This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
Is he Zara? No, they wouldn't help him. Anyway, I'm Kat and I'm asking you to say your names so everyone knows each other. Ross, Tony, Julia, Dean. Okay, and then I'll just maybe say a couple of words of update on Bob's situation. I spoke with him this morning. The hospital crew is not willing to help him to be on the call, is not willing to press that one button for him. Unfortunately, they are too busy actually for doing that whatever is happening in their lives makes them miserable and grumpy. Lots of compassion. And yes, he's sending love to everyone, he's recovering well, he's doing steps by himself.
He hopes to meet next week in rehab and perhaps soon after home. And now we're going to go to nonduality then. So as Bob usually starts it, there is nothing here to get, there is nothing here to learn. There is really all about nothing. It's really all about the no-thing. The main principle is that there is an existence or I exist, I am. I can't even say there is an existence because that suggests that there is something separate from the I am and nothing is separate from the I am. All I can ever know is that I am. Everything else that I think I know is the thinking.
So if I think I know what I am, where I am, who I am, that's already thinking. That's the ideas, that's thoughts, that's what limits and obscures the natural awareness of existence or the I Am. And on that token we are pointing back to what is known and what is certain and moving away... Oh, sorry, I'll just open... Oh, you open the door, someone is coming. And I knew that was going to happen, the alarm bell. I hope you won't do it. I'm trying to hurry. Yeah, anyway, welcome. We just started. So, So we are pointing back to the obviousness of existence and returning out from all that clouds it, all that limits it, all that obscures it, all that steals the attention away from that basic obviousness Thank you.
What is the beginning of the conversation? If you consider yourself the thinking, the thinking is that. And what is that? Then he often points that language explains it, because the language is what created the barrier in the first place. Without the language there is no questions, there is no confusion. Without the thinking the awareness of being, awareness of presence is here, the I Am is here. And there is nothing that tells me that I am limited in any way. There is nothing that tells me that I end when the skin ends. Only the language comes into the picture and starts interpreting the reality as limited blobs of separate items.
I am a separate item, you, everything is a separate item. The language brings up the idea that things are apart, separated by space. Space is different to the phenomena, to the things. And that's a wonderful function of the brain to create the world, to organize the world, to interpret the world out of the homogeneous field of infinite possibilities into the organized systems of moving objects in it. But that's just the constructed by the mind world of interpretation. Because the world which we call real, which is not entirely real Because it's still the appearing phenomena. But the first generation appearance of the phenomenal world is the world in which there is a sensory experience of seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling appearing on the basic screen of I AM.
I have to be. There is an existence of awareness, presence of awareness. And on that presence of awareness there are impulses, sensations, sights And all those are interpreted into the world as we know it. So the language, the learning of the language, distinguishing of the objects, training of the mind created the reality as we know it So because it is the language that created the confusion moving beyond the language is the way out of the confusion So moving beyond the thinking, going out of the conceptualized world or world that is interpreted and constructed by concepts. Meaning, if I conceive of myself to be the body or the mind, when I drop that thought or question that thought or I see that thought, I'm beyond it.
The thought of me being something or the other appears on that basic screen of awareness of presence. Without that awareness of presence, obviously, there is no body, there is no mind, there is no differentiation, there is no interpretation of the world as such. So the I Am is the primary. And we can make a theoretical assumption that I Am also comes and goes. But of course, that's the theoretical, because it can't be first-handed experience and it has to be a story in time. There is a time when I am not, there is a time when I was or I will be. That's a story, we are back in the mind.
If we land back into the original self or the primary experience, non-conceptual awareness, awareness prior to all the interpretations and stories of who I am, what I am and where I am, we land at that basic screen of I am. And this is the invitation to just sit with that basic undeniable fact of existence. Just sit for 15 seconds and feel that you are. And just acknowledge the fact that yes, there is awareness of presence, there is a being. And what else? Everything else is added on it. This is the place where I would actually even invite you to close your eyes for a few seconds and just land in your heart, in the essence, in the source of that experience of presence.
And just stay there for a little while without just discarding any distractions. Just center your attention there rather than in the head because the first instinct is to look at the heart from the head. Okay, I'm checking what is there from the head. No, it is really dropping out of the conceptualizing into the heart of the essence. In Zen they drop even further into the, like they call it, the solar plexus or dantian or whatever they call it, the center that you, the moving center, the center of action, of God instinct, where you still it. When the movement is stilled, it's easier to actually sense that heart of the essence, that source of the existence.
