Nonduality, Sailor Bob, Sailor Kat and friends

Hi everyone. Nice day today. We're looking at the usual, what we talk about, what they call non-duality. Non-duality meaning one without a second, or not two. And that's the basis of it all. And recognised and realised down through the ages, there is only one essence. It's patting, shaping, forming, experiencing and expressing as all this so-called manifestation. And the manifestation is real, but not as it appears. It appears in all its myriad. It appears in all its myriad of things. But it is the one essence. It's expressing and patting, experiencing as everything. And you and I and every so-called body, mind and everything else is that same essence.

And the way it patterns, shapes and forms, and expresses implies it is suffused with an innate intelligence. That's why I use the term intelligence energy, rather than use the term God, because all the different traditions have different concepts, different labels, or different names of what they believe God to be. But most of them, they say that God is one. But most of them, they say that God is one. It is the only. And yet, when they're labelling the different things and dividing it up, we're losing sight of the true nature of it all, and our true nature. Patterns, shapes and forms which are vibrating in expression we call human beings.

We're being what we call human. And take the human of it. If you call God human, you're human. You're human. If you call God the supreme being, take the label supreme off it. And what's left without those labels supreme and human? Just beings. Now have a look at that. Can you negate your beingness? You really can't negate it. So if you can't negate it and you can't say what it is, that just can't be negated. It must mean that all it is. It is what is. What is means unaltered, unwhateverable. Unidentified, uncorrected. There is no thing other than that. The Mahavacca or the great mantra is I am that.

Innately we know that. That is a chair. That's the tree. That is the flower. That is the space. That is the sky. Everything is that. But just saying it's that, we see it as different. What are we doing? We've learnt words. We've learnt other words that do discriminate. The chair, the carpet, the tree, the flower, the human being, the being God, the being this, the being that. All labels, all words. And when you investigate it, you see the word is not the thing anyway. Can you drink the word water? Can you swim in it? Can you drown it? You can't. Can you cook with the word fire?

Can you heat yourself with it? Can you burn yourself with it? When you put this believed in entity that you are to the same test, what is this I that you call I? Can the I, can I see? Can I hear? Can I be aware? Can I choose? Can I think? We believe that. We're doing that. Not realising the seeing, the hearing, the thinking, the tasting, the touching, the feeling, the feeling. We're doing that. We're doing that. We're doing that. We're doing that. We're doing that. We're doing that. We're doing that. We're doing that. When you call theMask, you're teaching taste. The touch, the feeling, the avocados, the auditory brain, the brain waves, the sense.

The shape. conceptual image on ourselves, an image made up of concepts that are seemingly obscuring our true nature. It's not really obscured because it has no pattern, shape or form as absolute and all pattern, shapes and forms are appearing and expressing as it. All pattern, shapes and forms are it, but not how they appear. That is the reality. It's reality and truth is that which never changes but the pattern, shapes and forms that appears it and vibrates and expresses it are constantly changing. They are transient, constantly changing. And so we are the changeless which is appearing and expressing as change. That essence that is appearing in it is what is understood as the absolute, the great perfection, in which It is all there is.

And if it's absolute, with that word, what can you add to it? Nothing. What can you take away from it? So everything must be it. And when you look at that again, without taking away, all these manifestations must be things. The picture on the wall is a thing, the sofa, the tree, the flower, the leaf on the tree. All things appearing on that basic screen, which is no thing. Space is no thing. Has it got any boundaries? Is there an inner to it? Is there an outer to it? Is there any substance? Does it have any beginning? Does it have any ending? Does it have any point of reference anywhere?

It's not. So it is all no thing. So can some thing come from a thing? Come from no thing. It can't. So there you've got your answer to life, to everything. You are that no thing, which is everything. Because they can't be divided. Can't say it's either one or the other. But everything, all the manifestation is appearance as things. And all those things have a seeming beginning and an end. But the basic screen is never cut, touched or contaminated or corrupted by any of the things which appear in it. Any of the pattern, shapes and forms. When we take ourselves to be that pattern, shape and form, see the trouble it gets us into.

After all, I'm only human and I'm an unhappy or a fearful or an anxious label we put upon ourselves. And that sense of separation. Ourselves or myself. That's the worst one. We've taken ourselves to be a personal or separate or individual self. But the scriptures tell you, the ancients have looked at it and understood it and said, there's only one Atman, there's only one self. And it's that self that's expressing and appearing as everything. It's all self-aware. It's all self-knowing. It's all self-shining. It's self-hearing. And the seeing, the hearing, the tasting, the touch, the smell is going on. Here we take to be myself is not myself at all.

It's just a spontaneous functioning. You're seeing right now. You'll say, that's me. It's seeing, I'm seeing. But if you're not saying that, if you haven't got that label, have you stopped seeing? Whenever you open your eyes, the seeing is there. Even when your eyes are closed, the seeing is there behind your lids. But you're seeing, you know, it's the darkness. You're seeing the darkness. You can't see the light because it's obscured. The same with the hearing. The subtle sounds we don't see when we hear, the bit that's going on, they're really heard. The hearing is going on. We're hearing all these sounds and that's what words are, are sounds.

Sounds are a vibration and the vibration is sound. The vibration is a movement of energy. So it's all that, tasting, touching, smelling, thinking. Thinking's happening and you know that because when you ask, what's your next thought to be? You'll be, you'll say, I don't know. You don't know because it hasn't happened yet. But when it comes up, you'll know. The functioning is spontaneously going on. But there is no entity or individual or person that's doing anything at all. But it's seemingly, it needs patterns, shapes and forms to express through. In its absoluteness, how can there be any division in it? How can there be anything in it?

