This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
The Linarysa Kraming, Gdynia, Poland Linarysa Kraming, Gdynia, Poland Linarysa Kraming, Gdynia, Poland My name is Larysa Kraming. I live in Gdynia, Poland. I know Kate for more than 25 years. She is my best friend. A few years ago I visited her in Melbourne in their house with Kate and Bob. They love each other. They are very happy. Bob is happy with Kate, Kate is happy with Bob. Their love is big. The The The Linesage terms for the Mawaraj-Maharashtra meeting are the following. Bob and Kat's relationship is a great opportunity to examine our own unconscious prejudices and beliefs that we all carry around what's acceptable. I believe they're serving the greater awakening of consciousness and I absolutely support their love.
Love is love. It's beautiful. The The The love that I see between Kat and Bob is absolutely pure. They have clearly seen through what isn't true and focus on what is true and that is love. Love I see from Kat towards Bob is like none other. She is just there and the relationship between them is just so beautiful to watch. And I'm so blessed to be a part of their life and to, I suppose, absorb in the truth of love. Okay. What's this about? So I going to it just a conversation really about relationship and how you two are together but not you said the other day to me for instance that you not in relationship there no relationship here So you talked then about the duality of relationship and yet and so I'm I'm curious I mean you're in relationship and how is non-duality and being in relationship that's not beyond what?
Well it's not a relationship. No, okay. Well the one essence. Our natural spontaneity is coming together. Yeah. Without a label. Without a label. Yeah. Got it. And that's the least expected thing that happened to me. I didn't expect this to happen. Yeah. It expresses in funny ways. It expresses in funny ways. Yeah. Once you drop all your concepts and expectations and ideas, I am happy to share my life with you. This is the last conversation we will have today. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask them. These are the questions that we will be answering. So, I am going to start with my question now.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to be here today. Thank you Bob and Kat for being willing to just spend maybe it's just 20 minutes or so just sharing a bit about how this experience of relating or togetherness or whatever, how that is. Yeah, I mean you've both obviously been in other relationships prior to this. Bob, if you would be willing to start by just sharing, if this isn't relationship, what is this? Well, it's a natural coming together, natural merging. When you look into it closely, there's really no relationship, all problems are problems of relationship, Relativity, relative to the other. And when they point out in all the scriptures, all the texts, that there's only one essence, patterning, shaping, informing, and expressing as everything, how can there be any relationship?
But we're conditioned to believe, and we believe that there is me and you. This and that, here and there and all, all our problems are dividing conceptually with the mind, and we never investigate them. And that's why they call it ignorance in the scriptures. Not that we're dull or stupid, but we ignore that fact that we are the one essence, expressing as everything, and focus into the sense of separation. I Am the Life, I Am the Life. What did Christ say? Forgive them for they know not what they do. We're not knowing what we're doing, really. We're causing the problems. In the case of Kat and myself, a natural recognizing something, Lately you might call it love or people, everybody feels a resonance with somebody around or something or that natural resonance came about and gone on from there.
Yeah. Naturally. Naturally, yeah. Without trying to become something or make something happen or prove it or stop it. Just let it, what naturally comes up, comes up. And I explained that in the term, in the idea that everybody has a concept about, you'll have a concept about everything. And everybody will have a concept about you. And when you have a concept about yourself, I have a concept about myself, or I did have, I am a person who is not so prominent now as I used to be. It used to give me a lot of trouble. When you ask yourself which concept would be right, you realise there is no concept right because all a concept is is a mental construct a thought up pattern or an image And if I have got no image about you or myself or anything else who can ever be superior to you Who can ever be inferior to you?
And what would you want of the other person when you know you are complete as that one essence itself? Do you need anything from anybody or want anything? So that natural coming together becomes more apparent and naturally happening because there's no struggle. What's here instead when there's no needing anything? Well, just a natural living, a natural beingness, in which thoughts, feelings, emotions will still come up, but they're not fixated on, not attached to. So, if they're not fixated on, they're free to move on. And everything is constantly changing, it's transient. There's nothing static anywhere at all. It's all transient. We don't realise that. That this body that's sitting there now is changing.
There are thousands of cells dying out right now, right at this moment. And new, fresh and new cells replacing it. And that's the same with everything in the manifestation. Including this connection, this resonance? Yes, we're both getting older or changing, thinking different thoughts and feelings. But when we recognize again that the thought is not the thing, the words not the real, and so we're putting labels on it, just discriminating it, and we get locked into the label, into the discrimination. If it's one, it's total, it's absolute. And how can it ever change from absolute? Because what can you add to it? What can you take away from it?