And obviously that drops you out of the conceptual thinking and just having a little flavor of it for a moment to see what we are talking about and see how quickly the thoughts and images take you away from that peacefulness and blissfulness of plain existence. And what are they? They usually thoughts about me and the world because without relating there is nothing. Without the relationship, without the black and white, back and front, top and bottom, day and night, winter and summer, there is nothing. The whole manifested world manifests as the pairs The You land in that heart or that essence and you don't think. Where is your personal story?
Why do you have to close your eyes? Well you don't. Initially you close your eyes because the world disappears the moment the eyes are closed. So there is less distraction. And the whole attention centers or lands in so-called within. Even that is an image because there is no within or without. There is nothing that is not, you know, even that is a construct. But initially you will find that when your eyes are open, you may only put a fraction of attention on your heart and the rest of attention will be engaged with the world because that's how the computer is constructed. If you have the camera on in your computer, The camera will be taking impulses and will be processing those impulses.
That's the nature of the mechanism there. So the moment you switch the camera off, that amount of attention is available to rest, relax out of processing information. Initially, because the moment you build up the delight in that awareness of existence And you taste that nectar or that juice of presence you feel it regardless You don forget it The brain is doing the mind the processing all of that is going on and you still are in touch with that miraculousness of plain existence. That's why initially they tell you to sit 20,000 hours in meditation and close your senses and all that. It is often confusing and it is often dangerous as Bob says because the mind straight away constructs the meditator who is doing it right or who is doing it wrong or who is not trying hard enough or who should do a little bit better, a little bit longer.
And the whole purpose is lost because engagement in the story about what am I doing, how am I doing, how am I going to get it better or what am I going to get out of it It's another very powerful story of the I. So instead of dispelling the illusion, it strengthens it. The whole purpose of going beyond the conceptual reality that we constructed and landing into that singularity of non-conceptual awareness, plain awareness of presence in which nothing else is, because nothing else can be known without concepts. The whole purpose is not-doing, but the not-doing is hardly possible for the machinery that is designed to constantly narrate, or for the eyes that are designed to constantly take the impulses of light and make sense of them, and the sounds and make sense of them.
So, to actually initially to see how the mind operates, those glimpses of dropping out of the conceptual awareness into that plain pure presence, it's like when you go to the ocean and you swim, you can feel the water and then you get out of the ocean and you feel the water is not there by the comparison. So, when the mind is chatting all the time, you don't even know. Initially, you don't even know that there is anything outside or apart from that chatting mind. When for the moment that mind stops, you can feel, ah, there is a reality apart from constructing conceptual world on it.
Just like the fish doesn't know the water until you take it out. That's how also we cannot know the experience of not-being because we are never, there is no way to experience non-being. It is like the ocean for the fish, it's like a space for the form. It is totally tasteless, touchless, whatever. It doesn't have any flavor, any color, any shape. The I Am cannot be known in the conceptual sensory way because there is nothing apart from that. There is no way to know I Am Not. You can try and imagine it but it's not going to be very effective or successful. But the moments of the glimpses out of the conceptualizing, when you see the conceptualizing starting and stopping, coming and going, Those are easy to observe.
You can right now not be thinking about your past. And I ask you what you had for dinner yesterday and then the thought comes. Oh, the moment ago there was no past and now it is. Ah, see? Like Hare Krishna. Yeah! Ah, have the mic. I think it's reacting to this. I was actually, I was watching a video of someone and it was in India and he said if suddenly I just leave here and dart outside you're all allowed to snigger. I think it was this Indian curry I had. Sorry. Yes, so back to the language. So the language was the cause, the original sin that created the reality.
Original sin, or one could say original grace, because without the language we would be on the trees. And there's nothing wrong. I don't think animals suffer much of being what they are. Thank you for watching. The world disappears, we are not separate at any point. It's really just for the whole appearance to exist and to be understood. There has to be a brain that makes sense of it. The moment the brain shuts down, the constructed world also disappears. Or the moment you step down or you fall asleep and the constructing doesn't happen, the world disappears. Another world may be constructed in the dream. Just the same way, different part of that computer will construct a different world in which the different scenario, different people will appear in that dream.