So it would be a manifestation for no one to see, no one to hear, nothing, no one to taste, don't just smell it. It'd just be going on. Which it does do when all life is taken away. When all life is taken out of it. Just the vibration, energy continues to vibrate into stars, galaxies, planets, whatever you like to call it. And that's those planets or stars or Earth, like this one on Earth, breaks up into Earth, water, air, space, all the elements. And this body will form. Appears or expresses through those elements. What's that manufactured? The same as everything else does. Shape and form comes into being.

And functions in this manifestation. And the pattern shapes and forms like this body. All the organs in it, the brain, the heart, the lungs, the blood, the sinews. And the intelligence in it forms it, enables it, has the capacity of reason. And it reasons out and learns words and reasons out. And we think we are doing things. But that spontaneous functioning, the innate intelligence knowing what to do. And same with the insects, the birds, the animals. The bees know to build a hive. The birds know to build a nest. So to form armies or amazing nests, nests with amazing things in them. Go out and do things in the world.

The same as we do. But we have been enabled, given, or not a matter of being given, but the innate intelligence has allowed the capacity of reasoning to come into these pattern shapes and forms. And that's what it does in other birds, in animals and insects. So we've reasoned a lot of these things out. And look what that capacity of reasoning enables us to do. Many, many things. But the thing is we haven't given credit where credit was due. And given to this life, this intelligence energy, we say, I can do this. I can do this. I can be the doer. And I have self-will.

I put the will on. If you didn't have that life essence in that body, you wouldn't be able to take a breath, open or close your eyes, hear a sound, take a bite and chew something, consume food or anything. So what you are is really this life. What we call life. I said life is the functioning, intelligence energy that's forming these globes, stars, patterns and everything that has ever manifested or ever likely to manifest. It is that life or energy which is an intelligence energy in the wondrous ways it can pattern, shape and form and express. But we've lost sight of that and suffered accordingly.

And that's what most of the talk, the thing you go around, how am I going to fix myself? How am I going to fix this mind? And we divide it up and the intelligence enables us to divide it up into a new array of this and physicists this and what and that and I can't even think of half the terms of it. And we think we're doing it all. But it's coming with the capacity of reasoning. We come to see, enables us to see and understand to a certain extent the way it's functioning. But in doing that, we've taken on the belief that I can do it.

I am the smart one, the intelligent one that can do it. Of course, you are, but you've lost sight of that, the intelligent one. The intelligence one that's pattern, shape and form is a separate individual. It's never lost its true nature as the intelligence one attributed to all these human patterns, types of forms. And that's where we get because it's a vibration and it vibrates dualistically and we take it to be the person, we see other than the person. When we see other and see the way it functions, vibrates in the opposite and look at the way it functions. It always functions dualistically. It divides up, seemingly divides up because there couldn't be one without the other.

There couldn't be the other without the one. That means there couldn't be any manifestation at all, ever stayed in this one. So it divides up into other than one, which is two or more. That's what happens. At the age of about two, two and a half, after we come into being or existence, and how do you come into being or existence? Well, go back to your father and your mother and you'll see that life essence, that animating intelligence energy form that pattern you call your father and your mother. And out of the parents, out of his parents, the form, the energy, the life essence within those patterns and forms are enabled through the food eaten and the prana, the air, the breathing, all the rest of it.

And they were a little microscopic particle called a sperm to form. It's formed from the innate intelligence in the body and the food essence, the essence of intelligence in the food, made intelligence functioning, enabled a sperm to form. And in the mother, it enables an egg or an ovum to form. And that egg and sperm are suffused with that intelligence. Because the intelligence, the ovum attaches to the egg, attaches itself to the wall of the uterus, implying and showing you that it is suffused with intelligence to enable us to do that. If it were just a blob of glue, like, you know, your saliva or something like that, which does its job in the mouth, but what do you do?

You spit it out. That's by that perspiration that's coming out of everybody. But this sperm forms, attaches itself to the wall of the uterus. And the sperm, the same, through the food essence, has the capacity of swimming, again implying it is suffused with the innate intelligence. And that intelligence knows what to do when it's through certain activities that the male and the female knows what to do. That sperm knows to swim. And it swims into the ovum and penetrates the ovum. And with that two-two coming together, again it grows from there because that cell doubles and doubles again. And the genes and whatever it is in both of them begin to form a little embryo, a little fetus.

And that's what you are today. It's changed, it's transient, like we pointed out before, it's transient. It's all constantly changing. It doesn't say the same, it changes. That a dozen, as many as the sperm's formed, and eggs, and they're not all fertilised and doubled, but then what happens to them? They go back into life again. Life is always continuing and life is always going on. Nothing is ever lost. It's a spontaneous absoluteness. Great perfection. Never, though it's changing like the ocean, the ocean is constantly changing, but yet, as water, it's never changing. Any wave goes back into the ocean. Any spray or sperm or what's in it goes back one way or another into it again.

So we have the capacity of reasoning. And that doesn't develop until we learn words. If I ask you when you begin, you'll say, I was born. Unless you've looked into the stuff, you'll tell me you were never born, like I'll tell you. But you can't remember your birth. You say you were born, you can't remember your birth. You were told it was such and such a date and such and such a year to such and such parent. Why can't you remember? Purely and simply because you had no words then. The capacity of reasoning hadn't developed. But the innate intelligence was there, just the same with the sperm and the ovum coming together.

The sperm doesn't reason that out, I've got to go to so and so. And the ovum doesn't reason that out, I've got to touch this. But the intelligence, they know what to do. So the same, we don't know we're born until we learn words. That's when the capacity of reasoning develops. So, I think, that's when the capacity of reasoning develops. And with that capacity of reasoning, we learn words. Our parents tell us these words, and we learn words from our parents. We learn words like I and me. And you can't do much with I or me. They're just two words, just like any word, you can't do much until it's investigated and you learn.

