, have you stopped seeing? Have you stopped breathing? Has your heart stopped beating? See, the functioning is still going on. No conceptualising going about it. And it's seeing is happening and hearing, you know what's going on, and that pure awareness is knowing. But it's not being discriminated. What does it say in N. Singh Ming? When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to be. That obscuring mind ceases to be. No, you see it in a totally different way.

Seeing things in their natural, spontaneous state. And the labelling will still go on and all the rest of it. And the descriptions will still go on. But if you know the truth about it, of themselves, those thoughts, concepts, ideas and images are all my, all illusion. Reality is the pure functioning, like it is out there in nature. The earth rolling around. The sun, seasons coming and going. Tides coming in and out. Is there any Big Daddy or anything else there thinking that? Or is it just happening? It's just naturally functioning. And nature's not discriminating into daylight and dark. All darkness is is the absence of light.

All daylight is is the absence of darkness. So the dualistic functioning, patterning is still going on. That's all it is. Patterns, shapes and forms. Or illusions. A phenomenal manifestation. Look up your dictionary definition of phenomena. It's that which appears to be. So you, me and everything in this room and outside this room is appearance only. It's phenomena. It has no substance. Independent nature. It can't stand on its own. And it's all the vibrations, movement of energy. Movement of energy. Movement of energy. And the way it vibrates into these patterns, shapes and forms is in a seemingly intelligent way. It's not just willy-nilly functioning all over the place.

In pattern, shapes and forms there's trees, flowers, birds, human beings. In an intelligent way. So that's why I get the label intelligence energy. Intelligence, when I talk about intelligence I'm not talking about genelecs. I'm talking about the same intelligence that forms the galaxies, that rolls the Earth around the Sun. That's the same intelligence that's breathing it. That's beating your heart, growing your hair and fingernails. Energy is an activity. That's a movement. Isn't it all constantly transient, constantly changing, showing it as an activity? Another term for intelligence is knowing, or awareing, or being. All these are different labels we put on the same thing. So intelligence is the activity of knowing.

Isn't that happening with you right now? The knowing, or awareing, if you like to call it that, or the being, is there. It's called a Satyajitinanda Nama Rupa. Existence, consciousness, bliss. Anyone who is not existing right now. You must realise, oh, I'm existing. Anyone who is not conscious right now. Are you unconscious? No. You're not unconscious, you're not unaware, so you must be aware. Anyone who's not happy to be. We all want to be. That's the in and of loving to be. Somebody would come along with a gun and want to shoot you all day, you wouldn't be too happy about it. You'd much rather be.

So that's another way of putting that Satyajitinda. Being. Knowing. And loving to be. And isn't that your activity of you right now? Has it always been so? Pause a while and have a look. But no, we haven't wanted to stay with that. What we wanted to stay with is the conceptual image, the persona. A mask of concepts. Persona comes from the word mask. A mask of mental concepts. Mental constructs. And because it's constantly changing, there is never any static happiness there or natural choices. Because it's always vibrating into the opposite. And we don't want it to change. We want it to be good all the time.

And it doesn't happen. So what do we do? We suffer. We become anxious. We suffer. And we go. Test it out. See if it's there. That's what needs to happen. You need to look for yourself. Because no matter what we've been taught, or what we believe, everybody's taught, nobody's ever going to give it to you. The Christ, the Buddha, or whoever else there is, the so-called Saint Saviour, they're not going to come along and pat you on the head or pinch you between the eyes. They're not going to come along and give you a mask. They're going to come along and pinch you in the eyes and give you something.

Because why not? Because we are all dreamed characters. We are the one essence that's vibrating into all these pattern shapes and forms. And we take the pattern shape and form to be the real. So all these different pattern shapes and forms in this room, which pattern shape and form is going to tell another pattern shape and form what's right or what's wrong, or what's good or what's bad? It's impossible. But what comes up in the conversation, in the words and in the ideas and whatever, are little insights that might resonate with you as you are. And that resonation, or the art of listening or hearing, is a little recognising that this is real with me.

This feels the actual. But it doesn't last very long because of the habit pattern. It's not. It's a process of thinking which we have reinforced day in, day out, from the time we learnt words. And we've had the assistance of our parents in the first place. They reinforced us first. Then we went to school. And they reinforced us. Everybody around us has reinforced it. What do we do? We start reinforcing it ourselves in the belief. So it seems very solid, doesn't it? We've latched onto it for days and years and all along. days and years and all the rest of it. These things, you know, you've got to be free of mind and all the rest of it.

And what do we do? We try to rid ourselves of all these concepts. How's that going to happen? Just in the recognition that there is nothing there without any substance, or without substance or independent nature. And it will fall away of itself. So instead of trying to become something by getting rid of it, leave everything as it is, without reinforcing it, without believing in it, without doing to acquire it or become it or anything, and see what happens. Now most of us, when we start, we hear about what they call the spiritual, and then we go on this search. I did it myself. I didn't want to do it in the first place because I didn't believe in anything.

But it was destroying myself with the concepts and ideas I had, and alcohol and things like that. But even then, it turned me around in spite of all that. The 12-step program talked about a higher power, a power greater than myself. And I pointed out that that one is the all-power. You find it now. It doesn't say you're going to find it tomorrow. Or next week, or next meditation, or next that thing. The only actual time there is, which is not even a time, no duration, spontaneous moment. And that's how it eventuated. That didn't happen overnight. But even looking in the different directions, and looking into the scriptures where they say it's only one power, it's omnipotence, total power.

So it's not mind power. It's not thought power. It's not higher power, or lower power, or any other power. It's the totality. The absolute. And at the total of that, what is absolute? Everything. It's the one absolute. And all this manifestation is appearing in, appearing in and dissolving in it. So when you recognize that there's only the one absolute, you must be that. Already. And again they point that out in the great mantra. I am that. And you know that already, innately. Because don't you say, that's the chair, that's the garbage, that's the tree, that's the space, that's Tony, that's somebody else, that's this, that's that.