Nothing. But keep recognizing that it is a totality. And so... Well, God or this, that, or the other, there's different terms for God. When they tell you in the Hindu scriptures, I don't know whether they do it, probably all the others in different ways, it's omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, total presence, total power, total intelligence. It's totality always, it's absolute. I'm here to express the nature resonance. Let it express what it does. Oh, it's expressing. Yes, it's expressing right now, yeah. Kat, what would you say, how would you describe what happens here in this connection with you two? He's been a widower for over four years himself.
And he didn't need anything or anyone in his life, he was complete. And I was heartbroken and I was devastated and I was just emerging out of the relationship that failed. So I was committed not to be in the relationship ever again and if not ever, at least 12 months. And then, yeah, he showed me through the idea of self. And when I saw the idea of self as the idea, I could not identify as me anymore. It wasn't me, it was an idea in me. I was unknown. I was the unknown space of whatever consciousness. And the idea of me was floating, and the moment it was seen, it just collapsed.
So at this point, all other ideas dropped. I mean, some ideas probably still hanging around, But the ideas of wanting or not wanting a relationship, choosing my destiny or hanging out only with people my age, which I did for almost all my life with two other relationships that I had. But at this point, when I was completely empty of any ideas, I didn't have any prejudice or any notions or any agendas. I just wanted to hang out with him because he was the only one who was actually really on the same page with me in expressing what happened when that consciousness stopped identifying as the idea of me.
So we've been hanging out every day for a few months, just catching up and going shopping or going for lunch. And I was radiant, I was, oh gosh, I was like I didn't sleep at night, I was so relieved of that burden that I was carrying around, burden of incompleteness and pain and un-lovability and all that stuff that comes with the sense of being not enough, that sense of void. And at some point I was holding his arms, at some point he grabbed my hand and the feeling, the tingling feeling of oh my God, wow! And no resistance to it, even though my prejudice ideas about age and everything.
The yes that life was expressing, like I remember telling my mum at some point, I was at the point that look, you know, this is just the most amazing thing that one could imagine. It's so against everything I knew and believed. How could you even consider hanging out with someone twice your age in a way that actually brings the male-female romantic aspect? It's crazy. And my mum said, well, you're setting yourself up for a lot of pain because you're going to get attached and you don't really have a future. And I say yeah you right Perhaps we do have two three years like Bob suggested two three years together So I said I totally committed to giving him the best two three years if not of his life because obviously he would probably have a better one in his 40s but the most beautiful 2 years that I could possibly give him I am a Katis Monder.
4 years ago I have been visiting my daughter in Melbourne just to see how it is going with her love of life. And I found it very nice, very beautiful couple. Their relationship is excellent. I wish to everybody have like that. And that was over four years ago, so I guess the two, three years double, triple and quadruple. Amen. Because that commitment, this is again a byproduct of seeing and stopping identifying as the concept. Bob was talking about having a concept of yourself. And the concept of relationship. Yeah, absolutely. When you stop identifying as that, you don't have the self. You don't have yourself anymore to worry about.
You don't have that selfishness. Bob had a beautiful relationship before, and I had a nice 17-year-long marriage also where I imagined I was reasonably happy and we had a good life. But it was always that selfish aspect in it. I'll give him everything, I'll love him, but what's in it for me? What am I gonna get? How am I gonna change so he accepts me, so he loves me the way I want? Here, without having a personal agenda, without him giving me anything in return, and getting that everything actually as a byproduct, Because he does not believe himself to be a self either. So he is only giving.
All his life is about giving. He is giving constantly because he doesn't need anything, he doesn't want anything. So what am I getting is love completely unconditional. He does everything to make me happy. When we go around the block I do it so he has the exercise. Or when we go to the pool so he gets stronger. But he does it to say yes to me. So he does it really for me, I do it for him, so things get done. But this is not me wanting something, it is him giving. So there's a flow of giving and obviously receiving from the other, and it's just a mutual flow and there's no other agenda, that's what I'm hearing.
Yes, it's not just in the personal, so-called personal relationship, That's in life itself, you know. When you recognise you're complete, whether you might seem to have nothing or not too much, you know, what do you want from the, as I said, what do you want from the other person? So just be open to them. It doesn't mean to say that everybody's going to walk all over you. Spontaneous response will come up. It's not happening. It's not like he says, it's not that everyone will be all over you because you don't have any self-defense. You don't need the self-defense, but if the pattern of personality is strong, there's no way anyone is gonna walk over you.