Put meaning into these words. Give them some meaning. And then you can visualize what is word. Words are just sound. Sound's a vibration. And a vibration's a movement of energy. And a vibration means it has no beginning, no end to it. It's just a throb, a pulsation, so it never moves away from its wholeness. Now it's seeming to vibrate into two. It never is. When we learn words, we take I am Bob the Australian, and we look out there, and see something that doesn't fit this pattern, shape and form that I call I or me. What happens? We become insecure. That's not me. So we're insecure about ourselves, and vulnerable.

Vulnerable, then. In the being absolute, now we've become vulnerable. With that sense of separation, and insecurity, and vulnerability. And what happens? We've learnt words, like fear, and anger, and when we feel insecure, it brings up a sense of fear in us. Or insecurity, or wonderment, or what's going to happen? And that's when our search lasts. Because we don't like looking out there and seeing something we don't know anything about it being involved with. And the animals know innately what's going on. And that's the thing, what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad for them. The animals are the dangerous, or the other insects or birds are the dangerous.

And we've learnt it to a certain extent, and as we go along with the capacity of breathing, we learn more and more. And go a bit further now. Now we can learn by trial and error, or whatever it is, to take out and eat certain foods. And we can today, with science and things like that, it's very useful. But we think we're going to find the answer. We still feel separate. Even though we are living. We're trying to become whole. Not realising, our parents never told us that we were whole and complete in the beginning. We've always been so. No matter how, what shape or form of pattern we appear in, we're always that absolute.

Because you can't take anything away from the absolute. We're always that. With the sense of race comes this insecurity, invulnerability. We believe it's me, or I, the person, the persona, the mask. Instead of seeing that we are that one essence, the absolute. It's pointed out in the Bible and many other scriptures, be still and know that I am God. They call God the absolute. Unless they be still and know that. But we don't. We think that God is something superior, something greater. Some old guy in the sky, or in the shape and form of a human. Because God made man in his image and likeness.

So we've taken that the wrong way and think we are in the image and likeness of God. God is the same as us, but far greater. A bigger thing. But not in the intelligence we've got and the capacity of reasoning we've got. That innate absolute, absolute knows how to fashion, shape and form spontaneously and naturally. Now we have that capacity to a certain extent when we learn to reason. But the capacity of reasoning has got us into a lot of trouble. The capacity is more developed than other animals, birds, insects. They have other capacities which are more developed than our capacity of reasoning. The bird has the capacity of eyesight and can fly, two things we can't do.

But through the reasoning we get pretty close to it or might even outdo it with the capacity of reasoning. We've learned to build ourselves glasses or binoculars or telescopes which enable us to see better. And birds can fly, we can't do that. The capacity of reasoning, we've learned to build planes, helicopters, kites, balloons and things like that that enable us to fly. So it's a very useful capacity. But you see it also vibrates in the opposite way and it's self-destructive. We've learned to build ourselves guns and ammunition and dynamite and things like that. Blow ourselves up and other people up. Go to war with other people and poisons and things like that.

With some of the herbs and that, that can be very useful but some of them can be poisonous. So some of the herbs we've utilized for healing and things like that. And others we've used for poisons and things like that to kill us. Pesticides and all this sort of thing. Herbicides. So it can be self-destructive this capacity, and it is. Because it tells me I'm not good enough. I'm fearful when we've separated ourselves. They'll say I'm the totality. I'm unhappy, I'm depressed. Have a look and see how it functions. It's always functioning in the related opposites. And something comes up and I like it. How do you know?

Something comes up in the thought or the feeling or the emotion. I like it. How do you know? Well, I've seen this and had it before, this experience or liking it. And it's good. And that's why we want the good things. We've had taste of them before and they've gone away. And the bad things, the opposites, have come. We want the good things. We don't want it to go. And what do we do? We try to keep it there from this personal aspect. Try and keep it there. And we're resisting the functioning of life. The functioning of life, we're resisting it. And with that resistance, which is conflict, when you go to war or a fight with anything, you're in conflict with it.

And when you're in conflict, it makes you fearful, anxious, afraid, depressed, guilty, emotional. An uneasiness comes about instead of the ease of being, the love of being. The uneasiness comes about. And that uneasiness, another term for that is dis-ease. So there's resistance, conflict and dis-ease. Something comes up and I don't like it. One of the so-called bad things have come up. And I don't want it. We don't want these to happen. You know, we want the good things to happen, not realising they're going to change. Now the bad things have come up and we don't want that to be there. Not realising they're not stitched on us anywhere.

They're going to move away also if recognised and seen for what they are. We don't want it to go, so we try to throw it out. Get rid of it, push it away. So we resist it again. We're in conflict again. And that's constantly going on in our lives. Resistance, conflict and dis-ease. Pure moments when everything's alright, they don't last for very long. It's constantly transitioning and changing. The bad things come up. And the bad things seem to hang around longer because of that resistance. We don't allow it to be there. And let it go in its own way and own time by not fixating on it, giving it the attention.

And getting fixating on it and staying with it. Instead of leaving it be as it is. We leave the good things be as they are because we don't want them to change. They move away on us anyway. So what is, is the actuality. What is means just as it is in the moment. Unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. No trying to change it whatsoever. No preferences for it. No comparison. No partiality. Leave it as it is. And with that, it's spontaneous. Be joyousness, a sense of well-being. A sense of nothing wrong anymore. A sense of what we've been looking for all our life. But what do we do?