Already we know everything is that, but what's happened? We've put labels on it. Words. And then have a look at the word. Is the word the thing? And water. Can you drink it? Can you swim in it? Will you drown in it? And you realize the word is not the thing. The word fire, does it burn your mouth if you speak it? Can you cook with it? Can you feed yourself with it? You can't. When you look at this I or me that we've taken on, what we've investigated, see what that can do. Also. By the same token. What can you do with the word I or me?

You'll find out that word cannot do anything at all. It's another label we've put on it. And you didn't learn any words. You realize that in every word you've ever spoken, or ever likely to speak, has been learned, has been acquired because you are not born with any word. Go back and find it. When were you born? Ask yourself. Can you remember my birth? You can't. Why can't you remember your birth? Because you didn't have any words when you were born. And you didn't have any words until you were about two, two and a half. When the capacity of reasoning, which is a useful capacity these human patterns, so-called human patterns have, is the capacity of reasoning.

That capacity of reasoning, you learned words. Now go back and see when you, if you can't remember your birth, when did you begin? You'll say, I was born, but you don't remember it. We'll look at it a bit further. Go back to your father and your mother. That animating life essence, that pattern shape that formed your father, the intelligence energy, the prana, the air he's breathing and the food. And they label in that pattern, through that food and the breath, a little microscopic particle called a sperm to form. Now that's a little bit of a, now that sperm was fused with an intelligence. It knew what to do.

It was just a static blob of glue that was doing nothing. Put it under a microscope and see all the life that's going on in it. And the same in your mother, that animating life essence or intelligence energy, and that pattern again through the prana, through the air and the air she breathed in that life pattern enabled in that pattern an ovum or an egg to form. That egg was formed. It was being suffused with intelligence energy. It knew what to do. It attached itself to all the uterus. And the sperm knew what to do. Being suffused with an intelligence or knowing or a wearing, whatever you like.

It swam to the ovum. Put it under a microscope and see. It has the capacity for swimming. And it knew what to do when it switched the ovum. It's penetrated it. And those two coming together, the genes in those two and the intelligence energy in those two knew what to do. It doubled that little cell. And redoubled it and doubled it again. And the little embryo, the little fetus began to form. Which is what you are today. Constantly changing, batting high. But it's all the same thing it was when it came together. That's what you are today. But what were you doing about it then?

Without the words, without the capacity of breathing. You were functioning naturally and ever so. Look at the little baby. It's got no words. If it's hungry it'll cry. If it's happy it'll give it a little grin. Kick its legs in the air and do whatever it's got to do. To eat and all the things. Naturally and ever so. It's got no words. About two, two and a half or might be earlier in some of you. Or later in some of you. It all depends on what intelligence is functioning and formed in it. It begins to form these words or concepts. And parents fussing around it teach you these words.

The capacity of reasoning develops. And that's the capacity in these human forms. The capacity of reasoning which is far more developed in human beings than what it is in other animals, insects and birds. But they have other capacities that are far more developed than our capacity of reasoning is. Like a bird has a capacity of eyesight. Better than yours and mine will ever be. We can't do that. The capacity of reasoning. We've learned to build ourselves eyes. Eyeglasses. Telescapes. Or binoculars. That enable us to see. So the capacity of reasoning is very useful. And also the capacity of, a bird has a capacity of flying.

We don't have that capacity. But again through the capacity of reasoning. We've built ourselves planes, helicopters and balloons and kites that enable us to fly. And lots of other ways you can point that out and see for yourself how that capacity of reasoning is more developed than it is in a human pattern. What is another pattern? But they have other patterns. Like a bird. A bird is a chameleon. It can change colour. We can't do that. What are some of the other things? I forget them now. A butterfly. A grub. A grub. A caterpillar or a grub. When it's ready it will form around itself a cocoon and metamorphise into a butterfly with all those beautiful colours on it.

It's just not accidental. It's a few years of intelligence. A pea fowl lays an egg. And break it open it's just the same as a hen's egg or any other egg. It's got yolk and white in it. But put it under a bit of heat, a bit of warmth, a bit of love, a bit of life energy in it, what happens? That'll change into all those beautiful colours when it forms as a pea flower. All implying there is a wondrous intelligence suffusing all of nature. And you can't separate yourself from nature. That's why we call it the natural state. They call it in the scriptures what we're looking for is the natural state.

Meaning as in nature. And that's already there. As I say, it's that pure intelligence which without the concepts on it, as we pointed out earlier, the unborn, what they call the unborn Buddha mind, the mind was not covered over by concepts, images, ideas. But it's knowing what to do. It's rolling the earth around the sun. Causing the seasons to come and the tides to come out. And it's breathing you right now. It's beating your heart. It's growing your hair and your fingernails. That's how close to what you are. It's closer than your breathing. Nearer than your hands and feet. We don't realise that. And then we think we've got this human being, this image we believe ourselves.

We've got to put some practice on or some meditation or something like that to become a human being. I'm whole or complete. Can you add to that completeness right now, that absolute? Not a bit, but you can take away from it nothing. So this is the futility of the thinking process. That can be very useful in working out things that are necessary to work out but in the part of living, you don't need it. What we need to do is to recognize our true nature. I call it, I say recognize because I call it a cognizant. I call it a cognizing emptiness. That's what the Buddha calls it.