As safe as you are as a pattern, the condition of the pattern is, if it is strong, I think that's another beautiful thing. He never tells me what to do, I never tell him what to do. That's the beauty, there is no manipulation, control or trying to get something from the other. That is when I actually, couple of days ago I wanted to go to the beach but he didn't feel like it, he said no and that was no disappointment in that no. That was like I believe him, if he doesn't want, I don't want him to do that. And this is the beauty because the respect in this that comes from absolutely honoring that whatever he is doing is what he wants to do.
I am a woman. I am a woman. I am a woman. I Am. I am the one who is giving something to you. I am a person who is not aware of the existence of the mind. I was not taking much notice of her at all, just as what was going on in the group and what we were sharing in that respect. We shared with a lot of other people too, but it naturally blew me away. As I say, give the seed a little bit of sunlight and a bit of warmth and a bit of water and it just blossoms. There's something that you both spoke about and I've heard this spoken about you know in another relationship coming from a similar sense of not-self, this sense of there being an energetic kind of resonance or an energy that was drawing together to create this sense of togetherness yeah how do you know that differently than what a lot of other people would say is lust?
Oh, complete difference. The lust is more head stuff. This is seems more core spiritual core of being. I have no idea any such thing as spirit or heartfelt, and you know what that means anyway, but it will realise more exactly what it is. And what happens if there is a difference or do you have conflict? Does conflict arise or can conflict not arise if there is not too... Conflict and resistance might come up, but then it also comes up, hang on a minute, what's this? Who's this happening to? Well, it's happening to me. You know, instead of relating it to the me anymore, so it's just another functioning like the clouds come over the sun.
Is the sun trying to disperse the cloud when the sun forms the cloud itself or not? It just happened. So the conflict might seemingly come up but it's not where it before, you know, you relate to it and brood on it and brood on it and it'll grow and grow. This is the same old rubbish and let it go and it must disperse. Yeah. Smile comes upon each of us. Usually after a few minutes. So what is it that you just see through that moment of there being a personal self who's defensive or annoyed or, you know, covering up, justifying, whatever, there's just a, or does it just, it's just a pattern.
Thanks. I've known Bob for over 15 years now and I met Katerina about five years ago and I've watched this beautiful romance flourish. It was first a friendship, this wonderful friendship between Katerina and Sailor Bob and during that period of time it flourished into a romance and into a beautiful love story, into a marriage. And to see Sailor Bob, he has blossomed during this time with this beautiful woman and this lovely lady has also, both of them have blossomed. And they are the most beautiful couple and our best friends, our dearest friends. And Raymond? Yes, I've known Cat and Bob for approximately five years. Bob being a man's man, an ex-army man, he's done himself very proud and snared a very beautiful woman in Catarina.
I wish them the best and I hope their love continues. Absolutely, well said. And also, just a note, we actually hosted Bob's 90th birthday here at our house and we were honoured to have them both here. So again, we wish them both all the best. Thank you. So thank you, thank you Bob and thank you Kat for coming back to have some further conversation. And today what I really wanted to focus on was conflict and I'm curious if conflict happens in your relating or not or if it does, what does it look like? Resistance. Say more. Conflict is resistance. And it's resistance that makes you unhappy, distressed, fearful, anxious.
Conflict is resistance and resistance is disease, uneasiness. Those things make you uneasiness and disease. Now, so-called relationship, there's no conflict in it whatsoever. It's the one essence. Take your lesson from nature always, because nature, it's all nature anyway. Everything, when you look at it, functions dualistically, functions as it appears. Male female winter summer a magnet north and south it all energy And so there is a natural attraction in that energy If you going with the attraction more than with the conceptual image we take each other to be and function you're on the point of other than the one, that is conflict, that's the conflict again.
But if you learn to recognize it, what makes you a male and female come together in the first place? There was a natural attraction there. Can I check I'm understanding what you're saying? So you're saying that there's a natural attraction and conflict is, it's either focusing into the attraction or focusing into the conflict? Am I? Well, the conflict puts a stoppage to that natural direction, this feeling that it's not right. And so more resistance comes. And you said resistance is conflict. Resistance is conflict and conflict is disease. That's the anger, the fear, the resentment, the guilt, the shame, all these come up there, the results of this resistance.
Now, is day resisting night? Is winter resisting summer? Is north resisting the south? It's not. Where do they meet, the north and south? They meet at the equator, where that equilibrium is. And when you're with the other and you're not, you're really open to that natural attraction and see where it takes you, and like in nature, if it's where it's meant to go, it'll go there. If it's not, the resistance will get worse. And so does resistance or does conflict, are you saying that that necessarily means then That it's not a right relationship? Well, not necessarily. It can be a right relationship if there is an open to us.
