Me and the other, that's duality! Sailor Bob, Kat Adamson and the Group. 21 March 2021

Good morning everyone. Good to see you. And to recognise that it's the same life that's expressing through everything. And you and I and everything else is that life. That's what they tell us. That's what needs to be recognised. It's the one life, pattern, shapes and forms, expresses everything. They've got many labels on it. Some call it God, some call it higher power, some call it pure being. It doesn't matter what the word or the label is. You can't negate the actuality of being. That's what needs to be realised or recognised. Can everybody hear? Yeah, can you speak louder please? I went to the old spell, I can't teach you anything, can't tell you anything.

Anything else, because there's nothing other than the one essence. Yeah, I can't teach you anything. Can't tell you anything. Anything else, because there's nothing other than the one essence. that's in this room. And each and every one of us are expressions of that. That's the one that can express in all its variety and diversity, all these patterns, shapes and forms. As I say, many labels for it. Basically, it is the life essence. Another label on it, they call it God. And they call it love. They say also that God is love. So if God is love, love must be God. Doesn't know what love is, because you are that.

That's what Nisargadatta tells you. When you realise you are that living love, he says people will come to your door. What's he mean by that? That people will recognise that life essence in you. Because I think I was... If you take your ears off you will be louder. That's what you're saying, but I don't believe that. That's what's happening. The hearing, the seeing, the tasting, the feeling. Touching, smelling, feeling. All sensations expressing through the patterns, shapes and forms we call our bodies, minds. Now, anybody got any questions or want to say something? That might turn something on in there. I saw something the other day and it struck me as a sign.

It was outside the Hawthorn Aquatic Centre, which is... It's a gymnasium. He's been going there. He knows the Hawthorn. He used to go to hydrotherapy. A couple of pools and... Outside on the footpath there's a car park. A fairly busy car park. And it services the shopping centre. So there's cars coming and going. And adjacent to the footpath is a... A car park. It serves all kinds of things. Like a... Buttress... Outside the swimming pool. It's obviously to stop the walls from collapsing or anything. And sitting up against this buttress was a young girl, no more than sixteen. She's got a little water bottle beside her.

She's sitting in a cross-legged position with her eyes closed. Really nice and straight. up against the wall, just quietly meditating. And all... There weren't many people at that time walking around, but she just stood out as a sign. So I wondered if anyone else had been seeing signs. Unusual signs. Signs of what? Synchronicities. Synchronicities. Yeah. I thought moving here was synchronicity. Found the house that I rented. I moved to Templestowe because I wanted my kids in Templestowe College. And I'm here, really, because of these beautiful people and you. But anyway, I picked Templestowe. And I was looking for a house to lease. And I saw this house, and I loved it.

And I went. I took a photo. I took a photo across the street of the house across the street. And then I was complaining to Jane later that day. I'm like, what do I do? I'm scared to drive on the wrong side of the road. You guys drive on the wrong side. She said, why don't you take a driving lesson? So I googled driving lesson in Templestowe, and what came up was a photo of the house I took a photo of. I thought, anyone else on the insights or on the inspirations? And... Synchronicity, the ticket. The ticket. Oh. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So a few weeks ago, I booked a couple of tickets to go and see this Vivaldi concert by Candlelight for me and a friend that comes here, Chris Caldwell.

And we'd both been away the weekend just prior to the concert, which was on the Monday night. And we were both pretty exhausted. And... And that's when I started getting unwell. So I thought, oh, I can't go to this concert. He couldn't go to the concert. And we just sort of gave the tickets up, really. I didn't even offer them to anybody. I just didn't have the energy to do that. So there were going to be two empty seats there. And I thought, oh, what a shame. I've missed this concert. I really wanted to see this. And I get a call from a message from Mukti the other day saying, oh, would you like to go and see Vivaldi by Candlelight?

There you go. So it came back to me in the end. Yeah. But in terms of synchronicity, I'm noticing that more and more and more. And Jane, you're really good at that. You always are attuned to the interplay of things that are just there. They're not even imaginary. They're happenings. And I'm more and more tuning into that reality. Yeah. So can you speak about the sixth sense, Bob? Yeah. Speak about that, Bob. The sixth sense. Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, thinking. Sixth sense. Sensing. It was on the tip of my tongue a minute ago, but it's gone now. Yeah. Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, thinking.

So seeing first, hearing second, tasting fourth. Yeah. So the thinking is a sense. How is thinking a sense? Don't you sense information through your thinking? Is the source of information. Is there actually, it is the thinking. Is the, is, is major for humans to build a representation of the world, to make sense of the world, to interpret the world that goes through thinking. So the plain information that you get from seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling is filtered through the thinking. So the thinking that's well, that's just one of the theories. That's how Buddhists call it. They, they use it as a sixth sense. We, yes, we kind of think of sixth sense as intuition.

Hmm. Which is pre-thinking. Which is kind of, yes, like a kinesthetic gut instinct or something. This is what, uh. And where everything aligns, that synchronistic thing, where before the thinking, um, you know, that's, that's like what happened to Taz, what happened to Julia, that, you know, that's prior to, like you said, it's a gut thing or it's a, where everything aligns perfectly. Um, doesn't really name. Doesn't need naming in any way. Mm. Mm. Mm. It was just amazing. It is amazing. Yeah. I had it yesterday with a client in, even in my work, I noticed that, that something, there was a moment yesterday with a, with a client I was talking to, that all of a sudden, everything that happened to me leading up to seeing him that day was relevant to the session.

It, it, it, and something comes alive and we, and he had goosebumps. I had goosebumps. Yeah. There's just something that's, that's tangible. That, that the thinking, I suppose, is a way of, um, carrying that through. Rationalizing. Rational. Well, rationalizing it or, yeah, it comes through the thinking. It's already there, but it comes through the thinking. That's. And another one, Mukti and I went to a movie last night. And last week, Cathy had been telling me about this movie, French Exit. And so. I want to see that. We decided to. We decided to go and see it. And when I got home last night, I thought, oh, I must, I must tell Cathy about the movie.