Now you hear that word cognizing, that's another name for knowing or aware or being. Cognizing. So we think that we have to cognize this emptiness. But it's not what he meant when he said it's a cognizing emptiness. He means that the emptiness has that capacity of cognizing. It is a cognizing emptiness. And he made the statement then. That emptiness is form. It's that emptiness which is vibrating and all the apparent shapes and forms, all the things that appear in the manifestation, which are only apparent, they're phenomena, and the definition of phenomena is that which appears to be, they're only appearing to be so. All appearing to be solid, substantial and real.

But is an appearance real? The appearance is only what seems to be. It seems to be so. So the cognizing, lost sight of, seemingly obscured, though it's going on as all of a reason. And what needs to happen, it needs to be re-cognized. The emptiness is form and the form can be nothing other than the emptiness. So you and I sitting here thinks we are these forms and something special. We're nothing other than that emptiness. It's vibrating in this particular pattern which is transient like everything else. Transient means it's constantly changing. You mightn't see that but realize that that body you walked in the room with is not the same body that's sitting there right now.

There are thousands of cells dying in it and being replaced right now. You don't notice it because in this moment it seems exactly as it is. But look back on that body. Look back on that body to what you can recall five or ten years ago. Is it the same body? It's certainly not. So when did it stop changing? Only when you took the life essence out of it. But it didn't stop changing then because introgation stopped happening. It stopped being replaced. It's now a disintegration start. It started to break down this pattern and rotted. But we're still alive. Life breaking it down. So that life just vibrates into seeming different pattern shapes and forms.

But it is still the one and only life. And you are that life. And that's what Christ tells you. He says, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. People thought he was talking about himself. He's talking about no. The same as nisargada sas. That sense of presence that translates through the mind as the thought, I am. How could you say I am if that sense of presence, that life, wasn't there? You couldn't. So you take the life out of that body, you've got a corpse. That corpse has got the eyes before it starts to rot. Eyes, the ears, the heart, the lungs, the throat, the kidneys, all the liver, all those organs are there, but they're not a bit of good to it anymore.

So we say the brain, we think the brain's doing it all and blah blah blah. Without that life essence it couldn't have a single thought or feeling or emotion. Well the eyes, what do the eyes see without that life, you know? They've lost the train of thought. Might come back, maybe it won't, who cares anyway? That's what needs to be recognized, that you are that. And you are always and ever have been that. Not the body, not the mind, not the persona, the master, conceptually. I am that. I am that totality. I am that absolute. When we say, apply it to this body-mind, we say it's my self.

So what is this? See what you've done? When they tell you in the scriptures there's only one Atman, only one self, we put it on my self. We've made this body-mind entity a personal self. No wonder we get lost and tied up in the concepts and images and fear and suffering and all the psychological crap that comes upon us. Because we've separated ourselves from the totality. And that's what happened when we first started to reason. A little child learnt words. He reasoned when he learnt words. I am, I am little Johnny. He reached out there and he said, this doesn't fit little Johnny. So that's not me.

And when that idea came upon him, that's not me, he felt separated from it. With the sense of separation brought about in security and that, that's what happened. That's not me. That's not me. That's not me. That's not me. That's not me. That's not me. That's not me. That's not me. brought about insecurity. If that's not me, he doesn't know what it is. He's insecure about it and vulnerable. And he's very vulnerable about it. That can maybe hurt me or damage me. With that sense of insecurity and vulnerability came about, that's when the sense of separation came upon us. Instead of looking into it, see that there's nothing there, parents, schools, society, who have never questioned themselves, said, no, go out there and add, acquire, accumulate, amass, whatever you can to make yourself whole or complete, to fix that sense of reverberation.

And that's when the struggle starts and goes on, trying to fix something that doesn't need fixing. Just a matter of taking all these obscurations away, all the things we've added to it, discarding them, getting rid of them, leave the self in the purity. Not a personal self. There never was a personal self. The persona or mask, that's all it is, a conceptual image, a mental construct. If you're not constructing anything with the mind, doesn't mean to say it won't be utilized. It can be utilized for things, because this room was an idea in somebody's mind once. The chairs, the carpet, all these things were an idea in somebody's mind once.

But what could they do? They have built or made or done without the life essence. So that's where the words in it can be very useful. But see the way they vibrate, though. How thought vibrates. It's a dualistic vibration. That's all a thought is. A mental construct is a vibration, a movement of energy. Look at your mind and see how it functions. Either good or bad, pleasant or painful, happy, sad, loving, dating, hating, see if it's always vibrating in the opposite. You'll see you'll never find the answer. What happens when the mind is not? If you were the single mind and a thoughter, you wouldn't give it up.

You'd go to sleep. But every night you'd go to sleep, you'd give up that no-I thought, naturally and effortlessly. But if you believed, which we believe it is, but if you knew for certain it was true, you'd be frightened to lose any sight of it. You'd hang under any cost, just to be alive. But you'd gladly give it away. You'd look forward to it. So all these pointers point out that you're not what you believe yourself to be. You are the reality. That's why we ask you to take your stand, look and see for yourself. And if you've got questions or doubts about it, don't hesitate to bring them out and have a look at them.

Expose them. Because the false cannot stand up to the investigation. That's a fact. And you know that. You've worked out many things in your life. The things you believed in and recognised as being their false, they don't stand up. Well, so will this. This won't stand up to it either. This idea that you are the persona falls apart under the investigation. If it falls apart under the investigation, the energy of belief is not going to go into it. Nothing in this manifestation can live without energy. Take the energy out of it. And where is it going to abide or reside? That's what they say in the scriptures again.

Let it rest. It is uncontrived singularity. There's only a singularity. And you and I and everything in this room and everywhere else is that singularity. One without a second. So let it rest in that without contriving it, constricting us with the word. They even tell you that in the Bible. Where we've taken a wrong step. We've taken a wrong step. We've taken a wrong step. And we've taken a wrong take on it. And don't say it. Or we take a no notice. It says in the beginning it was the word. In the beginning, it was the word. And you know that straight away, because what beginning did you have?