But this is also a dream, this is also an appearance. And it magnificent it incredible As far as I can observe the dreams happen to my cats They by all means they dreaming And Julia dog she definitely dreams too So that sensitive equipment there creates not only this dream, but creates the dreams at night. And this is all because we learned, we trained it to differentiate between things. This is a wonderful, wonderful capacity totally to be appreciated. And the capacity to create stories, capacity to create collective myths, to create societies, complicated cultures, they're all wonderful. But as much as wonderful they are, they also backfire.
Because as much as the story is created about the unity, or about the nation, or about the community, about spirituality, about seeking, They may be all beautiful, appealing stories or the romance, the friendships. The other end of the stick is the suffering. Now to be in the relation with the world, with my beloved one or with the friend, I have to be somehow separated and isolated. I'm not complete. I need that something and that someone. From the world I need literally everything. I am everything, the air, water, fire, space, I need the food, I need to breathe, all of it. If I am here and this is out there, I am totally dependent on it.
I can't live without it. And if I take this story to be reality, then I also take to be reality that I am deficient, I am not good enough, I am not complete, I am vulnerable. I need the whole world to look after me. I need the air to be there, the water, the fire, all of it. So that creates suffering, the sense of uneasiness, the sense of not being enough. That hurts. And of course, because of that pain, I start to construct the solutions. One of the solutions may be, oh, get some alcohol, get some drugs and sedate it. Or maybe distract yourself with some spiritual entertainment or some science or some other intellectual fun.
Just do not feel that primordial call for investigation because that's what I call it. You know, if there is a noise coming out from the heart, look at me. I mean, look, there is something missing, something off here. Just go into that void. Just stay in that void, let it kill you, let it eat you out, like pull through into that infinity of non-existence, so it says. But there is no such thing as non-existence. What do you find? You find... But of course the mind fears it. No, no, I'll find something, I'll get the... like Bob has this beautiful three liners, I'll add, accumulate, amass, you know, there is something missing here, so I'll add to it.
I'll add the title, I add the career, I add another label, I get another qualification, or I get maybe plastic surgery, or colour my hair, or something. So I will feel better. And for a moment it feels better. But that primordial call for home, for coming back home, it will surface. You'll get new house, you'll get new car, you'll get new adventure, new experience. After a while it will be back again. It will call you to look what is it, what's the source. It may feel very fearful for the mind that seems to be a separate entity and is looking at the fact, looking to recognize that it is a fake, that it doesn't have any reality, that there is no one there, There is no one there, there is no entity.
So now that idea of me is confronted with the fact that this is just an idea. There is no one real there, there is nothing there. A lot of people experience anxiety, fearing that, oh, this is, I am the ego and I am going to die, and I don't want to die, I love to live, I love to be. Well, there is no one to die. If you really fearlessly face that primordial call and you look at this and you see that this is just a vibrating emotion there, which you label with the thoughts or ideas, you construct the fear of non-existence, you construct the fear of being an ego that is about to be annihilated or killed.
That construct prevents you from basically seeing the whole play. Like if there is something to die, who will witness that dying? There is always something there to be there to fear the dying and witness the dying. So there is nothing to fear, literally. And if you look what the fear is, if you look at that bubbling energy, it is really just It is love in disguise. It is just love to life. It is love to be. So you see, okay, but I think I am the ego and I think I'm about to be killed. By who? By the investigation? Who is investigating? There is no one ever to be killed.
It is just recognition that what is taken to be an individual or the self is just a bundle of habit patterns, reaction patterns, past experiences, tastes, preferences. Each of them individually,
The taste for pizza over the salad is a quite common trait, but conjured with another taste for probably preference for color red over green or rap music over classical. Now this bundle of habit patterns kept together tells you that I am the individual, I have to defend myself, I am real. Look at them individually and see, observe yourself and your own costume of patterns and behaviors and see who is looking. Who is having the preference?
Who is preferring that over the other? Who is fearing that? Who is defending that? Whose opinion is that? Is there anyone there? Or is it just the opinion? Is it anyone there or is it just a belief system or preference? Looking at those bundle of thoughts like when Bob says, you know, you grow up and you learn that you are the I and then you learn that I is the little Johnny and as you grow it doesn't feel like it suits you. So you add to it a little bit more. I am a little Johnny who likes ice cream. Or I am the little Johnny whose father is big and strong.