It was really eccentric and a bit different. I just had that thought right then. And the phone rang and it was Cathy. Yeah. I said, oh, I was just thinking about you. I was going to tell you about the movie we just saw that you recommended. So, to me, that's a sixth sense or a, or a mental, you know, well, it's not even mental to. It's like, it's beyond, beyond talk, you know, naming. It's intuitive. Yeah. Okay. Well, go on then. Can you get us the. Mm-hmm. It's all based on thinking as Shakespeare told you three or 500 years ago. Nothing either good or bad with thinking makes us that.

First of all, there's a subtle thought. Then it becomes a sensation or a feeling. And then it becomes emotional. When it reaches the emotional stage, it's stirred up the body. It's no longer just a mind thing. Then it becomes a body. Bodily sensation raises the blood pressure. This is the temper or the whatever. But the basis of it all is thinking. And what's thinking? What's thought? It's a vibration. What's a vibration? It's a movement. It's a movement of energy. And that energy suffused with innate intelligence. Intelligence energy. Intelligence is not your intellects. It's the same intelligence that's patterning, shaping, and forming this cosmos, this universe.

It's all vibrating patterns of energy. So energy or intelligence is pure knowing. Knowing is an activity. Any activity is movement. And that's the energy. So that's where I use the term intelligence energy. The activity of knowing. And I'm not talking about gentle legs. I'm talking about the same intelligence that's functioning in this universe. In the stars, the planets, the volcanoes, the seas, you, me, and everything in this cosmos. Vibrating of intelligence, which is energy. God is energy. Call it God if you like. Or you can put many other labels on it if you like, which we do. But then we got lost in the words.

We got so many different patterns. For the one thing, we get lost. Confused in all that. Put the dividing labels on it. It's good, it's bad, it's heavy. It's sad, it's this, it's that. All concepts. And maybe you see this here, this, this, now, this. If you're not thinking about it. Can you negate your beingness? Can you say I am not? You can say it. But you must realise there's something there that's enabling you to say it. The person or the separate entity that's saying anything at all. Though we've believed that and translated it as that. When we learn words first. And your peers tell you, your little Billy or your little Jane or your little this.

Whatever label you put it. And then when you've learnt more words, you learn words like I and me. And you say I am that little Johnny or little Billy. This is me. We've got a conceptual image from then on about what we believe ourselves to be. It's all the absolute. You can't separate the absolute. Or as they tell you in some of the scriptures, the great perfection. What can you add to the perfect? Nothing. What can you take away from the perfect? Nothing. So all this manifestation, though it's appearing in the different pattern, shapes and form. Has never moved away from its absoluteness. Its perfection.

And the Buddhists put it in one simple sentence. They call it the great perfection. And they say the great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. Without putting any thoughts, words, ideas or images. Leave it as it is. What is means unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. Just as it is right here. And you negate that believed in self that you are. I am this self. But we've taken it to be a personal self. But they all tell you that it's only one self. One Atman. That with the learning of words and putting the description or the label on it. And the description can never be the described. And the word is never the real.

The word is never the thing. So though we've believed and taken ourselves to be a separate entity. An individual, a person. We never have been separate. So it's all one essence. One life. One intelligence. One energy. If it's one essence, try and separate anything. Try and. It's indivisible. It's not separate. It's inseparable. But we've taken it to be the personal. The separate entity. And believed in that. And then that belief caused all our problems. The fear. The anxiety. The stress. The guilt. The remorse. The jealousy. The envy. All comes about because it's never seeing it as all one. It's related. Into me. And other. Duality.

And they tell you again that duality is a fiction. There's absolutely no duality. In non-duality. And it's all that one non-dual essence. That essence is like. Not something solid or substantial. But you get a bunch of flowers. Might be roses. Might be flowers. Might be flowers. Might be flowers. Might be flowers. Might be flowers. Might be flowers. Might be something. And boil them up. The smell or the essence of them will still be there. That's what I'm talking about. As essence. It's the very beingness that you are. Innate essence. Is known. Is recognised. Having trouble hearing? I don't know what taking the ears out. I can't.

Does that make any difference? Doesn't make a difference. Does that make a difference? Of course. Of course. Sorry! No you are not. Correct. You want a question? Yes So we have a question from Tanya. She is watching us from New Zealand. I am aware of the body so it can't be what I am. Only thought says I am that. I am the body. I am aware of thoughts also, so I'm separate from the body and thoughts. All the body and thoughts are inseparable from awareness. It does seem the seeing comes from a viewpoint which thought says means what I am in the body. But also, it really seems more true than I am the silent, still, peaceful awareness.

Any pointers? That's a very good point, Tanya. Yes, it's all that appears on that screen, which is emptiness, silence, stillness, whatever label you like to put it. That's the basic. That's what the Wittes calls, again, the cognizing emptiness. That screen is always clear and empty. So on one hand, she says, I am. I'm aware of the body, so I'm not the body. I'm aware of the thoughts, so I'm not the thoughts. But on the other hand, if I am a still, open field of the awareness in which the body and thoughts arise, everything that arises in that field of awareness is also made of the awareness.

So yes, that's a good point to actually grasp the paradox, because there is no duality. If I am awareness, but not the body and not the thoughts, then obviously we have duality. I am this and not that. Ultimately, I am everything. And as Bob said, that one essence forms and shapes the body and the thoughts and everything. That essence that I am. Can you negate that awareness? Anybody who is unaware right now, you must realize I'm not unaware, so I must be aware. So try and postulate some time when you were not aware. And say, I wasn't aware in deep sleep. No, the believing person was.

I wasn't aware. But that awareness, you weren't unaware when you were in deep sleep, because the breathing was still going on, the heartbeat, the hair and fingernails were growing, the functioning was going on all the time. But it wasn't putting any labels on it, because you couldn't. The mind thinking was in abeyance, was out of the way in sleep. The life essence was still functioning. Can you separate it? And if it disappears out of this pattern, has rationing, shaping and forming stopped appearing? If it's all in the basic screen of emptiness, which is a cognizing emptiness, and emptiness is form, and the form can be nothing other than the emptiness, it's explaining it just like Daniel was.