Instead of going into the resistance and carrying it on, ask yourself who is it happening to. If it's happening to you, look and see again who you believe you are, because you're probably believing of what you think this relationship should be like. Not realising it's constantly changing. And that on me, however it appears, We want it to go the way we think it should. And that doesn't help the resistance or it makes it worse. Yeah, so if you have a look and you see where the resistance is coming from, that's coming from an expectation, from an idea and a concept of what should be happening.
Which is me. Yeah, from a me who's got all this story and concept. Yeah. I like her, I like her, but she did this to me, the bitch. And I hate her. Yeah. I can fit like that. But see what initially took you there? Open to it, and it just happens by itself. I had no idea of getting together, but something moved within me. Well, it was really a heartfelt thing, you know, when they say it's from the heart. And how do they predict love and all the stories? In the heart, don't they? But people take it to be the physical heart. But heart is the core of your being or the center of the spirit.
And every one of us knows what heart to heart means. You felt your heart come out to this one and that one, when you've had to hear this story or whatever, and you moved, you opened to it and moved to merge with it. So almost in a way, do you think you could say that at the beginning, the very first, when you first meet, in a way that in loveness, is that showing us what the potential is of being together without all our defenses and resistance? Initially, that natural attraction is there to everything. Usually unblocked. I am more open to it and let it do happening.
No, when it really happens, conceptual idea, this is the one, it mightn't be. You never know, if it's not that, that's not the one, that might lead you to the one. And is there a one out there? No, it's all one. That's right, it's all one and yet the... The idea of separation comes about because we've taken up a conceptual idea or image Which might be a proper translation of the pure seeing. The imaging has got a lot of past events and experiences and conditions in it. And when it has a sense of being a me, it's also looking for the one out there. Yes?
Yeah. And so conflict is one of the things that lots of people come to me because they've reached a point where the conflict is intolerable. Often people get to that point of it's enough and then seems like it takes that before often people get to a stage of being willing to actually stop and try and do something different. Well, see when that conflict comes up and it keeps coming up, take notice of it's still here. It might not be where you need to be. You need to be somewhere else. I'm a And see what I can do, see if that attraction is still there, and what did I see, and maybe it's still there, and maybe it's something I haven't seen or noticed.
Well maybe you've got yourself in the way. Yes. And when you open it up, well that's what I say, we might have a bit of resistance come up, but then there's a pause somewhere along the line, and then it's let go off and there's laughter. Yeah so that what happens if something comes up It usually a few minutes but he sitting on a chair nose up and waiting in a silence And I'm coming and checking up. Is it going to be a laughter somewhere in the eye that I could actually wake up? Usually it is. But sometimes he holds me, he will hold me for under 10, 20 seconds, just enjoying a little bit of a disruption.
He says it is actually nice for the variety's sake. A little bit of a disruption that makes the energy move is actually healthy. There's nothing wrong with that, especially that we know that it's never going to escalate because sooner or later that little, you know, the little sparkle in the eye, when I will wave at him or blink at him or poke him, he will laugh. And so I think lots of people would be very happy to have just a few minutes So even ten minutes of an argument to know that that was the length that it would go to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you say, well, what's the point?
Yeah. What's the point? And when you see there's no point, you go, well, why bother with it? Yeah. And then you open to notice the attraction and the love, or whatever it is, and let it grow. Yeah. And actually enjoy the energy without running a story about it, without seeking I don't know. Even if I knew, even if yesterday that was the case, today is fresh and new and he is fresh and new and he is open and I have no idea what he feels, thinks. I can actually really step into his shoes and feel the oneness, but in the particular sort of perspective of viewpoint that has been created throughout his whole life experiences.
I can guess forever, but why would I? I'd be rather curious to see what it is that he's seeing, he's feeling, and what is it that he's communicating. I'd rather ask than go with my assumption. We keep learning each other in new ways, discovering. Is there even an assumption about him or about cat? Do assumptions come up about each other or not, if you're not really... They will come up as they used to and always come up, but what's an assumption? It's an idea, an expectation, a concept. It is. So it may come habitually. Like you see the cat going and tapping the food bowl, You assume that the cat is hungry.
Doesn't mean that you lose your capacity to assume. You do have the capacity and you do assume. When I see he's a little bit irritable, my first assumption is perhaps it's a knee pain or it's a back pain. But we don't really go with the assumption. We actually see it as a pattern coming up in the consciousness and we don't believe it. We put it aside. Yes, it could be that, but it could be a thousand other things too. So there's a choice in the consciousness, there's a seeing and then there's the choice? Yeah, the arising patterns are arising as in everyone else, they're always arising.