We grasp onto it, try to hold onto it, try and fixate on it. This is what I want. I want to be. And you see that. People get the taste of it. And I lost it. It went away. It didn't last. Because you wanted to fixate on it and keep it there. Instead of leaving it there. Letting it change and letting it will. And with the letting it be, it's not going to be, the bad's not going to be as bad as it seemingly was. It can be handled. And the good not fixated on it. The other one might stay around a bit longer. Because if you're not fixated on one or the other, like if the cloud's no longer recognises it's attached to the sky, it moves on.

It doesn't know, but, you know, the cloud itself, the sun, the heat of the sun, causes the cloud to come up into the sky and evaporates it. Or brings it down as rain. When the cloud disappears, there's more clarity. In the space. In the screen. In which it appears on, there's more clarity. And with the light of the sun in it, it's bright. It's clear. It's empty. But we're trying to find the answer in the mind. With the thinking, we're going to, the thinking's been very useful for us. Been very destructive for us also. We think it's more useful than it is destructive. So we're going to utilise it and make it all better.

But it doesn't happen. And when you realise that, you've been looking in the mind for the answer all these years. It's taken you into many different things and many different places. But it's always seemingly lost. Goes away. And then the struggle goes on. Leave it as it is and see how it unfolds. See what comes about from that. That's what we point to. Ask you to look at. I've gone on long enough. Some of you have very good questions. I've seen it. And recognise it. And can give good pointers like similar, or probably might even be better, ones that are coming out here. Whatever innate intelligence or reasoning is behind it all.

But so get into it. And others might be coming to it for the first time or things they don't understand. But you've got to look at it. Don't hesitate to ask. And see some point that might resonate with you when you hear it. I had to go to this Agadatta and I heard what he was saying. He was just pointing it out. Simply and clearly. And I heard it where I'd heard it many times before. But it didn't have the same effect. This time it did. It was seen. So you never know who's going to resonate with it. So get into it. I'll read. A lot of nice questions and comments.

I didn't read it very carefully. But I'll start from the end. Welcome everyone. Hope you're having a good day. We started the day from the carcass outside the building. Had to go out and call the ambulance and see if everyone's all right. But they've taken care. And nobody really injured badly enough to call it a bad day. I think they've been lucky. John David says, Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone. Nisargadatta. What an elegant sentence. Yeah, well I point that out constantly.

Yeah. It's a good quote. It's a beautiful quote. And the truth's in it. Yes. There is one from Larry. So Bob, the thoughts and concepts that are arising presently are empty of substance. They arise and disappear in a moment and don't amount to anything. This leaves simple seeing and knowing as it is without someone that is seeing. Does understanding go any further than this? Is that enough? When the seeing and knowing is not enough? Is there a spontaneous, it's happening by itself? See what comes out of that. It'll come out naturally, the joyousness and the love and bliss of being and all these things will happen.

Yeah, the understanding, the only understanding is that the answer is not in the mind. That's it. The rest you know. You know that you are. That's all. And insights are still flowing. They never stop. Like the intelligence of life or absolute truth, the absolute likes to blink an eye on itself in many, many different ways. So it kind of comes as a little aha moment which you can verbalize or maybe some of them you can't verbalize. The moments of joyousness or moments of seeing suddenly an angle of, you know, the basic understanding is that, you know, you are. That's it. There's nothing really more to it.

And there's a saga that says you come to disregard your thoughts and your fears and you disregard them. And I don't give them any power at all. Yeah. Recognize that. What are they appearing on? They're appearing on the basic screen. Mm. The mirror in which images appear. The imagination or the images appear on the mirror on the screen. There is a comment from Tanya. Great to see you again, Bob. Really lovely to speak to you yesterday. No difference between us. There is not two. The habit pattern shyness still comes up when talking sometimes. No judging thoughts about that believed in anymore. Thank you, Bob and Kat.

I am the absolute. Only thought says that I am not the absolute. But there is recognizing that that thought is just words and not the actual. Beautiful. Beautiful, Tanya. Don't forget it. Brilliant. Yes. And yeah, what a wonderful, what a wonderful sharing. For everyone who would like to maybe, you know, get in touch with Bob, that's what you may expect. You may actually see that there is no superiority in superiority. That his beautiful, humble clarity of being just a normal, ordinary guy who gives his heart into helping people break through from the suffering. And he's here. He's available. He's there. And then you can actually really see how simple.

And I have to go to a different screen now to read some more. A lot of beautiful good morning messages and love messages for which we say thank you. Rohan, if you can understand this little self never at any time had any existence outside your imagination, you will not be concerned with ways and means of getting rid of it. Amalai. Swami. Yeah, well, that could be also the one-liner of the understanding. The answer is not in the mind or there is no self. It's just the same as the saginata was saying. You're going to understand. Yeah. Yeah, the understanding is, because that's what Larry was saying.

Does understanding go any further? It is alive. It lives in you. So it doesn't go further because it doesn't really go any further. It doesn't go anywhere. It's here. It's... Well, there's... But it unfolds. There was Pantajali says, you know, it's right understanding is all. And the saginata says right understanding. Yeah. Just the right understanding. It's all. Basic understanding. What's another term for understanding? Knowing. Knowing, yeah. Or realizing or recognizing. Yeah. Understanding. Cognizing. Cognizing. And it sometimes goes with the notion that this is something for which you need the bright mind, intellect. And this is not this type of understanding. It is not the type of understanding that you learned from the book.

It is the understanding that is innate. You were born with it. As a little baby, you are already aware of the existence. That is innate. It's always there. If it was something that can be gained or lost, it is part of the appearance. It's passing phenomena. It's transient. It's not worth it. If there is an understanding that you think. Nobody would hear that. Yeah, that's the, I don't know which stage of the relationship when you actually do these things in front of each other. That was a spontaneous. You are the family. Spontaneous, it's an ingestive explosion going on. No doer. Yeah, so the understanding is what's always been there.