That cognizing emptiness is still happening. Patterns, shapes and forms are appearing in it. pressing through every seemingly separate pattern, shape and form, and each pattern, shape and form has a unique expression of it. It cannot be separated at all when it's looked into, though it appears to be, and will constantly appear to be. That's the great mantra, I am that. And when you look at that and investigate it, you'll see that everything is that. We innately already know it, because that's the chair you're sitting on, that's the room we're in, that's the space in the room, that's the trees, the flowers, everything out there, the clouds, the sun, everything is already that, which we discriminate again with the label.

We put the trees, the flowers, the screen, this and that on, which seemingly separate the inseparable. And then the problem is, we believe there's a separate. And the dictionary definition of belief is that which is an unquestioned acceptance of something in the absence of reason, acceptance of an alleged... Alleged fact. Alleged. An alleged fact without positive knowledge or proof. And in that sense of separation, me and the other, and then everything becomes relative, relative to this me. And relationship is dualism. And then again, then you might understand why there's so much problem with these so-called physical relationships. Because we've divided the indivisible. If you recognise it's the innate intelligence in each and every pattern, what do you want to be fighting with it or arguing with it for?

What's going to be heard from it? If the other doesn't understand it and you do, well, you don't have to engage with them, with the diversity. It'll come up in living. That's the way that life is functioning. Day, night, winter, summer, tides coming out. And you couldn't experience one if you were living, which you are, but don't recognise as that undivided totality, all the time. See how that functions? Everybody has a concept about you, and you'll form a concept about everybody when you walk into the room or walk anywhere. What's a concept? A mental construct. A thought. Something the conceptualiser brought up in the non-conceptual, ever-fresh presence, a mental construct, a thought.

Now, if everybody has a concept about you, which they will have, and you have a concept about everybody else, and you have this concept about yourself, which concept would be right? When you understand that the concept's only a mental construct, that somebody's got a thought or an idea or an image about yourself, you realise none of them are right. Then how are you going to look at things then? If there's no concept there, who can ever be superior to you? Who can ever be inferior to you? And what would you want of the other persons? And you recognise that you and I, or whoever you think is that one, you're going to try and change them, alter them.

Are you going to be at war with them? Or in conflict with them? If it doesn't gel, if they don't resonate, and you're not meant to be there, you'll move away or change a thought about them. But it'll change if it's certain, if it's something that's going to change. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to do it myself. Like it's changing right now. It's all transient. All constantly changing. This body's changing right now. It's changed a lot since this morning. It's continued to change right now. Everything is transient, everything's changing. But when we divide it, every stick has got two ends to it.

Look at your mind and see how it functions. It functions dualistically. It's either good, bad, pleasant, painful, happy, sad, loving, hating, positive, negative. Watch your mind and see if it's not doing that. It is. So it's constantly vibrating from one to the other. The boundaries we put upon it are the words. This is good, that's bad. This is pleasant, that's painful. But as Shakespeare says, there's nothing either good or bad unless we're putting those terms, concepts on it. The Sargonata tells you nothing can trouble you except your own imagination. Break that word imagination down to image in. Imagine. And realise that is the world that's troubling us.

Because we've taken all these appearances, these mental images, and that's all they are, to be real. And the labour we put upon them instead of seeing that's the one essence, causes the conflict and the disruption. No imaging going on. You're back to where everything is as it is. Unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. And you realise from that it's only the mental images that are seemingly divided. Now, what is an image? Well, look in the mirror. There's a mirror at the end of the room now. Have a look in it. It sees what you see. You realise what you're seeing is reflections. Or images in the mirror. Now, you can't say they're not there.

They're there, alright. But go up and try and grab one. And you realise you can't say they are there. So you see how this manifestation is. You can't say it's not there. But when you investigate it, you can't say it is there as it appears to be. That's what you're imagining. Just to say, you can't say those reflections in the mirror are there. As reflections, the only reality they've got is what they appear to be on that reflecting surface. So when you look at this thing, all those pattern shapes and forms, thoughts, feelings, emotions are going on. The only reality they've got is appearing in that space-like awareness, which is like the screen.

None of this, any of this manifestation, you can't say it is, and you can't say it is not. We are separate from it, but we're in that basic space-like awareness where there are like reflections in it. Just like reflections in the mirror. Where does that leave you? There's nothing you can postulate or think of that can be outside of space. Try and postulate or think of something that'll be outside of space. What'll it be in? You'd have to put something around it to try and... And then you put around it as space. So it's never away from it. But we believe we are. And so we suffer accordingly because we're taken on board that this reflection, this pattern shape and form, has some reality of itself.

But if it wasn't for that space to be in, and the intelligence energy that's... that space is full of, what pattern shapes or forms can there be? So when they call it space-like awareness, it is awareness itself. Even the space. The one essence. Patterning, shaping, forming, appearing. That is everything. And you can put God on it if you like. You can put the persona on it if you like. You can put whatever you like on it. But it's never been anything other than what it is. The truth. The life. The absolute. So all the search that goes on, trying to become something, and we've all done it, some of us for many years, some of us for not very long, but we looked in the mind for many years, meditated, did this, did that, and all these other practices.

Why have you not understood it? Well, it might just dawn after all this time that we've been looking in the wrong direction. We've looked in the mind for the answer. And we've worked out so many things in the mind. It's a very useful instrument. But the answers of life, the answers of being or knowing or loving to be, the pure intelligence, you haven't found in the mind. And though we've done all such things to try and find it, worked on it, did meditation, did mantras, read books, sat, sang, done everything, but never worked it out. And I did that for years. That innate intelligence, like it's doing here, realised or recognised that this wasn't good enough.