You don't remember your birth. You don't remember anything until you learnt words. And it says the word was with God. That's all this thing called God is, is a word or a label. All things were made by Him, by the word. And isn't that right? Is there anything out there in the manifestation you're not labelling? It's not a word. It's a word. It's a word. It's a word. It's a word. It's a word. It's a word. It's a word. It's a word. All things were made by him, by the word, and isn't that right? Is there anything out there in the manifestation you're not labelling?

There was nothing made that was made without the word. That's what I'm saying. We had no beginning or no word until we learnt it. And that innate, intelligent entity, if you like to call it, that God, that's the one essence that's patterning, shaping and forming and expressing us everything. But the labels, they're very useful, but they're self-destructive. So that's what we point to. And have a look at this body-mind. Do you think you're the person or the ego? Investigate that. As we say here, the ego is a total fiction. There's all sorts of things going on out there about the ego. They've got to kill it, they've got to put it under the carpet, they've got to get rid of it, or it's the ego is the problem, and it is the problem.

But all the ego is is a conceptual image. And it's a conceptual image. A dead image at that. Because it's based on past events, past conditioning. Experiencing. Past experiencing, yeah. They're all dead. This is immediacy, right now. There might be all sorts of sad thoughts and feelings going on there, but ask yourself, what's wrong without that? Asking that, maybe you've got to pause it for a bit. Stop for a moment. Or cease to look at the mind for a moment. What can you say then? You can't say anything but they're still breathing. They're still breathing. The heart's still beating. Hair and fingernails are still growing on.

Food's being digested. The livingness is still happening, but thought is in abeyance. We're not conceptualising it. We're not dividing it. So how does that work? Well, have a look. Something comes up. It comes up, it appears, and we recall it. We say, this is a good experience, so I like it. And the things we like, we want to keep there. We don't want them to go. We like them. We love them. We don't want them to go. Not realising that they're transient. No matter how much you love it, how much you want it, it's going to change. We don't want it to change, so what do we do?

Resistance from going. Not realising no matter how much you love them, how much you want to keep them there, they're going to change anyway. And hasn't that happened in your life? The ones you've loved have moved on or died or got around or something else has come and gone. Everything's transient. We don't want it to go, so we resist it. Trying to keep it there, we resist it. Trying to stop it from going with this mighty mind construct as persona. And it doesn't happen. Any resistance you are in is conflict. Resistance is conflict. You're at war with it. And any conflict you are in makes you anxious, fearful, unhappy, depressed, guilty, jealous, envious.

It's all conflict. Another word for putting that conflict is uneasiness or dis-ease. So there's resistance, conflict and dis-ease going on in us all the time. And I mean that all the time while you're believing this energy. Because something comes up and this one I don't like. I've had it before and I don't want to have this one. So I've got to get rid of it. So what do I do to get rid of it? Resistance. Try to push it away. So resistance again, but in the other direction. Resistance, conflict and dis-ease. Everything is relative to this conceptual image or ego we have about ourselves. And that's where the constant conflict is going on all the time.

Resistance, conflict and dis-ease. Anxiety, fear, depression, guilt, shame. The moments of joy and happiness don't last very long. You've got to immediately go back into the belief. And look at that. And look at that term, word belief. Look at your dictionary and dictionary of faith. It is an unquestioned acceptance of something in the absence of reason. A lot of things you've been able to reason out through that intelligence. But the ones we don't question in the absence of reason. Acceptance of an alleged fact. These facts we've taken on board that I am this body. I am this mind. I am this individual. I am this person.

We've never questioned it. An unquestioned acceptance of an alleged fact without positive knowledge or proof. Put it to the acid test. The acid test is does it work. When you put it to the test and it's false, it'll fall apart. So many analogies they point out. Try it out on. Go down to the blue sea. Get a bucket of blue water out of the sea. Don't be stupid. It appears to be blue. It still appears to be blue. It'll always appear to be blue. But the truth is water is never blue. Never was. Never will be. Or never could be. The blue sky is the same.

Sky is empty space. Go up in a plane where the blueness appears to be. There's no blueness coming in through the port holes of the plane. It's still clear and empty. But the blueness is always further out. But it appears to be blue. There seems to be a blue canopy over it where there's no clouds obscuring it. You know the truth about it. You can't believe it anymore. Where it looked out, stood on the shore, on the beach, the shore, and looked out to where the sea and the sky met, it looked like it was the edge of the earth. And a few hundred years ago, people believed that.

It might be longer than a few hundred. It might be a thousand or two. Whatever it was, it doesn't matter. People say, don't go out there. You'll fall off the edge of the earth. And people were fearful of going out there. But who would believe it to be? Today, nobody. Because it's been investigated and seen through. The water in the Mirage, driving down the road, what appears to be a pool of water on the road, drive up to it, it disappears. The rainbow, investigate a rainbow, all you do is see it. It's the sun shining through a mist. Colours on the background of the sky.

There's nothing there. But it appears to be so. So I've got a crystal in the window over here. When the sun gets around to this side, it'll shine through it. And it'll break up into colours on the wall. If I go and try and grab one of those colours on the wall, there's nothing there. But they appear to be. And go and look in the crystal and see if there's any colours there. There's none there. But the activity of the sun shining through it, it needs something to rest on, breaks it up into colours. All these appearances are not... are not all apart under investigation.

So does this idea of a person. What you're seeing right now, does your eye tell you I see? My eye's not saying, look at this, look at that. It can't say anything at all. The eye has no thoughts. Can't say I see, can it? But it's the instrument through which the hearing is happening. The physical eye. But that instrument is translated by the thought, I see. Same with the hearing. The ear is not saying, look at this, hear this, Bob, or hear that. That's got to do with it. Can't say anything. But it is the instrument through which the hearing is happening. It's translated by the thought.