And it is only seemingly obscured by thinking. When the thinking stops, the clarity of existence is obvious. Even when the thinking is there, you can't deny your existence. And that's the basic. That's the basics. If there is something that you need, you can get if you listen to longer or more or read more books. That's something that you get. That intellectual grasp that you get is not worth it because it's temporary. And it depends. Even it even depends on the computer. You get Alzheimer's and you lose it. So what's the worth? So the understanding is recognition. I like that word. Yeah. Because it's a cognition again, cognizing again.

Something that has been somehow not even forgotten, but kind of lost sight of. You use the word losing sight of it. Losing sight of the most obvious here-ness, here-ness, here-ness. What's here? What's here? Yeah. Someone you know goes away for a long time, a few years come back, and you can recognize them. Yeah. More sharing? Love itself is expressing. Tanya says, beautiful Rohan. Thanks for sharing and so true. Interesting thoughts naturally and spontaneously falls away. The more that you investigate and see what actually is. That's true. It is beautiful to hear the absolute expressed through you with such love. That's Bill. Amarnath, seeing is being.

Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, there is no seer, seeing really. Seeing is happening and the thought I see is not the seer. Yeah. Jessie, life is not a metaphor. It cannot be compared. It is not a smile. It cannot be like anything. It leaves us. We do not leave it. Yeah. I'm just eager to hear from you. I haven't been in touch for a while. Yeah. Yeah. He says, I miss you. You say you miss him. That's really nice. Yeah. Life leaves you. That's the main point. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. That is kind of the main point. Like, yeah, I had a conversation the other day with someone who says that it's very, very easy to actually recognize that life is breathing you. It's beating your heart. It's growing your hair. That is undeniable but it's harder to not take credit for the thoughts but when you actually see how life is also throwing the thoughts because there are no thoughts ever unrelated to the rest of life.

They're always, the thoughts that come up, are in response of the environment, other inner environments. which will be the moods or inner landscape of inner weather or the outer whatever is happening they always completely related in one with the world with life itself yes no life no thoughts yeah what's your next thought gonna be you know that there's no thinking of a thought thinking is happening hmm comes up spontaneous through the activities in that pattern yeah so we think we are deciding for our thoughts or perhaps our reactions or we feel that we have some sort of a control over our responses yeah well we could say we have but who is that we if the we the I is the whole world manifesting us every single blade of grass and every every element of a moving particle of the wind then yes we have absolute control as the as the totality but if I say I have the control who is that I because my thoughts are depending on the rest of the world and are they depending on anything else than the world the body is part of the world the thinking habits the conditioning the past they're also part of the world so really the world which is life is doing decision-making is is choosing is responding is reacting is doing the Lord now the Rohan says if the truth is something that is gained then it will also be lost to even say I have understood it or even to say I understood it and I lost it is to admit an individual entity who understood it or lost it that's exactly right yeah that's That's why it's absolutely not even worthy of chasing, because it's not permanent, it's not the truth.

It's when you realise the words have got no power whatsoever. Stuff can be utilised, but they haven't got any power at all. No. No, if the truth is conceptual, it is completely belief-based. If it has never been, if it's not eternal, it's not truth. Truth is that which is eternal, which never changes. So the understanding cannot be verbal or conceptual, because for this you even need to learn the language. Yeah, beautifully said, Rohan. To even say I have understood, it has to be the I. And that's what usually starts the spiritual search. There is an I that hopes to be better, or to get something, or to become someone.

But along the way, when the investigation deepens, and when the clarity is, it's more prominent. That I is less and less. When you understand that you are the essence, you can use I as much as you like. But you know it's not a personal I you're talking about. Happening in non-happening, Armanath says. That's right. Yeah, nothing ever happens. And yet everything stands straight in front of your eyes. Beautiful words of welcoming in the morning, and yes, Bob will read them, because I see them now. He will read them all after the meeting. Good morning, dear ones. Good morning, lovers. You know, that's just, I think it was over 40 people saying it.

So yeah, please contribute. Otherwise I'll bore you with the messages that are, although really loving and sweet, but they're not on the topic. Hmm. Armanath. Knowledge is learned ignorance. Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi. Good one. I think I just remember because there is nothing else. Julia, what was it that you were saying on, I forwarded to you that Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, and Bob, they didn't really sit and spend hours and days and weeks of writing books to change the world or fix the world. If there are books with their authorship, it is because the students took the time to record the talks and scribe them and knock them down.

So there was a question. Julia still feels like she does have the book inside her and wants to bring it out. And what was the question? I'm not sure. Because roughly, you know, Nisargadatta and Ramana Maharshi and Bob never sung in public, and it doesn't mean that Johnny Cash has done something wrong singing. It is like, you know, every, every pattern in the nature has its calling. And if the calling goes up for you right now to write the book that you have inside you, that is already kind of trying to pour out, you know, the non-resistance is the right attitude. But the non-resistance applies also to the point where things get prioritized and you take your kids to, you know, to the road trip.

And everything happens as it should and everything unfolds as it should. And if there is an urge for getting motivated and accomplish the project, that's also life. Or join the workshop. That's also life. Everything's life. When the conceptualizing comes up, oh, is it right? Or, oh, they didn't do it. Or maybe I have some personal agenda. Well, this is all narrative. Just, you know. Throw it away. And give credit where credit is due. Are you sitting and writing your book? That's life doing it. Are you not doing it? That's life not doing it. And what should, would, could, that's rubbish. That's just, that's just the narrative self.