But there is an option not to blindly take them on board, wear them and go with them, but just see them as arising pattern. Something might happen and say she comes along and says something and I might get a bit irritable I Aam That, Ramana Maharshi, I Aam That, Ramana Maharshi, I Aam Tthat. It's very much the energy. So you think that's a lot, I sometimes wonder if that's a lot of what's going on in relation where there is conflict is actually we get our own sense of tension energetically going on and if there's not an awareness of that and it becomes identified as something then there's maybe a looking for some reason that the mind will accept for why there's this tension.
And it's because of this or because of them and then away we go. Would you agree with that? Yeah, when you go back to it, what's the tension? That's another term for resistance. Exactly, yes. There's been resistance going on somewhere. And as you say, it could be resistance to something at work or something that happened that has nothing to do with this particular... Or some old habit pattern that you haven't let go of yet or still got residuals there The projections. I heard about Sailor Bob as an enlightened guy who would eventually tell me there no such thing as enlightenment from America where I flew out to come and meet them or him specifically like three years ago And he told me about his partner who he thought I would get along with.
And I'm like expecting this 75-year-old lady and she's like, I don't know, five or six years younger than me. And yet he was right. The three of us, it's just like I'm so grateful for their friendship. I just need to say, though, that as far as a couple is concerned, These two are probably like the most beautiful example of a role model of relationships and how to have a beautiful relationship that I've ever seen. And all anybody has to do is take a look at some of their YouTube videos and just watch how they interact. I am so grateful for both of them. So when you say that, it's like, and some people who are watching this may not know the experience of looking to see who it's happening to.
No, so can you say just a little more about what you mean when you say that? Well, I would say that everything needs to be investigated and recognizing the truth. It's recognizing the truth that is all one. And that recognition, you know, you're free of the belief and you're not going to carry it on. So how could someone do that if they were upset, say, with their, and they thought it was about something to do with their partner and maybe it was directly related? How could they stop? Is there something you could suggest for them, a way to look at themself? Well, if we're constantly coming back to the sense of presence, it's all happening presently.
Recognizing the sense of presence, it loses its hold when you can't put the energy of belief into it anymore. The energy of belief, and we've got so many beliefs that are not true, reinforces it and keeps it there. The conflict and resistance will be there. If you're seeing through it, it's all the one coming back to that essence and the natural settling down. What happens when you stir water? When you stop stirring, what happens? It naturally becomes still. Yeah, eventually. Eventually. That doesn't take long. Yeah, eventually it will. It doesn't take long. We were both working on the ships and we both went through many, many storms.
When the wind stopped blowing, it's not even hours when the sea got still, completely still. It's really, doesn't take long. Amazing. What's wrong right now if you don't think about it? What can you say? What can you say without a thought? And the same, people say, my conditioning. Oh, what conditioning is there if you don't think about it? So what about the fears though of if I don't, if we don't solve this, make a decision, take an action, that then things won't be good, so not, so there's a mentalising, the wanting to think about it because believing and seeing it as being that things have to be solved and there are decisions to make.
Decisions are made, but there's no decision maker. And they spontaneously come up. So, like, what's your next thought going to be? You don't know what decision you're going to make. You can mull over it day and night for a week, what do I say when we meet up, or this happens or that. But when it comes to the point, something totally different might be said or happened. And if we're open to that, as Kat said before, The ocean still settles down if the wind is not blowing, so will the thoughts and feelings, if we not keep reinforcing the energy of belief. It's all in the livingness.
We think it's a personal livingness and a small problem, but livingness is happening right now. And so livingness is making decisions? Making decisions, thoughts, feelings, emotions, licking your eyes, moving your arms, eating, all that is life. Beating your heart, forming the galaxies. Like I say, rolling the earth around the sun. That there is this huge energy and you're talking a lot about the energy in your relationship, The energy within yourself, the energy of letting things settle and not personalizing the energy of what's happening. That's what Banki, the Zen monk of 16th century said, everything is perfectly resolved in the unborn mind. What's the unborn mind?
It's the pure mind without a thought. It's there, but it's pure and clear like the silence and the stillness. That's what he calls the unborn mind. Sound appears in the silence. Sound becomes words, thoughts, ideas. Movement happens, thoughts come up, which are energy. What Bob was saying before, because this is so crucial, I just repeat that one, come back to the sense of presence, because everyone assumes that there is a little human there inside that is doing decisions, making wrong choices, that should be ashamed of itself or himself There is no one there, there is no one here, there is just life pouring through. Life pouring through the eyes and interpreting the environment, life beating the heart.