Or I am the little Johnny who goes and study law and become the lawyer. And who is married to this and live in that country and da-da-da-da-da-da-da story goes. But every little element of that story is not what the little Johnny is. It's actually quite opposite to what it is. And you may feel it. I remember feeling it profoundly for all my life when I get into a career of being ships officer. And then I figured out later on when my girlfriends back in Poland were introducing me to other girlfriends, being like bumping or blowing away with pride, oh she is an officer. Everyone had me in the phone, Kat the officer.
I say yuck, yuck, I'm not, I'm not even on the ship right now, I'm here, I'm your friend. You love me, we know each other for 30 years. Don't call me that, don't limit me to the profession that I'm doing once in a while when I'm not here. And if someone calls you by any limited label, tells you that you are even a human, even that is a limitation. When you go back from the head to your heart and you forget that label, are you really human? Or you were pure open space of awareness of presence. I don't want to get sick. Oh, tulips are all right.
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, they can't have lilies. Tulips are okay. But thank you. Yes? The Self is a very tricky thing. The sense of the Self. Because it certainly seems like there is an entity there, a substratum, The The whole point is not in finding a self, The Aum Tathagata, I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am. So in objects and people you can't actually locate something specific, you know, that you can say that's the self, there it is there, sort of thing. But I find it sort of refreshing to come to the conclusion of not finding. You know you know and rather you know it always be frustrating to finish up finding something even like finding it you know complete happiness or bliss I just so happy That what I found you know or something or bliss happiness I found God Beautiful We all are transient.
The enlightened ones don't perceive things. They don't perceive that there's anything there. They perceive a lack in things, in people and so on. Now that's a positive, it's not a negative thing. In fact, this whole thing is a deconstruction. In fact, it's like a negation. An affirmation is sort of affirming some reality. The I Am That, Ramana Maharshi, I Nishchagiri, Dzogchen, Veda, Vedanta, presence-awareness, Mahavakya. That's really, I like that. One of my favorite quotes is, truth is that which never changes. So what's the truth of what you are? Right? And I found it, I don't know, there's, I think that you can't, I mean, as I've heard Bob say many times, the me is the cause of all the psychological suffering, right?
And it's the belief in the me, really. And when it's seen through. So the question that I... I mean, there was a time not too long ago, and I was crazy, like really crazy. Like what happened, really, I guess if I go back in the story, is there was a buying into a belief. A belief was taken to be real. A belief in what I am. An affirmation, if you will. I am everything. I was buying into labels, but that's what happened. There was some buying into labels. And the solution was really just the neti neti. It was a question that just arose. When I finally had a moment without my phone, and anybody else.
And suddenly, all right, here I am. Okay. Queen of the universe. You know? Right. Reincarnation of Eve and Mary. Let's go there. Okay. Maybe you're maybe, you know, the false cannot stand up to the investigation. So let's investigate. I mean, if you think it's true, you should be willing to pass it through that test. You know? If you're not a body, and I've seen my father's corpse, you know, I mean when that happened I was just like, wow, if that's not rock-solid evidence that we're not these bodies, I don't know what is. You know, and I think I was saying recently, we were on a call, even somebody, other people's stories, like you've heard stories about people who've had these near-death experiences.
As Bob said, there's no near death because you never die. What dies for a moment is the body. So a bodily death experience might be called that. And when people have those experiences, they report back on it. And often there's a story of there was a rising above and seeing the body. What was seeing the body? You know what I mean? At least they're seeing that that's not what they are. Okay. So you see, you're definitely not a body. So if I'm not a body, well, as Bob says, The personality comes from the Greek word persona. Reincarnation. I was just checking if there was some comments online.
Oh, okay. I'll feed them to you. Personality, which is mask. Okay. Mask is what? Not the actual. So I'm not a personality and that can change. So it doesn't fit with the truth is that which never, what's the truth of, I'm not a personality, anything existing within the illusion of time. I'm not an emotion, I'm not a story, I'm not a belief, I'm not a behavior. Can you find the one who could be reincarnation of anything? Or queen of anything? Or anything? Can you actually find? No. And it's like you said that, not finding is the finding. For the longest time I was expecting when this question was taught to me, well, you know, the answer will come in words, you know, but the correct answer doesn't come in words really, you know, if I'm even saying that right, you know what I mean?