All the seeking and searching and struggling wasn't good enough. There must be another way. So it took me away from that. First of all, looking into other things, and looking into those for a while, and that would lead me somewhere else. Took me somewhere else. And that was the way to where it needed to go to see what was expressing as another pattern, shape and form. Expressing that something that attracted or drew to it whatever you like to say, a resonation with it or a knowing. This is where it needed to be. And in that was a recognising or a cognising. And that was it.

It was seen through. And in the seeing through and the cognising and recognising, it couldn't be the same again. Though it came up again. It came up from that habit pattern of thinking that had been going on for years. And it was the same. And it had been going on from the time I first started reading when I learnt words. And I was told, I was this person. I was Bob, this individual, this separate entity. And I went to school and learnt more words and reinforced it. Then I was reinforcing it myself all along. So naturally, it was a habit pattern. It seems very solid but I'm saying it.

But then, in the seeing through it and recognising it and saying, no, I wasn't this person. And when it had come up again, after a while, I might get locked into it. I might get out of habit. But then sooner or later, come up, hang on a minute, you've seen through this. Were you seeing correctly? Or were you not? Have another look. Go back to where you saw through it. What happened? Where you resonated? And if it's false, it cannot stand up to investigation. And you know that in your life now. A false cannot stand up to an investigation. How many things you've looked through in this life and recognised them as false and can no longer put the energy of belief into them.

Like the ocean is a good one. Seems to be a blue sea. But you know the sea is not blue. Yet, it still appears to be blue. You go down there and you can still admire it and say, what a beautiful blue sea. Because you know the water's not blue. It never was blue. It never could be blue. It never will be blue. Same with the blue sky. Sky is space. Where's the blueness? This room is space. It's not blue at all. It's further out. A rainbow. Where's those colours in the sky? Are they real? They're not. It's only the sun shining through the mist reflects on the background the seemingly mirror-like background of the sky and forms colours and an arched pattern of a rainbow.

The water in the mirrors. Santa Claus. Many, many things we've taken to be real, when you investigate them, they fall apart. So, need to investigate this idea of the person, the separate entity, the individual. Because that cannot stand up to an investigation either and I know that for certain. And so the belief might even still crumb up a little bit more. Occasionally. But it doesn't last any longer. Because once you see it's false, can you truly believe it? Santa Claus is a good one. You believed in Santa Claus. Who would believe him today? You wouldn't. Yet, because you know, it gave you pleasure when you were a little child and you didn't know it.

And you know it will give your children pleasure. So we still carry on the idea. If we found something false and we've got so many other things, and we've got the boogeyman under the bed, we believed in that too. I've never found anything under there yet. All these false ideas we take on board and believe, they need to be questioned. And the very worst one was to believe that I am the person. Person. Where does that come from? It comes from an ancient language persona, the mask. Meaning we've got a mask of concepts. A mask of concepts which I've taken to be me. Or I.

Concept is what? A mental construct. A mental construct is what? A thought. What's thought? Sound or a word. What's sound or word? Vibration. What's vibration? A movement of energy. That's what mind is composed of. Thought, concepts, ideas. And I believe I am. I am this persona, this conceptual image. A mental construct. I've taken belief in this is what I am. And because of that, that so-called person suffers accordingly. I'm fearful, I'm unhappy, I'm depressed, I like it, I don't like it, it's good, it's bad. All concepts we put on the non-conceptual, ever-fresh prison suite. And we think we'll work it out in the mind. If we meditate long enough, go to this satsang or read this book, or do this, we will find the answer in the mind.

But the answer is not in the mind. And it can never be in the mind. It never will be in the mind. And the answer is when the mind is not. That's why they tell you in the scriptures, you'll never ever get peace of mind. They tell you that the peace of mind is the peace that passes all understanding. And even that clue, passes all understanding, all the understanding goes on in the mind. And if peace is not in that understanding, where's that peace going to be? Going to be when the mind is not. What's wrong with right now if you don't think about it?

If a thought pauses for a minute or goes out, you're not let it go for a minute or whatever, what's there without the thought? Can you say it's good? Can you say it's bad? Can you say it's pleasant, painful, happy, sad, loving, hating? You can't say anything at all. So I've got the clue that peace is when the mind is not. I'm always looking in the mind. Always. Well, if the peace is when the mind is not, what way is there out of the mind? Realise there's only one way out of the mind. Don't go there. Let it go. Leave it as it is. Pause the thought.

Whatever way you can. Recognise the letting go or the dropping of the thought. You as the person can't do it. You as the person, though you believe you have, have never done anything at all in your life. What did you do about coming into existence? Nothing. That life coming from your father and your mother, coming from their father and mother, the life, the beginning, the endless life, and the way it formed, formed the little embryo, the little fetus, and if that little fetus or embryo in it wasn't born with any words even, the first couple of years of its life, you didn't have any words.

But you were living. You were being. And then the capacity of reasoning developed and we learnt words, which is very useful. A very useful capacity. But through the concepts and the belief in the words, it became self-destructive. Because the same I or me tells me I'm not good enough, I'm fearful, I'm unhappy, I'm a human being, after all I'm only human, and I'm not good enough, I'm this, that and the other, putting all those concepts on me. Instead of realising and recognising, it's just nature expressing itself as it is seemingly outwardly. Out there. Out there, which is in here. You can't divide them. In the out there, it's day, it's night, it's winter, it's summer, and in here, in the mind, it's good, it's bad, it's pleasant, it's painful, it's winter, it's summer, it's day and night, it's put all these labels on, we're carrying around conceptually.

And the great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. Without the concepts, you are the great perfection. You are the absolute. With the concepts, you still are the great perfection. You still are the absolute. It's just that we discriminate them. It tells you in the Hintzing Min, I think it's, when no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to be. Ceases to be carried on in the old way. You see it continually, fresh and new. And you'll use words to describe it, you know. But now that you know the truth about the word, the truth about everything else, and the realisation then that I'm not the body, that I'm not the mind, I am this pure intelligence energy or awareness or knowingness or beingness, whatever labels or concepts are, I am that.