So the sense of presence is that life without the concept of the me inside. And people have different concepts. Some people would say that the me is the emotional structure. Some will say that the me is the body-mind or the me is the personality. But the body, the mind, the personality, they are all
All objects in consciousness and me, the sense of presence is the one that is aware of it. So coming back to the sense of presence without the conceptual image of the me having that recognition. So put the image aside and the presence, the life, the aliveness, the consciousness is the one that is aware of the feelings, emotions, images, body, mind, personality.
That's not me, that's the concept in the consciousness. So going back to that what's wrong with right now, that empty slate where before anything comes up is just a clear consciousness, clear, pure awareness of presence or being, that deliciousness of existence, unobscured by anything. In this one there is no me. So the curiosity about the other is there is only the other. There is not, oh, the other is not right to me or is not good to me or is not doing what I want. Thank you for watching. Oh no, no, that's no good. But when there is just space here, just space and the curiosity, you can't help but love them regardless.
Doesn't mean if they're violent, you love them, but doesn't mean you're going to live with them. You leave, you go. If they abusive, the response will come up. Life will move you on. Yeah, and it's usually, it can be fear or habit that keeps people in that situation rather than doing what life is asking, which is to move on. Yes, I've done that myself. It's good when you recognise it, you start recognising these things and take it further and further until you're no longer going into it. We've habitually gone into all these things day after day, week after week, and it's seemingly ingrained, like thought, feeling and emotion.
Something comes up and you get a feeling about it or a sensation. I mean, they put the old label on, this one's fear, this is anger. How do you know that? Because you've had that same sensation, might be years before, it might be yesterday. And you call it, we put the label on, anger or fear or depression or guilt. So as soon as it comes up, we're back in it again. But if you stop and look and see fresh in you, maybe I'll have, you know, though you're seeing it for the first time, this is a sensation. I'll look at it and see whether it's what I've really thought about.
Is it for you? When you look at it closely, you find it might be something different. And if you don't have any labels, I noticed that things are, which is a lot of what you're speaking about too, is taking the labels and the narrative and the language of things and experiencing it. I have known Kate and Bob for quite a long time. Kate has been my friend for 15 years and I know her as a very beautiful and spiritual person. When she told me that she was going to spend the rest of her life with Bob, who is so many years older than her, I wasn't surprised at all.
I visited them a few years ago and was really amazed how much they love and respect each other. I wish my marriage was as full as acceptance and mutual care and communication as theirs. Well, it's really true. There's no such thing as a relationship. Well, yeah, I mean, there's a perception of that, isn't there, through the individual self, Perceiving that there's another, but... See, day and night, they can say they're relative, but are they? Can there be day without night? Silence and sound, can there be... Silence without silence. Yeah, or sound without silence. Yeah, it's a... no. How can there be a me without the other?
That's right. No other, no me. So the realization of that though, was the other day we were speaking about how that actually occurred for you well before meeting Kat, and the major realization of that for you Kat, before you also before you got together with Bob. And so there are many of us who go into relationship and we haven't had that awakening, You know, we've got to learn to understand that we're not, if you like, we haven't got that realization that it's not about a me and a you trying to create something. Ah, that's why they call it ignorance. Don't make me dull or stupid.
We ignore our true nature, which is the totality, and focus into the separation. And you have to, I notice in myself, I can't both be focused into the separation and my fears and concerns and my thinking that there's me and there's this other thing, whether it's another person or another thing, maybe it's money or whatever. Child. Yeah, if I have that focus, then I don't have this focus into the totality. It like one is blinding the experience or perception of the other Would you Is that Yes that what seems to happen but the focus is on one end of the stick and not the other not noticing that they all the one stick That's right.
Seems like you have a limited amount of the attention, of free attention. And if the attention goes into self-obsession and fears, insecurities, then this attention is unavailable to see the miracle of life and to see and be aware of the emptiness in the life that you are. So there is a limited amount of attention, that this individual form has a limit. Absolutely, you can only process that much. The brain is a computer, it has limited computing capacity. You can only select out, I think, I don't know, 20,000 out of 200,000 elements in that vial. I am a member of the I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's only the one, so you're already that.