I mean we been seduced by appearances you know what we saying we saying because the appearances they look substantial they look real And why do they look real? Because we think they're real. So things appear the way we think they, and so on. It is ignorant thinking, so to speak. And so, you know, the world now projects back to us this ignorance. We think things are solid, substantial, real entities. So things appear that way. But we are misperceiving, we are ignorant of the fact that these supposed solid entities The The He was being interviewed by someone else who didn't know anything about anything, I think.
But Alan Elder did pose the question, he says, well, before I die, he says, I would like to at least have a little bit of a snippet of what this world's all about. I Aam That, Raman Maha, I Nisargad tathagati, I Aam Tathagati, I Nisargad tathagati, I Nisargad tathagati. I Am The One We assume we're suffering, we assume we're born, we assume we die, we assume we've got friends, we assume we've got enemies and all of this. But, you know, cutting that right down is that nothing really originated in the first place. Now, there are appearances, there are certainly appearances that we see, but when we examine those appearances we can't find any sort of substance in them.
So, the appearances are like mirages, you know, and, or like that, the example of the snake in the rope. You know, there never was a snake. Never existed, it was never there. And as you say, it's imagined or conceptualized. It's all taking place. We've just basically constructed it. This world is constructed by imagination and by conceptual ideas. And the main conception is that things exist. You know, that they really are real things there. I'm not sure if I can say that I have a lot of experience in the field. Translation TransLaw The We will not be able to demonstrate that or find that, something that, you know, try and find anything at all that doesn't depend on things, you know, that's just there on its own.
Let's say we take suffering. We treat suffering as though it's real, as though it's an independent entity, as though there's suffering just floating around in the world, sort of thing. But no suffering depends on some existence of a person as an individual The Nisargad comes from the concept of the existence of a person as an individual. The Nisargad term is a real theme. And this supposed self that's supposedly the substratum behind these aggregates, that supposed self, it needs aggregates or depends on aggregates. We're not talking about a self there where there's no aggregates. The I Am is a subject of something. The object, in order for that to be an object, a tree, it depends on a subject viewing it.
So once we establish these things as dependent, that means they're not independent, so they're not real things. It's only a little tool. It's dependent origination. Just reducing things to dependency and we can eliminate this idea of an independent entity and so on. That's about all. It's only a tool. That was beautiful. Yeah, that was beautiful. It reminds me of something else Bob says that, what was it, not individual, individual means undivided. It collapses the separation if you really look into it deeply. Look into the idea of interdependence, it collapses the separation. Because if nothing stands of its own and if nothing has any independent nature, if I cannot exist without the world outside me, it means I'm not separated from the world outside me.
Do you want me to read you the questions? Can you let me finish? Yeah, sorry. Oh, okay. No, no, no, I apologize. We think we're privileged and we're more than a rock. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, the story of being superior. Yeah, yeah. And the rock now is inferior. Yeah. And so on. Now, you know, I know no one here would think that they're superior to a rock. Never. We are enlightened. Yeah. It's a bit humiliating because it's only this supposed self that perceives itself to be something and more than an appearance. The ultimate nature of the ultimate nature of the infirm carrying on is that everything is but a mere appearance.
The ultimate nature of the couch is that it's a mere appearance. But we perceive it to be more than an appearance, to be something inherently existing, real, solid. But everything can be reduced down to just nothing more than a mere appearance. And that's basically who we are. We can't say we're completely nothing because there's something showing up in some fashion. So we are, you know, and that's another liberating to realize, you know, that we are nothing more than a mere appearance. And, you know, but we want to be something more than that. Yeah, and actually recognizing the world as a dream, just recognizing that everything is just merely appearing, just like a dream at night.
Also the dream character is appearing, like the body lies flat on the bed while you are climbing mountains arguing with people or doing whatever, flying. So that character in the dream is also the appearance. This is the invitation to a recognition that this body is an appearance, just like the couch or the sofa you pointed out. So now the body and the sofa interacting between each other because they're interdependent. So they feel solid to each other. The sofa exists only because it's perceived and understood and constructed as a sofa by the entity which assures its existence. All of that play of the whole world happens in that basic screen of I Am or awareness.
This is my binocular. I need that eye to see and construct the world. Without that eye, the world disappears. Gone, now black, child, there is nothing there. So this is the tool of experiencing an expression. Without the tool, as you say, there in that corner where nobody sits, there is no self, there is no suffering, there is no aggregate, there is no means or medium of experiencing. The medium is designed and calibrated to hear the sounds, to interpret the waves of infinite possibilities as the signs and sounds and solid matter. That is the world, the dream world that is constructed. But this appears in this world as much as the world.