Now this thought, I see, is no longer a pure thought. Pure thought. It's me, Bob, the Australian. The concepts I put in it, the egoic image I put in it, that thinks now it's seeing. Hearing. But can the thought I see actually see? Well look at that now. Shut your eyes and look around the room and see for yourself. What you can see in this room with a thought. With your eyes closed. You might put imaginary thoughts in your head, but what you can see of the actual things in the room with a thought, you can't. So you realise that the thought I see can't hear.

And when you say the thought I see comes up, it's not a pure thought anymore. Because remember, it's me, Bob, the Australian, the good fellow, the conceptual, me, egoic image of it, now thinks it has the capacity of hearing. A conceptual image thinks it has the capacity of seeing. A mental constant. The same with the hearing. Put your hand over the ears and see what you can hear with the thought. So the thought I see can't see. The thought I hear can't hear. The thought I'm aware can't be your awareness. Because if anybody's unaware in this room right now, without even thinking or whether you're thinking or not, that's the base on which thoughts and everything else will be.

So you're not unaware. So you're not aware. So you must be aware. Now the big one we put on the soldier, choose, we think we choose our thoughts. Why would you ever choose to be unhappy, fearful, anxious, or depressed, or in pain, if you could choose them? What sort of feelings happen, come up, and we relate them to the pain and think, oh, I'm doing it. But the thought-up entity, this conceptual image, can't see, can't hear, can't choose, can't be aware, can't do anything. That's the ego. That's what we're constantly relating to. Everything is related to this ego, to this conceptual me. Right relationship or relativity is dualism.

And I tell you, there is absolutely no duality in non-duality. They say it's one without a second. And they put that without a second, and I'm going to point out there's not even one. And there is no count that starts with two. It all starts with one. If there's not one, how can there be two? It is. It's all a big joke. That's why we laugh and hear it. We believe it's been so solid, so real, and poor me, all the fear, because we go to something that's a total fiction. Continue to do it if you want to. A little bit of investigation, you'll see it's so.

You'll see it's a fact. And that's what we point out. Got any questions or any doubts, or tell us how you're going with it. Yeah. It must be resonating in it, because you wouldn't come back again if it hadn't resonated with it. There'd be some resonation with it, or innate knowing. So how's it going? Get into it. Frightful of bringing it out into the open, get rid of it. That wasn't going to be done. To be seen through, you've got to look at it. You can't see through something if you're not looking at it to see it. Never being a Jane, never will be a Jane, has always been the totality.

Can't change the mind with the mind. And you're not the mind. I like that highlight that Bob just did about not even one. It is because the mind has such a tendency to differentiate. It even says a thing or the no-thing. That's already a two. That's duality. A one and not one. That's already two. That's a duality. So it can't even be one, because one has the opposite, not one. So it isn't anything. And it isn't a no-thing either. So any... That's where the mind has to completely give up any ideas of grasping at it. Like it's not a thing, not a no-thing. It is not a vacuum, and it's not a not-vacuum.

It's so absolutely ungraspable by the mind that the only way is to just drop it, just give up altogether. And then the whole thing shines forth. Nothing disappears. Everything shows up without any label. It's still a beautiful manifestation happening, but calling it manifestation or something real versus not real or something illusory versus non-illusory, it's already division. It's already mind coming into the picture again and trying to grasp it. So it is something that is there so obviously and undeniably, but so beyond a grasp. That's what I call it as it is. It just is. What is means unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. No preference, no partiality, no comparison.

It's constantly transient, constantly changing. Nothing static about it at all. And you are that. And another beautiful thing that Bob highlighted in the Spiel today, it is absolutely everywhere. Like you can't miss it. It is animating plants and it is growing. It is blowing the wind. It is beating your heart. It is creating spots on the leopard. It is creating colors on the butterfly. So it is manifesting in absolutely every form and the no form also. It's just... I watched some of those David Attenborough shows and the level of intelligence that must be running through everything in nature is just staggering. Like just all the animals and their skills and how they interact and how that works.

Intelligence is unbelievable. Just functioning everything. Yes. Mind blowing, really. Just a habit. And if not for that habit of encapsulating ourselves and putting ourselves into that tight box or the little framework of the body and suffering and taking everything personally, would the awakening be even possible? Would the recognition or relief from that be even possible? The Buddhist analogy of going a thousand miles with the stone in your shoes and then taking the shoes off or hammering your head and stopping. And now the way I look at it too, like that grub that encapsulated itself in the cocoon. Sooner or later it burst out of it.

It burst out of this cage of concepts. That's right. I love this silly joke. This lady goes to the site and she's a psychiatrist. And he said, I'm sorry, no, just to the doctor. And she said, every time I put my arm up it hurts. And he said, well stop putting your arm up. It's the same thing, you know. Full stop. Right now. I got it there. Mary had a little lamb. She also had a crab. She called the crab omnipotence because it would bite everyone. You're having jokes again. I can. I can laugh at anything, can't you Richard? Nothing's really yours. All impersonal. As much as nothing is yours, everything's yours.

What did you say? Yeah, so this is all about the non-doing. About just resting in the non-doing and seeing how the doing happens. How everything happens on its own. How everything is happening without an action figure having to decide or do anything. How decision happens. How everything just naturally happens. Just the life of every single pattern is just like the life of every other pattern. Like the life of the river, going, finding the way according to its own, you know, whatever the qualities, the water head. The same with the tree. The same with the murderer. And the same with the holy man. They just, yeah, they all just kind of another expression of that pattern.