And there's nothing to search for, no one to search, and you're left as you are, right here and right now, presence aware. You've never run through, you can take it on. If you've got any questions or any doubts or any arguments, bring them out. And you wouldn't be here if you hadn't recognised a lot of it already. The ones that are locked completely into their self-nature, trying to become something through their own efforts, which they believe are their own efforts, are not here, they're looking somewhere else. But they're just here, they're just here to be. And that's the beauty of it. But they're just here, looking at this means that something's moving you to look a little bit further, looking for a way out.

And it's taking you where it's going to take you to. So if you've got any questions or doubts, ask them. Or, as I say, you wouldn't be here if you hadn't seen some of it. What you've seen, let it out, tell people about it. And somebody here might resonate with what you're saying, because it's said in a different way than what it's said here. And there are many different ways it can be said. But now I'm going to have a rest. So I'm getting there. Clea had to get rid of me. Oh, no way. I've got a question. This is the question I've asked you probably about six or seven years ago, when you were talking about the concepts.

And I really like that idea that, you know, everyone has the concept about everyone, which concept is right. And without the concept, what would you want from anyone? Without the concept that someone is right, someone is better or superior. This is the question that I've asked then. Do you never have concepts arising when someone comes home? Every word is a concept. Yes. When someone comes home. So you do have concepts coming up. When someone comes, you have concepts. But you know not to believe them. All the appearance still carries on. Yes. But you know the truth about them. That's the simple statement. Know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Thank you. Yes, I wanted to highlight that, because people somehow expect that they will never have concepts or judgments arising or thoughts arising. That's impossible. The function of the mind is to vibrate in different thoughts, concepts, ideas, images. And do you think you would have learnt words or required words if they weren't necessary? They can be very useful. But remember, every thought's a vibration. Good, bad, pleasant, pleasant, unneedful, happy, sad. And it can be self-destructive. By the same token, unless it's understood. When it's understood that there's a one essence, the one stick, you know, and you're not going to divide it. If there's nothing either good or bad, you're going to be trying to get rid of the bad and stay with the good when you know that thought is constantly changing.

It's the one stick. Not... Every stick's got two ends. So it's not going to stay the same. It's going to be day, night, winter, summer, pleasant, painful. All the one essence. As the saga says, realise you are dreaming a dream you call the world. And stop looking for ways out. He says, the dream is not your concern. Your concern is you love one part of the dream and not the other. We're going to the opposite. He says, love all of it or none of it. And this is the important thing. The rest will be done for you by the same essence that's brought you into existence, that's living you, breathing you, and building your heart, expressing right now.

Leave it as it is. Open up and let it happen. This morning when I got here, you told me you weren't feeling really well. Your energy, I'm using labels here, but your energy seems a little better than it did this morning. Oh, much better. Okay, right now. And I just wanted to point out something. There's something though that I thought was kind of like, it was in line with what you've been saying today. As I said to you, so which is worse, the Parkinson's or the knee pain? And you're like, I haven't differentiated it. You love it, huh? Love all of it or none of it.

Love your pains. Don't fix it on either end. It's certainly going to change. There's nothing static. I tell you that in the scriptures. There's no static point anywhere. And no self-nature to anything. That means there's no personal self. It's the one self. The Atman. The pure presence awareness. And thank God the things change because if you were in the spirit like you were in the morning for the rest of your days, which I hope is going to take a long, long, long days, that wouldn't be great. I mean... It might be immediate. I might drop out of it straight away. I told him, you can't.

You're on duty. That's your job. Your job is to be. We all have the function and the function is just being. Not thinking, not doing, not knowing, but just being. And just immersing in that being. And action comes out from that being. And this is also the difference between what you were, Julia, asking about. The sixth sense as we understand it, which is kind of intuitive knowledge, and the sixth sense as Buddhists are talking about it, which is thinking. I would say, you know, there is a close connection between what is known and what is narrated out. What is kind of knowing the guts, like, you know, the concept arises.

Somebody walks through the door and you instantly know that that person is half your age, for example. That's the concept of age arising. And it's a concept that relates in a way. But then again, you know it in the gut. And you say it with the narrative. So there is a thinking which is translating, and there is a knowing which is the intuitive knowing. And not always they are related, because if you think of logic, there is nothing in your guts that will tell you that two plus two is four. But, oh, well, who knows? Maybe in a way you could see it this way.

I don't know neuroscience well enough. But, yeah, that kind of closes the bridge. But they are conceptual systems that will tell you there is this and that. And you can tell them there are ten intelligences or eight intelligences or five intelligences. Or they can tell you there is five senses or six senses or seven senses. And this is all just an agreement, just what people decide that, okay, that's what we agree on. And that's where we move from. There was another thing that I really liked what I heard of Nisargadatta when you were talking about the imagining and the good and bad. Nisargadatta says that mind creates the abyss, that sense of incompleteness, that sense of void that is eating from within.

And the heart builds a bridge and crosses it. Can you comment on that? Mind creates the abyss and the heart bridges it or crosses it. Well, the heart, when they talk about heart, they're not talking about the physical organ called the heart. Heart has the core or the center of the spirit or the core of your beingness. And you know what a heart to heart is when you hear somebody pour out their heart and you'll say, telling somebody else, you'll say, my heart went out of them, out of them. There was a natural attunement with it all, going with it, natural cognizing. What was this question about?

I just wanted you to comment on that. Mind creates the abyss and the heart bridges it, crosses it. Yes. Which means the way out of the... Yes, that's the nature of the mind, to divide. And in the division there's the abyss. Yeah. And generally all the problem with suffering and with all that insecurity and low self-esteem and all that concepts that create the sense of inadequacy or not belonging and always wanting to fix, that comes from the map of reality, from interpreting the world to the thinking. But when we drop out of the thinking to the being, to the heart, to the essence... The essence is there.

Yes. Spirit. That's what bridges it. The love, the heart, bridges that sense of void, incompleteness, inadequacy, all that suffering, that's the way out. Like what Nisargadatta says, between love and wisdom, between everything and nothing, life flows. Between abyss and the love and the heart. So the way out of the mind or the way... Finding out the solution to the problems that come from the mind cannot be in the mind. The mind is the source of the problems. It is not a solution. So if there is a mind rumbling on something or creating the ideas... And again, there is no mind. It's just the thinking, just the concepts that create that sense of void, incompleteness and suffering.