That's, yeah, it's just making a story and creating problems in concepts. Life is just so simple. It is just so simple. You address whatever shows up. The desire shows up to share something with people. And it happens or it doesn't. And you never know until it's done. And if I'm getting it wrong, please correct me. I know you're here with us. Did you want to add anything on this one? What Julia was asking in the morning? I can't remember. Hmm. You shouldn't be admitting it. Nothing more comes up. Jane says, thank you, Bob. I could listen to you for hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the right frequency.

It's a beautiful frequency. I haven't got eight hours left in me. Oh. Yeah. He will talk for hours if you ask questions. Some days he sits on Skype and there's call after a call. Some other days there's no calls. But yes, you have hours in you. Yeah. Yeah. But it's the things we touched on this morning. Yes. By Rowan and Tanya and ... There was Larry and Amar. Murray, yeah. Yes. We were right to the point, yeah. Yeah. The point which has no point. And Jessie's saying life is not a metaphor. Yeah. Cannot be compared. It's not a smile. It cannot be like anything. It leaves us.

We do not leave it. Yes. There is no us to leave it. There is just you. Yes. There is just you, you and me. Yes. Yes. There is no us. Yes. Yes. There is no us. There is no us. it that is just it nothing else yes it is life expressing as life like everything else is yeah yeah yeah like when you say this one essence expressing us everything expressing us the body and through the body this is the same expression the words the ideas the books that come through that body our expression of that one life but the body itself is also expression of that life the thoughts including the negative thoughts including their self-pity shame guilt and remorse they also expression of that and the ego the self the sense of separation the suffering that is also an expression of that because there is nothing else and all of it is nothing because it is just a vibration transient temporary appearance like a like a smoke or rainbow so that's that is only that moment now in this moment that unique fleeting dreamlike appearances can be appreciated and regardless what the appearances are if the appearance is a headache that is also a temporary appearance that in in personal manner it could be appreciated including the pain that goes with it the resistance to the pain that goes with it and medicating it and all of it the whole landscape on the deepest level has been alive then it is all connected to the un的时候的 and invited to that moment as you know it always just looks at itself the absolute the infinite the emptiness it is looking at itself in all those changing forms and they have to be dualistic they have to be opposites they have to be extreme because they are they have to because they are and if they weren't there would be no appearance for anything to exist it has to appear on its opposite for the form to exist it has to appear on appear on the emptiness and the form has shape and color with no with no form there would be no shape or color they all interrelated they all depending on one another like when moving the branches of the trees it's a beautiful sunny day here but this is windy day to blink up a moment yeah I kind of feel that my job is to make you speak and I'm doing my best but sometimes he just yeah happy in the silence and finding the finding the attraction of the silence and finding even a sort of a devotional love and admiration for that silence and developing the taste for that silence is something that could be modeled on something that could be modeled on another thing that could be modeled from this beautiful man.

Just enjoying the being because ultimately everything else is just a dream, it's just passing phenomena. And the being is the screen, is the basic essence, is something that you can totally trust, something that is always there. And that being also, when the attention goes back to the being, that same attention is not out there in creating problems and suffering. So that's also the way home. I can hear the cat, I'll just be right back. Tell us about your adoration, admiration and affection for silence. Not too, so how can you be me admiring or anything? It is. That's just what is. Silence is not there. Silence is absence of sound.

And sound is the absence of silence. When we're babbling on, even though it's both taking place as silence, we don't recognize the background that everything's taking place. It's always and ever constant. Yes, absence. Just notice what you are not. We have a couple of messages. Sally. How many people are in fear right now with the pandemic? Bob, can you share your thoughts about death? What can you say about death? Can there be the absence of life? When there is only, as Nisargadatta says, there is only life. In which patterns, shapes and forms appear, play, expresses everything. When the forms break down, it's what you call death.

But we are not. We are not. We are not. Where do they go? What happens to them? The forms are mire, as it tells you in the scriptures. They are things. The cognizing emptiness, or the non-dual, one essence, is no thing. It is not a thing. Can something come on that screen of no-thingness? It can't. So if all these things are appearing on the screen, something is happening. It's not a thing. It's not a thing. If something is appearing on the screen, seemingly real, they are still no thing. Just like the movie on the screen. It's appearing there, seemingly real, but has it touched the screen at all?

It's not, It's no thing. So when something cannot again, nothing, what's born and what dies? What was born is the thought I am. Mm. when you learn words, that's when it's born, when you recognise your birth. When the mind is seen through, those thoughts will still come, but they've lost their sting. How can you believe in something you know is false? It comes up, and you can spout them, say them, do what you like, like these words are coming out now, but they are seeming things but in reality they are the same silence, the stillness, the screen on which they are appearing, just the same as the images in the mirror.

You can't say they're not there. Go up and try and grab one. What do you grab? The mirror. So are they anything other than the mirror? But they appear to be images in it. We appear to be images. We are the images in this basic screen of intelligence, energy or awareness. But can you be anything other than the intelligence, energy, the reality, the absolute? Know that for certain. Then you can say, think and do whatever comes up. It doesn't matter. That's what that little scripture, little text says. Little text, beautiful little thing. That's what I call Bo. When he realises, he says, I am I, who is consciousness.

Instead of he saying that I is the conscious, not the I am the consciousness, not the I am the thought, which is a man. He says, what? I am the consciousness. All this, I am I, who is consciousness, all this is fictitious, as a dream. What does it say? What does it matter? What I say, think or do? Thinking in us, doesn't mean to say I'm not going to think. I throw my hat in the air and dance for joy. But it's true. And David, the dancer. So that's your thoughts on death. Hmm. Yes. Yes. Yes. Tanya says, you're doing so well, Bob. So lovely to see how you look after each other.