That's it really, isn't it? Fun? That's it really. Yeah. I first met Bob about 15 years ago when we moved in here. I live in the flat next door to Bob. And then after Barbara died, he was on his own for quite a while, for quite a few years. Then Kat came along. I was surprised to start off with because of the large age difference but hey that's just prejudice isn't it? It's not there's not really any reason it's a thing that is not based on any reason at all. Yeah because you actually complement each other. They really look after each other and they're really good together.
And I was actually at their wedding and taking photos. It was a really good day and they are a really good couple. I would like also to highlight once again because very often that the cause for the conflict is the personal insecurity, the survival instinct, the fears, the anxieties, the need for certainty and not having it. This all comes from labelling and Bob beautifully elaborated on it, but this is again just to repeat the invitation And to question the labeling, to question that part which says, oh, I had it before, this is fear. Now I'm in fight-flight mode, so it doesn't matter anyone else. I have to survive, this is all about me.
It's really not necessary. This point is enough to actually close your eyes and just breathe and sit with that bubbling energy in the body. Without labeling it. Yes, stop calling it anything. Be curious about it. Just the same way when you are at peace and you are at that sort of a free nothing state of consciousness and you see the other, the same way be free and empty for that bubbling fear arising. Because many people say in self-help books and everyone that you can't love the other unless you really love yourself. Yeah, I don't believe that. But it depends who is the self that you are supposed to love.
Is the self the body? Also, if you think you are a personality, personality can be appreciated as something that innocently formed through the whole environment cooperating. But to love the essence that you are and to allow that essence, who you really are, to manifest as anything and everything, even anxiety without the label is just bubbling, bubbling stuff. It's just contraction, it's just a little bit of an energy moving through the body. So this is self-love in which everything is welcome, everything that shows up here is welcome and what shows up in the mirror of the other is also welcome. Coming back to the perspective of peace and emptiness and seeing everything that arises from that perspective of peace and emptiness makes everything fresh and new and it is always available.
Doesn't matter whether someone had or didn't have the awakening experience or whatever way they want to call it, because it is always available in the immediacy, because that emptiness is always here. No matter what arises or shows up on it, it is always there. And Bob's invitation, what's wrong with right now if I don't think about it? What's there if I don't think? That gives you a moment of break from the madness of the mind And a moment of insight into the nature of the appearance and seeing that nature of the appearance, whether it is my own anxiety or somebody else's abuse, without relating it as undesirable or uncomfortable.
It brings the freshness of life back. Every disruption that we ever had, that's what Bob calls it. Ah, nice little disruption. That's how he calls it. Because it only happens maybe twice a year. It only lasts maybe maximum it lasted 20 minutes when he sent me upstairs, go upstairs! And after it finishes, it is appreciated even in the moment it comes up, it is appreciated because it isn't personal, it isn't mine or his. It is just the energy that life is expressing us and through the body. Years ago these things would last for weeks, sometimes months, sometimes years. Keep regagitating them, going into them. Believing them and believing the thoughts and story and Even in your first marriage it wasn that easy in the beginning wasn it Even though he had the experience No.
Barbara had, was left with four children, and she wasn't an alcoholic or anything, but that knocked her about, being left with four children. That's huge, isn't it? And I was eight years sober at the time, but I was still crazy, at that stage. So it was very rocky for a while, but we both went through it and over the years it grew better and better. But eight years later you met Nisargadatta and you had your realisation and it still wasn't that easy. You were still having a bumpy road because the habit patterns were strong. Instead of reinforcing it now, we let go off quicker. So that's, you know, hearing you acknowledging the habit patterns is really useful for me.
The first part of the work that I do with couples is always about just looking at the habit patterns and looking at the energy slash emotions that is driving those habit patterns and making a compassionate, open, welcoming space for that. And then often they just fall away and also there's an opening of the heart to each other, seeing more clearly what's going on for the other, because it looks like blame and, you know, criticism and so on, but actually it's, you know, it's sorrow and grief and longing for connection, you know. And trying to be innocent, trying to put the blame on the other, so I am innocent because deep down in the heart I know I wanted good, I didn't want the bad.
And everybody wants it to be good, so there's a confusion I think around that. Yeah, and it's deeply hard for us to own the behaviours that come up in relationship that are disconnecting and not respectful and not loving and so on, because they come up, and who wants to think of themself in that way? Not many people. How else can they think? Because that's the way it goes on. Vibration of the mind is going on all the time. It's either good or bad, pleasant or painful, happy, sad, loving, hating. It's always vibrating in the opposite. And we load it down onto this eye. Instead of the eye being pure eye, there is a sense of presence.