Then the solution or the freedom from the mind is not... It can't be found within that same process of conceptualizing. It has to come from a different place, from a different energy. And that different place is the heart. That's the place where... What's wrong with right now if you don't think about it? That's the place where heart to heart, as Bob says, the place of sweetness, of unity with light, place of silence where the mind is not disturbing, not obstructing it. And the natural... This is the natural state. This is the state when all the nature... Where Bob was talking about the flower giving its essence.

That is where the flower abides. And it doesn't mean there are no situations when the flower or the animal or the cloud or the tree or the building are not threatened and are not... The flower... The form always kind of ensures its survival. But even seeing the form ensuring its survival is happening in that field of stillness or space or the heart, the essence. Yeah. When I know that I am everything... This is love. That is wisdom. That is love. When I know I'm nothing, that's wisdom. Yes. That was... When I know I'm nothing, that's wisdom. When I know that I am everything... That's the love.

That is love. Yes. Between those two... So though he's dividing his mind, he's saying... Between the two, the life continually flows. Yes. And the apparent division that it seems like now Nisargadatta is introducing the duality, the everything and the nothing, the mind and the heart, the wisdom and the love. Without duality, there is no appearance. So we do the whole manifestation. There wouldn't be a wall if there wouldn't be an absence of wall. There wouldn't be a summer if there was no winter. Or there wouldn't be a day if there was no night. There wouldn't be light if there wasn't an absence of light, which we call darkness.

So there have to be two for anything to appear into existence. There have to be emptiness for the form. And without the form, you can't even call what's left emptiness because what would you base the duality on? Yes. What would you base the judgement? And you would have to even be there to distinguish. So the duality of love, wisdom, emptiness, everything, nothing, all that is part of the appearance. But the whole appearance happens in what's beyond the appearance. And it is not an absence. That's the paradox. For the mind, it is an absence. It's a void. It's nothing. The mind is nothing or abyss. But when the mind is gone, when the mind is just resting, dissolving or not disturbing, or even if it's there rumbling and vibrating, but the attention rests in that uncontrived singularity, it is not a void.

It's a fullness. For the heart, it's a fullness, yes. It's love. And then you can't even say it's love because love has the absence. It kind of feels like it is a positive, blissful feeling. And the feeling can only be experienced in the body. So again, we are back in the appearance. But the body with its blisses, where that appears, that's the natural state, that's the awareness, the open field. And love is beyond the mind. Love is beyond mind. You know, I... Before I met you, you know, I had this goal. I want to love everything. Okay. And I guess including myself, one day, somebody was...

This woman, I was seeing a therapist to try to help myself be better, right? And she said, I don't think you love yourself enough. And I'm like, I love myself plenty, and I'm going to prove it. So I sit down, I wrote down a list of a hundred, more than a hundred things I love about me. And then I got to this retreat in Hale, my, you know, this retreat that I was in, and he says, how about loving yourself for no reason at all? Right? I'm like, whoa. Okay. And all the things you wrote was probably about the body-mind. Well, it was all thoughts, right?

So another thing that has occurred to me is that when I'm loving somebody, I'm loving a description. Yes. Right? So it's like I'm loving certain aspects or whatever, but if you could just realize that that description is not what they are, okay, you're loving thoughts, okay? You're loving ideas, which are kind of, yeah, you're just loving the ideas. So if you know that the ideas are just, well, like little wisps of smoke they can pass through, it's just easier to stay like, okay, well, I could just also love that, which is beyond the ideas, you know? Can you love negative ideas also? Well, of course.

Wonderful. Yeah, but that's the, that to me is also the opportunity though. Yeah. When I catch a negative idea, and I see that the negative idea is also bullshit, okay, then I'm left with even more, blah, emptiness. It is also a creation of the emptiness. It is a baby of the absolute. It is a beloved child. Even the most cruel and crazy idea is also an expression of that. That was just another label we put on things, just the same as God is just a label. Because I tell you, that love is God. If love is God, God must be love. Whichever term you like to put on it.

But that's all there is. There's only love. When it's broken, it seemingly divides into wisdom and what was the other one? Wisdom and love. Yeah, wisdom and love. Still the one thing, expressing, and it's with different forms. Seemingly. Yeah, it's almost the same as you have the one essence, expressing and experiencing, one emptiness. And it goes through the filter of the body. And through the eyes, it expresses as seeing. That's also the whole field of seeing. The emptiness or awareness filtered through the body becomes a seeing. And now, filtered through the ears becomes a hearing, becomes tasting, touching, smelling, thinking, imagining. That emptiness thinking and imagining and doing actions, they're all expressions.

This is just the energy filtered through that transformer. It's almost like you filter the pure white light through the diamond or through the crystal like we have in the window. And suddenly it becomes red light that, let's say, would be seeing. And then the green light that would be hearing. But all those lights are just that one essence, broken through the facets of the crystals into a different aspect. So hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, thinking, taking credit, acting, all of that are aspects of that one energy, how it expresses in various ways. Right. I wanted to say something else though about that, about love. When I'm hating something, I'm believing a thought.

Okay? I mean, if I'm not believing the thought, that hate wouldn't be so present, I think. I think. One of those lines, is love to hate. Yeah. But we love to buy into our thoughts. That's what we're doing. Right? You know, I mean, it's occurred to me that, if I want to love everything, the only thing that would stop me from loving anything is a believed in thought. And the Bible says, Be still and know that I am God. Not talking about himself, that sense of presence is a godliness. And if God is love, I am God. I am that God. Well, you are love itself.