Bob and Kat, thank you. And Amarnath, without reference point of self-centre, there is no opposites patterns, too. I'm not quite sure about that. Yeah, I don't quite, quite sure what Amarnath, what you mean without reference point of self-centre, there is no opposites patterns, too. Like the, they, you day and night our cats doesn't create the self-center it doesn't have an ego but it kind of seems like he experienced day and night hunger and and and food and all of the appearance without having a reference point to the self the conceptual reference point the appearance the dream still still seem to be appearing no self or nothing other than so but you might you may just happen yeah yeah perhaps you might think the opposites as you label it you know like i i'm not quite sure uh yeah anyway i lost it oh yes without reference center there is no opposites patterns okay uh john david i lost a friend today and i would also like to hear thoughts about death thank you for asking what i kept silent about so sorry to hear john this is yeah this is ouch ah yeah you just yeah you probably need to hear more about uh your own heart calling for acknowledgement of pain than uh than of death because i don't know maybe what you said about death you know there really is no death it's just energy doesn't can't be destroyed it can only change form uh yeah i've lost the friends too it hurts it's still another pattern in the absolute or appearance in the absolute what can you enter can you touch the absolute no so any of the so-called things that take place in it which are nothing but the absolute they can't be heard yeah and i i've seen a couple of other people were asking recently about they had a situation with uh loss of a parent or a spouse and they were not able to talk to a friend and the question was about how to deal with the emotions that come up and yeah i would say be grateful for whatever shows up because you wouldn't really want to be heartless and neutral because every pattern of energy every especially human pattern that you call friend which means that has been a heart to heart and that was a beautiful precious connection that is the existence of that person with the depths and the dreams and the goals and desires and idiosyncrasies and habits and all of it it seems like such an intricate piece of art that has been created and and grown for so long with such a pietism with such such an investment of energy and attention and it's suddenly all gone like a sand mandala that was created for the monks for weeks and weeks and then just swept away seems like such a waste such an investment in that beautiful pattern and such a heartless dismissal of its existence that's how it may seem on the level of the heart when i lost my best friend to suicide that was ouch but at the same time it kind of makes you appreciate that transience even more that everything that is right now you value it so much more because it's not eternal it is mortal and i think that was also what came up when when sally asked about death i don't really think people consciously fear their own deaths they fear the pain and the suffering associated or the pain and psychological suffering associated with the sense of loss that they are imposing on others let's say if there is a mother of six dying of cancer and she doesn't know how her children are going to be without her of course that's a normal suffering but this is not and the fear as well but this is not because oh yeah i won't be there that concept is not even thinkable nobody can even imagine their own non-existence so it doesn't really cause anything i mean it may cause you to kind of try and run away from the thought but that's about it the thought cannot be imagined so it can't be feared that's what what comes up for me as the most kind of drastic and tragic about dying nothing just cuts a switch on the vacuum cleaner and freak themselves out of it how do you do that must have been you know stepping on them there can be a terrible sense of grief and mourning will let that happen yeah and i would also go but go back and look at your life you know you always everybody's lost somebody i think along the way yeah if not somebody it would be something yeah it's just because loss is constant i mean you've been child you're not things that you know everything has expired out in the appearance because that's the nature of it i would also translate that sense of grief or sense of heartbreak with love because it is because of love if you didn't care if it didn't matter there would be no grief so that grief is only here because there was a great appreciation and love towards the past and there areULAR love in the past because those things are here theils as in the past i know that i know my feelings are here and the world has changed quite a lot from what it was before there has not been and people are now going back to it's more like a confident life now i think there is this that pattern that is done unavailable now and is it really unavailable because what i've noticed when i lost my best friend she was there i would sometimes sit by the table and kind of forget myself in the commentary and dialogue oh yeah she's just coming back oh i must i must not forget to tell her this and to share this and to share that and after an hour i realized she's not coming back she didn't just go around the corner she didn't didn't just go to the bathroom she's gone bathroom she's gone for good but that's a thought because for that one hour she was with me fully completely.

I sometimes people I know years back and thought comes up about them why I don't know I are but then I ask myself would there be anybody else in the world right now that would be thinking of that person and they wouldn't be because they've all died and even though. How about people 10,000 years ago? Yeah what you think of them right now? Yeah. You can imagine if you don't know them but you can only imagine. How about people you meet in your dreams? Yeah. They evaporate and yeah you can't even say they die but they're gone. Different images of those who are critical. Christians have got different images of Christ.

Yes. Yeah. It's hard to remember every day but there's no sense of grief there or in England. It's just a well what would you say a gratitude or something that you knew him that appeared in my life for a while. Oh yeah. Yeah. And others along those lines too. Yeah. I heard quite a few people who I met coming here saying that every morning when they wake up they are filled with gratitude that Bob has shown up in their lives because their lives have transformed and become really easy and really simple and really present and really grounded in what is rather than in the imaginary dramas that are not.

Yeah. Quite a few comments like this I heard. So I would say I would say that you can be with that John. You know see how intense, how often and how long lasting the feelings I think is part of the human journey. The main point is that realise that you are life. Mmm. And they whoever they were or are life also and are still alive. Yeah. Out of life more life comes. Mmm. Different patterns, shapes and forms. The rain drop water. The rain drop water. The rain drop water. Yeah. The rain drop water. The rain drop water. The rain drop water. The rain drop water.

The rain drop water. Yeah. The rain drop water. Yeah. And you know I think that's the way you want to see it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. water falls onto the earth, gives life to a seed that's there, or another one might fall into the river, then it flows back down into the sea again, and all the water in the sea, it's all coming. Where does it go? Does it finish with it? Yeah, life's not lost. It's just the form that is lost, the costume is lost. Our fear imposed on others both are false. Yeah. Bradley, what is the significance of this knowing that I am for one who is seeking?