The peacock in the jumping of the egg. And the singer and everyone. And they all products of the environment. They all completely inseparable from everything else. If the one detail were changed in the way the pattern was forming, that would be different pattern at the end. So not only everything is perfect as it is, but also it is as it should be. And it's also eternally innocent in the way it forms. So the murderer is not guilty of being the way he is. Or whoever, they're just products of the circumstances and environment. And understanding that and seeing that, it actually brings the sense of, it takes off the weight of judging and blaming.

And it doesn't mean that the judgments or blames won't come up or arise, because that's part of the pattern. The pattern is tuned the way so it judges. But the judgment has no weight anymore. If the judgment comes up, it is just a word. It is just a thought. And it goes. And there is no follow up. There's no identification. It's not my. So it is not right. So I don't have to defend that. I don't have to stand up for it. I don't have to convert anyone else to believe in the same judgment. I don't need to save anyone. There is no right or wrong.

It's just that immense variety and diversity and creativity of that essence appearing as every person, every bug, every galaxy, every plant, every particle of dust. It's always different. Always changing. Yeah. And it's a really great reminder that nothing is... There's no end. There's no end to anything. There's no end. There's no finite point where I can then reference from or relate to. And there's no definition. True. Yeah. And the energy that Tassa's mind goes into trying to organize and understand everything, just as soon as I stop, whenever that stops, then I'm just present to what is. I'm present to just what's actually here. And even when the organizing goes on, you're still the presence.

Sure. Even when there's, you know, actions taken and plans made and, you know, nothing's ever changed. Also, how can you tell that Santa's elves have moved to Christmas Island? By their presents. By the presents. How do you know that Santa's elves live on a Christmas Island? By the presents. Exactly. Exactly. By their fruits shall you know them. Jane, I think it's the identification that I can have with organisation and identifying with what's happening. The organisation that who can have with it. What was that? The organisation that who can have with it. You mean when you get sort of back into the pattern of naming and claiming?

Yeah. Yeah, okay. But it is a brilliant distinction and thank you for that. It's a beautiful, you know, what I heard you were saying is that no pattern is actually permanent as a pattern because it's like Bob is saying, there is a pine tree and there is an acorn that drops. It isn't a tree. It has the potential of being a tree and then the tree has the potential to be a chair and everything is just... It's like even the human, you know. It used to be a sperminovum or a little fetus. And it will be an old person. It will be dust or ashes after a while.

So no pattern, no form is actually separate or is solid only in the appearance, only because it has been labelled. Like Bob is saying, you know, there is... Without the word, there is no beginning because there is no word beginning. So how can you even, you know, like... The concept of beginning is a word. That's another aspect of the... Of pointing out to the fact that, of course, you have no beginning because there is no remembering even of that. But even if there was a remembering of the birth somewhere on the cellular level, you don't have the beginning, the memory of the... Yes. And also you don't have a memory of being a spermo ovum.

You can imagine that. You can, you know... That imagination will be going on in the present, in this moment. But it's really nice to actually just show how nothing... It's what it seems to be. It just has a temporary costume that we recognise it, whatever it is, a little mushroom in the forest. But it isn't it. It is a wave of life constantly changing. It has been something else a moment ago. It's going to be something else in a moment. It's a life waving. It's an ocean waving. It's just that vibration of, you know, stroke of the paintbrush. And then you have this beautiful cirrus cloud on the sky.

And then in a second, a few seconds, it changes to something else. Yes, a beautiful manifestation. At the same time, I remember Terry arguing here once very, very passionately that even transience is illusion because it is in time. If there is no time, if there is no referring to the moment prior to it, there is no transience. There is just this. But it's a good pointer. Transience is a very, very good pointer. And imagining that there was no moment prior to it is a hard mind work. So anyway, whatever works, whatever pointer is helpful is to be embraced and then thrown away because it is old.

And every old pointer is to be discarded because the life, the quality of the life essence is to be always fresh and new. Every fresh. So many stories and none of them real. Totally. Yeah. A pointer. I've been chewing on for almost a couple of decades from A Course in Miracles, which I think I'm only just grasping due to Bob's breaking it down a little bit more. But it's in the preface of A Course in Miracles. And if you can grasp it, I guess you don't even need to do the whole course. But it is, nothing real is threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.

But even the second line, nothing unreal exists. No phenomena actually exist. Nothing real is threatened. It's immutable. Truth is immutable. The absolute is immutable. And nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. Herein lies the peace of God. Herein lies the peace of God. Herein lies the peace of God. Herein lies the peace of God. Herein lies the peace of God. In that, in understanding of that fact. I know that quote by nothing real can be threatened. But that's just a different take up. It's the same, yeah, the same thing. That it can't be threatened. It's totally invulnerable. And if you think about it, what's real?

What's real is that which never changes, which is the basic screen, the space. something that doesn't even exist as a form. Every form is transient and can be threatened or changed. What were you going to say, Paul? What can threaten the absolute. And what can destroy the space? What can destroy or change the space, something that does not exist in a form? The actual manifestation or phenomenon is actually action. It's not anything but action. So we are the action of it, and everything is the manifestation of that action. So even manifestation and phenomena seems to be a little too solid. It's really nothing but that vibratory consciousness that is constantly acting and action, and we are nothing but it.

It's like the debris of knowing. I really objected always to being the, manifest actors. We are not manifest actors of anything. We are only the manifest actions. That's right. And with that there can be no identification, and with that nothing else can really be real. I love what Paul Hedeman says. He says we're the action figure. We're the action figure because there is only action in this manifestation. So we're the action figure. We're the action figure. And you're watching that. And you're watching that. You know, watching that every moment. Or there is a watching of that. You're not watching it, correctly, so we don't get caught up in the semantics.