Totally. So the hatred is allowed, but at the same time, that's what's happening, isn't it? You know, when the hatred is happening, it's a believed in thought. Yeah. It'd be putting the belief in the thought or the word. Yeah. Yeah. She doesn't want to be on. Oh, you don't want to be? Okay. Sorry. Thank you. It's all right. Hey, Bob. Hi. When I was little, I actually, we've got a bit of a rainbow light there. We've got a rainbow light theme today. When I was little, I used to remember thinking, I'm just light. I'm a rainbow. I'm just a rainbow of light of all the different colors, all the different everything.

I knew it. And I wrote poetry from a very young age about this. So how does it, if we are the supreme, the absolute, how can a parent telling me I'm a separate something ever, how could the absolute be so stupid to believe that? Do you know what I mean? If I already knew I was rainbow light, how was I able to get pulled out of it? Pardon? Because you learned words. Because you learned words. Jesus. Wow. And also knew the sky wasn't blue. I used to argue with my parents when they'd tell me things. I remember he used to say, that is not blue.

It's that you're just putting the color on it. It's just, I knew we all knew. Yeah. And so it's bizarre to me that we're sitting in a, like a car. I mean, I'm not a car. I'm not a car. I'm not a car. I'm not a car. I'm not a car. I'm not a car. I'm not a car. I'm not a car. But we're sitting in a, like a classroom atmosphere, reminding each other that we're God kind of thing, 50 years on. This is bizarre. The God, the play that, that life plays with itself. Mm-hmm. It's real, It's still a play. That's hysterical. Mm-hmm. Really?

Mm-hmm. Anybody want to comment? This is all new to me. I used, I never asked anyone, but I could never, when I was little, I used to know, ask, a cup was a cup and but I thought I was weird if I said to someone how do we know it's a cup and I never realized until what you just said that maybe I already knew oh my god she looked at the top that the cup was a cup how do we know that how do you know this is a cup yeah look around what you see you should know you see everything until you discriminate put a label on so that's just cheese sitting on that's the carpet that's saying we put these words if you haven't learnt those words you see everything as it is like the cats not label the things that's that's the floor I'm sitting on that's this and that it knows what everything and as you're walking down the street do you notice that you know you walk past houses you know what they are was a big picket fence or a brick fence or whatever without putting them as soon as you put the label on the word on you know we've learnt the word along the way but there's a discriminating purely going on right now you know we've learnt the word along the way but there's a discriminating purely going on right now yeah I'm talking to you I'm hearing car going down the street there hearing other sounds seeing things the functioning is going on but get the word and put everybody else are using the same words and otherwise how could you discriminate anything tell the story about going to the shop and getting a shirt you wouldn't be happy if you just walked out with the label that's right yeah so you're not the label neither is anybody else neither is the cup but it is yeah can I ask a practical question oh can I ask a practical question I have some I have pain a lot of pain and I know that it's from tension and there might be some accident something not right but I know that I get stressed about it you know and I'm pretty sure that that then makes the pain worse so so I want to hear from you how do you handle pain from your way of seeing I say the handling would happen somewhere or another there's pain here right now there's pain here right now it's a bit worse this morning than what it is now it comes and goes but if you know something physically wrong you can do something about it you try and get something done about it you don't have to put up with it necessarily then my mind comes in and what is it so I go to different places you know go to different places chiropractor or physiotherapist or something and no one can say what it is and then my minds trying to work it out you know and I have a lot of you know in the middle of the night I might wake up and oh my god I'm trying to find the right position with my head on the pillow and it's in pain and I know that it causes me to be more stressed and I'm thinking a lot you know maybe if I did this you know gym you know thing or maybe if I strengthened this muscle you know so I can see that play of the mind you know, it's making it, I want to find an answer, but it's making it worse, it's my own, and then I'm more tense, you know.

Understand when we say you won't find the answer in the mind. Exactly. So when you stop looking there, see what comes up then. Then it might reveal something in the way, that'll spontaneously happen in your body, or where to go to, or something to alleviate it, something will turn up. But realise, leave it as it is, as far as the mind's concerned, because you won't find the answer there. But then you can still acknowledge that this mind rambling, trying to find the answer, is the love. It cares, that's the essence of the heart, that it's really trying to... And if you're actually staying, with that acknowledgement, then instead of getting tense and stressed out, you'll get sweet.

Oh, how nice, it's like a little inner child trying to assist, trying to help. Oh, maybe this, or maybe that, oh, how cute. But yes, Bob's absolutely right, you know, the answer comes from the different place. So you just stay with that love and then drop it, and who knows, you may wake up with the answer. You may hear someone else rambling about something, a switch on the radio and the right idea comes up. It's miraculous. You know, it works. But yeah, the mind can actually be acknowledged because it's a wonderful, wonderful instrument that doesn't have any bad intentions. It just has been trained in a way that may sometimes look like completely misguided.

But it multiplies it when you're looking, trying to find it in the mind. Yeah, it does. Yeah, I know that. Also, I think that there was a quote, I guess, that got me pointed in this direction, and from Lao Tzu, who said, if you, I know there's only now, okay, but I think what he meant was you're intending to. So if you think of a time when you had sadness or depression, your attention was in the past, the imagined past. If you think of a time when you have stress or anxiety, your attention is in the imagined future. If you have peace, you're here now, right?

So if you have stress or anxiety about, oh, what more am I going to do about this pain? And da, da, da, da, da. You're going into this some future. And I think that's probably what's happening is you're, what am I going to do? Right? Also, what if it doesn't get better? Yeah, what if it doesn't get better? What if it stays like this? What if it's like this? It occurred to me once I was on a flight from Los Angeles to Australia or whatever, and it was hour number two. I wasn't very long into the flight, and I looked at my watch, and I'm like, oh, another 13 hours.

You know, what makes the long flight hard is that you're not going to be able to do it. Yeah. It's, oh, it's not now. It's another 13 hours from now. I've got another 13 hours of this. Okay. But if you could just stay with just this, and maybe even not label it, but go to the direct sensation. So like, I do. It's very tricky, you know, when I'm really aware of it is in meditation because I feel it, you know, and it's. Included in the meditation. So just dive into it and just go, what's this? Yeah. Yeah. I haven't had much luck with that. I know what you're saying, but yeah, pain's quite tricky.