Bob, what is the significance of this knowing that I am for the one who is seeking? For the seeking. For the seeking. seeker. The seeker, the seeker thinking, he doesn't know the true I am. He thinks I am is the person. I am seeking. But if I am the absolute, where is the seeker? That's right, yeah. He disappears into and as the absolute. Yeah, so the significance for the seeker of understanding and knowing that I am is absolutely crucial. That's what Nisargadatta was saying to seekers. Just stay with the I am. Discard everything else. He was calling it a diamond of good fortune. And the I am he's talking about is a sense of presence.

Not the person, not the body, not the mind. But that animating life which is happening right presently in this moment. And who are the life? God, does events in life have meanings or intentions or purposes? Or it's my mind who gives meanings from my imagination? Does life has causality or goals? Good question. Yeah. See what's true when you don't think. When there is no mind, there is no meaning, goal or intention. Yeah. There is no motivation. There is just doing, just action, just spontaneous living. When the mind comes, it gets the narrative on top of it. Let's say I am cooking and the mind comes and says, oh yes, I am cooking because my values are like this and because my intentions are like this and because my motivations are like this.

But without that narrative, there is just still cooking. We enjoy our stories about the motivations and intentions and goals in our life. But we would enjoy them with no suffering if we knew they were just stories. It's no problem to have them. It's okay to have them. They are sweet. They are beautiful. But if we take them for reality and then we project our motivations. Let's say people have horrible motivations in what they do to Bob, for example. And they project the same motivation on other people and they live in hell. They project it on Bob, on me, on everyone. They live in hell. If they would stop the narrative, they would stop the narrative.

Action would be happening. But there would be no hell. Of course, the same projection may be of pleasure. Oh, I am such a good person. I am cooking because I am caring. You know, they are stories. They can be enjoyed. But they should be recognized because that would make you immune to suffering. Amarnath Essence of life beyond pattern of life and death, mind. Which never born will never die. There are millions of bacteria in our bodies daily. For some reason I can only see half of it. I can't see more of it. Death is... Death lifts the veil completely to reveal the life itself. That is everything, Julia.

And John David, beautiful, he said, Kat, thank you so much. I really needed to hear that. Thank you. Mugti, the ouch is our limbic brain, our nervous system which experience the neural dance with the other. That's part of the dualistic experience of love as form. Grieving is sweet pain without resistance. Beautiful. Still only life expressing in both ways. Yeah. Hmm. Rachel, your comments, Kat, in response to this, I think, are very important. Yes. Kat, in response to John's comments about losing a friend was beautiful. Mourning is natural. Thank you, Rachel. Yeah, it is natural. It is... Yeah, you don't want to be zombie. You don't want to be a psychopath incapable of compassion and empathy like some people that we know who actually admit they have no compassion or empathy.

Larry, the answer is not in the mind. Full stop. It's so simple. Yes. That's the one understanding that mind needs to have. Only one. There is no further understanding if that is completely grasped. Absolutely true, Jane says. I'm grateful to Bob every day. So much love. Yes. Yeah. Jane is one of the... You know, I said I mentioned quite a few people who have that sort of approach that they wake up in the morning with the sense of gratitude. It's so touching. It's so beautiful. Because gratitude is sweet in itself. And they are not doing it. They are not consciously thinking it or bringing it.

It just comes up naturally like your thought of Nisargadatta. And yes, I was blessed to be in the presence of the one who took me to the other side. And I don't even have to think of the thought of gratitude because when I open my eyes, that's the first thing I see. Julia. I am one of those people who is thankful daily for Bob's presence. Not just Bob though. I'm grateful for everyone he introduced to me. Thank you too. Kat and Jane as well. And ditto, Julia. Thank you. We love you too. And animals mourn too, Sally says. Yes, they do. They do. Yeah. They do even on the chemical level.

You know, when you want the milk in your coffee and you have to rape the cow. Every year inseminate artificially and take the child away. There is still the hormones, the oxytocin running through the mother's body and they cry in tears. They suffer. They have no story of how evil humans are because otherwise they would just go and revenge on humans perhaps. But yes, there is absolute. There is an extreme pain. There is an extreme pain relating to the chemistry of the body. Tanya. Oh, even dogs. You know, the story of dogs dying on the owner's grave. That's such a beautiful touching stories. It's absolutely natural too.

Everything's natural. I mean, you know, gosh, this all is all nature. I echo the gratitude already expressed. Thank you, Bob, Kat and everyone. Thank you. That's for the man that shares here. Who is that? That's Tanya. Yeah. Yeah, it's the man is celebrated, but it's never enough that like keep showering love on him because it's absolutely no one I ever met in my life who deserved that more. And now I think the time has come because people start sending us thank you messages. Yeah. Yes, thank you. Okay, thank you all very much for listening and participating if you did. Yes. If you didn't, thank you.

But remember everyone, every pattern, shape and form is all ready. If you can like continue to indulge in the mind and the mind stuff, but realise that mind isn't behind it all, you are prior to thought. Because when you pause the thought, you haven't stopped breathing, your heart hasn't stopped breathing, your hair and fingernails haven't stopped growing, food hasn't stopped being digested, life's going on without the thought. So you're prior to mind. Or you are what they point out in the scriptures, the unborn mind. The mind without any concepts is not born. What's there, is there, is presence, awareness. And you are that. Keep recognising your true nature.

Love you all. Love you all. Yes, stay with the I am. Like that was mentioned just before, that's crucial for the seekers. I wonder, one comment I didn't see entirely, it was cut on the phone, but I hope it was the most of it. Beautiful day. Yes. Yes.