Watching itself is an activity. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was going to highlight when Bob says the ING. ING on it highlights that there is activity happening just right now. Is that one essence shaping, forming, and patterning? ING. Yeah, you could call it the acting figure instead of the action figure. Seeing, hearing. Acting, yeah. But we might get caught up in the semantics. Or you could say the acting figure. But I'm not even sure about the figure. Yeah, me too. Or just the acting. Yes. You know, for instance, for me, it's so real when I paint. It's painting happening. That's right. It's that it is happening.

And I'm watching it. Oh. it happening but there's no one actually watching that's right and yeah that's that little pointer that bob is sometimes using that you know nobody can do anything nothing can be done but if the attention is not fixated into anything if it's not fixated into the story of in the mind it's not fixated even on watching something but it's completely relaxed and there is a seeing hearing tasting touching smelling all the five senses are open there is no way there is no stream available to actually construct the identity in this point to construct someone who does who takes credit for that seeing hearing tasting touching smelling is just that space it's just the experience of space filtered into a space of seeing space of hearing space of tasting touching smell is no one there because the computer has a certain speed of processing and it doesn't really have any available data if that if that relaxed state is is just taking all the processing data and that's the that's that's the advice of non-doing it is not telling people what to do is to rather point what could be stopped doing so it's relaxing out of doing and recognizing that everything is regardless of any effort of any doing action or or doing or needing to do and actually we think that we have to do and actually our nature that nature is is doing is action so it's happening well we can just sit here and it's still happening I love that and you know we are so completely caught up with effort and of course we're completely identified with doership and that's the biggest illusion but but we don't have to understand that the very nature of manifest phenomena is vibratory action it's constantly in movement and that's why everything is happening whether we do or not to do anything.

I love that part. It is beautiful. It summarizes it well. It's sort of a copyright violation. You don't bear it. It is all about really taking credit, believing in the narrative and taking credit for things that effortlessly happen on their own. Like to a certain extent we do understand that they are even in psychology voluntary actions and involuntary actions. Nobody can control or switch off the hearing voluntarily. They can change, switch the attention to something else but they can't really make themselves death by the act of will. But the same thing happens with every other thing. The same thing happens with thinking or speaking. If we were to manufacture the speech, that would be ridiculous.

Nobody would open their mouth. They would just go and manufacture it for a long time before they can even say something. While we are responding completely naturally, effortlessly, nobody knows what they are going to answer if they are asked a question because it just flows out. The mind is the so-called mind. It is a great improviser that is just functioning in the same way as everything else is functioning. Nobody chooses to sweat or not sweat or to salivate or not salivate. And the same with thinking. Or act or not act. Exactly. It is just happening totally effortlessly. And it is a nice recognition to actually sit with that and see with that sense of emptiness and sense of curiosity, I wonder what I am going to do next.

What is the next thought going to be? What is the next action, next idea, next project or reaction? And have complete neutrality about that. Like without beating myself up if I have a bad habit or somebody pushes my buttons and I know that I am going to see that person and I am going to react. So what? I mean look, it is not me. It is the body doing it. So if the body is doing it, that is none of my business. I should not be concerned with changing it, correcting, altering, modifying. If I am invested in the reaction, okay, include the investment in the reaction in the field of observation.

Now the reaction happens, investment in the reaction happens, beating happens, none of it is my doing. That is a pattern. And there is always a place from which all those patterns can be viewed as completely impersonal and completely neutral. And this is much much closer to being nothing and doing nothing and really relaxing into the true nature of nature. Because nature doesn't prefer day to night or summer to winter or anything. It allows, unconditionally allows everything to come and play and go. Where are the elements? The rain doesn't say I am not going to rain now. The lightning doesn't say I am not going to strike now.

It is just we are the elements. Oh yeah. Lighting doesn't say my light is not strong enough. I should practice a bit more to get a little bit better light. Work on my confidence in lighting. It doesn't care. It is lost in just thinking about it. If you have the good shine and look at it, it is always light that can go and see them and get some help. The thing is that one suffers awful water if one says there really is no morality. There is no morality? No. It is not a good thing to say publicly. Why not? It is true. It is good if you want to get into an argument.

There is no such thing as morality. Well, philosophically, within duality, it is not easy to argue non-duality. Helping yourself. We had a couple of friends yesterday over for a day and they were saying that they were very happy with the idea of having a friend and that idea, that very beautiful romantic idea that every creature in nature knows innately what is right or wrong, or moral or immoral. The guy who came here, he actually stood up for it and ready to die for it. And I say, well, as far as I know, let's pick up the idea and see if that is true. Let's pick up the idea of abortion.

And he straight away knew what is right or wrong. And he said, well, legal people should have a choice. Yeah, well, okay, if you were born in Afghanistan, would you have the same sense of right and wrong? Of course I would. Well, how do you know that? There are people like you there who have completely different sense of right or wrong. Because it depends on the whole world, on the whole environment, how it shapes it. Or is that right or wrong to kill animals and eat them? Well, he is not vegan, but he has a strong sense of right and wrong. Well, if anything, you are absolutely certain, watch out.

This is going to be a fanaticism. What you say, Richard, morality, sense of innate sense, romantic idea. Yes, on the bottom of my heart, I always can distinguish right from wrong. Romantic, beautiful. I love it. And yeah, let's go with it. But watch out, be careful. I have already said that and verified it myself. There is only one thing that is certain. And that is the I AM, the fact of my own existence. Everything else is not. It's a belief. Belief in right and wrong, belief in morality, belief in... Oh, there was another discussion we had with a friend who's got beautiful clarity. But it's just certain patterns take time to drop off.