It's me, Bob, the Australian, the conceptual image I put on it, which is a dead image. And you've got to try and protect that and make it look good and... It's based on past events and experiences. It's not what is right now. Bring it back to the fresh in you as much as you can. What's wrong with right now without the thought? I can't say anything without a thought, but I'm still breathing. Heart's still beating. Hair and fingernails are growing. I'm Bob's neighbour, I've known him for 24 years. Nine years ago he lost his soulmate Barbara and also lost the will to live. Along came Kat and rescued him from the saddest moments.
They are the most quirky couple I know and are madly and deeply in love and incredibly The last thing I want to touch on is control and someone I find really interesting was saying the other day that she wondered if in fact love is the absence of control. Yeah, and I thought that's really interesting. She identified herself as being someone who likes to control what everyone else in the I am a woman. Actually first probably half a year or so Bob had a little bit of a habit pattern of controlling. I wanted to go and swim in the Brighton all the time and he didn't like it and he didn't like that I was coming with an old friend.
And the control started kind of getting under our skin because you know deeply everyone loves and appreciate freedom. And control is actually just raping someone from their freedom. And also it is a lack of trust to life because like, oh, he was thinking I'm so stupid that I'm going to get in trouble. He has to control me as if I wasn't really looked after by that life force. So what we did, we went to the Alanon program, which is a 12-step program for families and friends of alcoholics. And the very first meeting, they always have a topic for the meeting. The very first topic was control.
Bob was sharing and he says, well, I've been pointed out and I had to agree. There was a little bit of that going. Since then, we never really had that. I mean, maybe once or twice it surfaced, but again, in 20 minutes, we were both laughing. This quick reminder, the little reminder of that one meeting. We still go occasionally, more to contribute than to get anything because we don't really, yeah, we don't really struggle anymore. So that interesting though that useful I think to just see how control as it comes up as a habit form or and not trusting in the life that is living this form and it can be an old habit and of course people may not know who are watching but that 12-step has been a big part of your life, hasn't it?
I am. That's what turned me around. Didn't look at any, didn't believe in anything spiritual. He's going to be 60 years sober in a couple of months. Wow, amazing, congratulations. The oldest sober member, yeah. Just about would be, I think, in Victoria. Yeah. So the absence of control and then there's love. The absence of habits and patterns and identifying oneself as a me means there's just love, yeah? Well because in fact as what we're saying is God or life whatever you want to label is here always even in those moments when we don't feel significant or we don't feel safe. In fact there is, we are ultimately held.
And what do they say in the Bible? God is love. Exactly, yes. If God is love, love must be God. So if you're expressing that sensation you call love through you, that's the godliness in you going out. And that's what this relating is doing, isn't it? Yeah? This is probably, I think I mentioned before, the most exquisite experience that the human right, that this adventure, human adventure, the vacation from the eternity, can actually have. Because love is the moment in which you don't construct separate self. When you're really in love, doesn't matter what it may be, a garden or the night sky or the moon or the cat or the partner, you are mind blown.
You are in that sort of almost blissful ecstatic state of just worship. So there is no self in it. Well, the defenses and the habits are falling down. There's an innocence and an openness to each other, which is, I think, as I was saying before, It seems like it's almost life showing us what the potential is here and then the other patterns and habits and fears and little me comes up and we get stuck sometimes and if we can do as you were saying Bob and remember back to actually the totality of everything and drop that individual you and me situation then we already have had at some level an experience of being us as one.
Most often. Bob and Kat Adamson are one of the loveliest, most compatible, affectionate couples I've ever had the joy of being in the presence of. I met Kat a few years ago and had my reservations and I've got to know her over the last few years and I think she's one of the most beautiful girls I've ever met. And she makes Bob incredibly happy and to be with them is such a joy. What is selfless? That's the starting point. In love you are selfless, you are about the other, about the goodness of the other, about the beauty of the other. And that's so freeing, that's why everyone loves to be in love, because that's the natural state of wonder where your nature, when you dissolve as a separate entity with agenda, into that field of consciousness, and in that field the object of love arises.
And that object is only a reflection of what you are as the totality. And this is the reflection here. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So thank you so much for carrying on our conversation and for talking some more about it. Thanks very, very much. Thank you. Yeah. The The Lineage terms for the next couple of months. Hi, I'm Helen. I know Kat and Bob for quite some time now and they're just a genuine beautiful loving couple. And yeah, they just are the best for each other. Lineage terms and the following are the following. And loving her was easier than anything I've ever done before. Lineage terms and the following are the following.
In the case of Kat and myself, you know... It's a miracle. You can call it a miracle. Notely, you might call it love. It really was a miracle. Yeah, I think it was a miracle what happened between us.