It is. Pain is tricky. It's tricky. It's because it is in the present, and it is real in a way. Yes. Well, it is real. And it's hard to tell yourself that this is just an innocent, neutral sensation. It's not very neutral. Yeah, that's right. It's discomforting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How bad can this really get? How bad can what? The pain. Because it does make it worse. Right. Go into it more. Yeah. Just amplify it because the worse thing, you'll faint. Try and focus on it and find a centre to it. Yeah. Feel it as much as you can. Mm. Okay. Is that what you do, Bob?

Try and find the centre? Yeah. Well, I tried it years ago and you can't find any centre. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What aren't you? You just 20 seconds longer. Yeah, that's right. Call the centre to it. I've been using that and it works. Yeah, okay. I've been using and who's in pain and the belief that we shouldn't have pain. Where did we all learn that pain's not okay? Yeah. Yeah. Pain should be when it is. Yeah. Look into it as much as you can. Oh, thanks. Never realise that the focus will be in the looking at it, not in the pain itself.

How bad can I make this? Yeah. you're struggling it's all head stuff and while it's in trying to make it worse the pain itself disappears that's a challenge isn't it i'm gonna make it worse and improve it you probably can't yeah and you probably haven't got a self-centered haven't got a center there then so where can it lodge that kills the fear but it still hasn't stopped it happened in a year and a whole lot even though it kills the fear and kills the mind can you tell us the story bob he told me a fantastic story about being at school a seven or eight year old and getting a teacher punishing with beating on his hand and he was taking it easy just just tell the story well i was a pretty arrogant sort of a kid you know this is not hurting bang bang bang and then all of a sudden what if he doesn't stop apparently my face went white blood turned out of it and everybody in the room saw it and the teacher stopped that dead thought changed the pain wasn't it affecting me that much even that pain yeah it wasn't ah i can take this you know what if he doesn't stop yeah it's terrifying yeah and that great story is beautiful isn't it because it's a story that you can take it to the next level and it's very important to have a clear mind and to have a clear mind and that's what's really wonderful about the story and that's what i'm trying to do i think is to actually demonstrate how minds takes over introduces a future in which if it never gets better or if it gets worse and takes away completely takes away joy of life takes away completely obscures and shrinks down this moment and takes over really there is nothing else but that terrifying future and then of course it comes if it's repetitive it can become boring suicidal it is just what really like imagine your favorite having your favorite activity that you do only this for the rest of your life and nothing else come on is future is the thought of future and the thought of having no surprises anymore having no variety of life anymore it's just and not only it takes away the beauty of this moment because suddenly the hearing seeing tasting touching smelling the the juiciness of this moment is completely stolen is completely going to the site is sidetracked because that thought that idea it takes over and because it actually feeds of the fear so it taps into the survival of the body which takes the priority the reptilian brain and then suddenly because my survival is threatened I just you know the mind actually stopped delivering blood to the to the inner organs eyes ears it's just not important you know you've got good blind but survive and the thought of survival being threatened is just getting prioritized but it is because it's a habit it can be recognized and once it's recognized when we see that habit in action it becomes slowly overnight but it becomes laughable it becomes easy it it becomes interesting it becomes interesting it becomes interesting it becomes fascinating whatever the mind does is not me doing it is that machinery working as it has been conditioned and yes and now because it is not me I don't have to take it personally I don't have to feel guilty or ashamed or disappointed I don't have to absolutely feel anything just give it a space of curiosity where I see what what that particular pattern of appearance what that child of the universe that beloved art created by the by the life itself how that one unfolds and suddenly even negative emotions and reactions become just the colorful feelings just a just the pattern on the mandala on overall mandala that even if they are dark like you know you need a little bit of a of a dark for the whole landscape and and becomes so beautiful even sadness even pain of course not if prolonged I mean prolonged pain of the body that hijacks the whole attention because of that survival yeah it is although when you go to sleep is gone yeah when you sleep you'll have knee pain yeah still can be questioned it's still an invitation but yeah it's I think it's a good question.

I think it's the opposite to that. Mmm. It's lovely. Can you could you if it's the absolute can you discriminate it and this are not relating to a reference point to discriminate it's happening to me not happening to me it's just is like if it's raining it's raining not just for you for everybody so keep yourself in the rain but it's raining you do the same as what they do in China when it rains you do the same as what they do in China when it rains it's yours. Take it. That's what I do when I feel pain I mean I've never had chronic pain like you have so I've never had like that long-lasting but when I do have the pain that's what I do is I just try to feel it as much as I do as much as I feel it is feel into it feel it like the other day I was getting a shot an injection that hurts right and I'm like oh let's see how much I can feel this can I feel this is even more like this is like pour all my focus into that sensation but another thing that that's a good thing is that it's a good thing to feel it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can experience it can be done and justice in addition to just feeling it as much as you do you can experiment and play with your right your love hurt your right your love. Yeah does it hurt right now can you focus there for a moment where it doesn't hurt. I don't know if you if I was heard so I said in addition to feeling into it as much as you do can you feel where it doesn't hurt so you're you're big left. Toe you know or the big toe on your left foot. foot does that hurt or maybe it does pick another pot my your yeah and then yeah and or you can go back and forth to where it hurts and where it doesn't hurt and then go back to where it hurts and then go to where it doesn't hurt and then where it hurts and then and if you just code the the opposites of pain and no pain or whatever it can yeah yeah yeah yeah just play with it there and I was really watching and I really let myself feel it and it was amazing it's only it only lasted a moment it's not a big deal you know but really felt it yeah yeah it's okay yeah yeah exactly yeah we've got a few questions but we can I guess read them next time because we had yeah I just saw on live question from someone who's got the terminal illness and have very little time left and he finds it very helpful what we saying here but yeah just wanted some guidance and I might be in the same mood yeah yeah I think we'll come back to it next week because we don't want to brush over situations like this we you know you're twice older he's still young man he's 50 51 but yes thank you everyone