And he said, you actually do need the body to experience the consciousness and to experience I AM. And he was so absolutely certain about it because it's so logical. And I said, look, I often actually show it to people as well because it's logical and it's a helpful pointer. But don't make it the second ultimate truth out of it. Because you don't know. And if you drop that convincing logic and really sit in and say, well, you may experience not having a body, not having a consciousness and still having an I AM. And that's experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but later on the mind comes and says, well, but if the body wasn't there, that's logic.

Okay, you're happy with that logic, fine. You know, I'm not going to challenge you on that. If you're happy, just stay happy. But it's one ultimate truth. Really, not even one. The fact of existence. And that's the way not to get lost in the mind again, however logical it is. It will seduce you on the trip of logic, of conviction, understanding. That's what science does and that's beautiful. And if that doesn't harm other people and it's just, it makes them happy, well, it is what it is. Fantastic. But yeah, I wouldn't want to stop there because it has so much more to offer. The depth of that expressing, experiencing consciousness is infinite.

Why would I stop on the idea that there are two ultimate truths because the logic of the mind has convinced me on this one. The I don't know is so much freer. It's so much more open. And there is no mind in it. And existence shines forth because every idea mind brings in, it already takes, it deems that light. It really kind of takes the attention away from the mind. It takes it away from that pure light. Life, light, love, whatever. So without this body, I know you've broken down the idea that the body is all illusionary anyway. Without this body, the I am is just there.

I'm still, there's still the I am. I'm still experiencing the I am. No, no. That's the other side of the same coin. The I am is there, the I am is not there. They're two sides of the same coin. The answer is I don't know because in I don't know, you don't need to imagine what will happen when the body is not there. I was making this instant. In this instant, when the body is not there, the question doesn't arise. And if it arises, it is answered. Like experientially. Because when you close your eyes and the body is not there, you have the experience of being even though you don't conceptualize the body.

So the question is answered. Taking any position here, that it is like this or it is like that, is the same trap. And it also brings in time. Isn't that what you were saying? What's that? Isn't that what you were saying though? When you know the body is not there, the I am is still there. That's what I was trying to get at. But you're right, it's like when you close your eyes, there's no sense or very little sense of the body. The I am is there. And I know that as a person who sings or a non-person who sings, some people come up to me after I sing and go, oh that was fantastic, oh I really love your singing.

And I think what arises here is who are they talking about? You know, I've had that really profoundly. You know, who are they talking about? You know, it's just, I don't know. I don't know what the lyrics line up, but anyway, there it is. And you would have that as a painter. As a painter. Well, I have to say though that in deep meditation, I've been a meditator for decades, and almost everything that I have understood or experienced as a non-doer comes out of this deep silence. And everything is revealed in the deep silence. Because you as a person totally disappear as this, what you think you are, disappears.

And the only thing that remains is that pure awareness. And in the pure awareness, everything that is maybe that relates to your question arises as an answer. And it's completely experiential, but it is not you who is experiencing it. And that's why I really understand the truth of it. But it has to be a silent, silent mind. And that to me is home. It is. It's the place you never left. That's the place you scream. The emptiness. And it's still with souls. Exactly. You can't force the light on anything outside of space. And that's always present. No matter what's going on. No matter what acting is going on.

Whether you're meditating or not meditating, or there's a lot of thought, or there's no thought, or you're singing, or you're painting, or you're cleaning the house. It's always there. You can't escape it. That silent awareness is always there. That's what everything appears upon. That's all there is. There is a juicy comment here. Maybe you want to add something. Nasser says, The only thing that is certain is the I AM. Everything else is a belief. Beautiful. Now, we can choose what beliefs we have. And we know that even the who I believe I am is a concept. So my question is, who chooses what beliefs we hold?

Is it the I AM? Beautiful. Bob, you want to answer? Well, choices are made. But who is the choice maker? Yeah, that was what he asked. That's what he asked. Is it the I AM? The sense of presence? The ultimate reality that chooses? It's the ultimate reality, yes. It doesn't, but it's not a choice. No, it's not choosing. It's the same way as the ultimate reality doesn't choose the fetus to grow from the sperm and ovum, or doesn't choose the acorn to sprout into a tree. There is no need to choose. The way we actually anthropomorphize the decision making and the choice, the choosing, the choices, is really not necessary because that innate intelligence doesn't need the act of choice.

It is, yeah? Choices are made, but there's no choice maker. So what the choices are, they're only a preference idea of a choice. If there's no choice maker, it just unfolds of itself. Yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to say. In a different way. Yes, yeah, well, yeah. The intelligence doesn't choose the flower to bloom. It is already ingrained in the pattern. So which beliefs we are going to choose is already ingrained in the pattern. It is a consequence of every previous, so-called previous, every second of existence of that pattern. Just unfolding. Yes, yes. That's right. Beautiful. It's the same way as the river doesn't choose where to flow, it may seem like the river chooses to go through this one or some debunks or whatever.

They are apparent choices, but no choice makers, they're just happening. Yeah, but at the same time, when he asks, is that I am, or that ultimate cognising emptiness, yes, because there's nothing else. There's nothing else, there is just a story. There can only be that I am. There's no I in Regling, there's no I in choosing. Say it again, no I in choosing. There's no I in choosing. In my experience, there's no choice on any level whatsoever. Just unravelling, and that's a fiction as well. I can see choices that are just so imaginary on every level. Unravelling is trickier because it's more useful as a pointer.

No, it's good. But really, that's just an imagined mechanical universe, and it's not even that. There's a quantum thing happening. That's just a story. We don't know. That's exactly right. Yes. So the second statement was there, that we can choose what beliefs we have is actually incorrect because there is no we. The we is the illusion, and the choices, the we, the illusory, the choices, the we makes is also illusion by nature, but definition. There are only apparent choices like Bob said. Or apparent choices, as Bob said. The so-called free will. Apparent free will. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And Nasser says thank you too.

Thank you.