And I am beyond both. I am beyond the body doing its thing. The body might come and argue with something and the body might go and eat and body feeds itself and body accumulates. But what does it have to do with me? It doesn't. This body is only with whatever it follows. It follows that it has preferences, habits, fears, whatever it does. But if the attachment to the body and its way of perceiving and understanding the world is broken, because I understand that I'm not my vehicle, I'm not the car I'm driving, I'm not the costume I'm wearing, I can be totally amazed in the way of shit, it really looks solid.
I know it's not, but oh my God, look at this, it seems so real, how magnificent. But even those interpretations only come up because I have the body. There wouldn't be a possibility to say, wow, what a magnificent miracle, it looks solid, it feels solid, you guys, you look like you are alive, you're better than stone. Even that is only possible because of that aggregate that is part of the world. Everything appears in the sphere of seeing, including the vehicle. But I am beyond that. The I am dreaming myself a body. I am dreaming myself a world. I am beyond the dream. But without dreaming that body, I am blind.
I am deaf. I can't see. So it isn't even that I am first and then the world comes. There is no first and second, because there is no time. Time is part of the illusion, time is in the mind, in the story. It is just this moment. Am I recognizing the whole thing I'm seeing true in this moment or not? If I'm not, well, that's how the life plays out. But right now we are hanging out and getting excited about it because there is something calling back. There is something from within And telling us that there is a possibility to see differently, to see in less linear conditioned way.
And that feeling is there, we know it, there is a knowing that apart from the constructed world there is more to see and understand. And it is going on all the time, underlying that narrative which comments and constructs and constantly interprets the reality. I'll give it to you, Julia, now so you can read the online comments. And I'm sorry everyone who is online waiting to be read, we are just getting there. Lots of good mornings and, you know, happy to know that Bob is doing well. And appreciation for your keeping it going. And Tanya says, seeing that the story of the body image looking different will add something is false.
It is a story about what is not here, laugh out loud. And what can be taken away or added to being whole, complete, non-conceptual. Wow, how beautiful. Sally said good morning and then let me see Scott Kingston says truth says that I am nothing and love says that I am everything between the two my life flows. Nisargadatta and Amaranth said me or I is the greatest illusion thoughts and words too. Who declares an illusion is also the illusion or also an illusion. He said all is right, all is false and wrong. What is beyond right and wrong? Thoughts and words mask it apparently which cannot be masked.
Tanya wanted to know what Hare Krishna food is. It's explosive. And Karen says, Kat, you're always so clear to me and you speak in a way that resonates. Tanya said that she finds the same, Karen, resonating so much with what Kat is saying and expressing in the sharings today. So that's the... The cat is going back to the vows. Ah. We'll see. So, the kitty folks, let's see. It's interesting that, as Kat was saying about, she's still sitting in the chair, that we don't deny the conventional reality of things. The conventional chair and so on is practical and so on, and it doesn't cause suffering.
But what causes suffering is thinking that chair is more than a mere appearance that it inherently existing and that it good or it bad or it too high or too short or something or other That what causes suffering you know is thinking that there anything inherent anything that A ptosis of the The I Am the Self. The And we're thinking it's real. We think it's real. This is who I am. You know, and people will swear black and blue. Well, they're saying what they're saying, which I used to say, is that it's permanent. And there's an unpermanent, unchanging self or something over there. You know, and that means it could, it would never change.
We look around and everything is changing and so on. And reality actually goes beyond change or no change either, between impermanence or permanence. But the main thing that people are caught up with is permanent things. I Am Real, that's real, it's really existing, like permanent type things. So Nagarjuna, he just used impermanence to undo permanence and showed that everything's impermanent. But then you don't want to cling to that because then we'll turn that impermanence into something permanent, you know, and so on. So, like he said, once the medicine's done its job, it's no longer a medicine and is to be turfed out. Or once the raft has got you across to the other side, you don't carry the raft on your back everywhere with you, sort of thing.
You know, it's done its job and it's to be dispensed with, sort of thing. I love what you say Donji before when you actually pointed out to the fact that sometimes people feel that they found something and if they found something they've already missed it. Because what happens next? Oh I had an experience. Oh my god I want to get back to that experience. This was such a wonderful experience. How do I get back to it? First of all, now I'm constructing the me and I'm constructing the experience and then we have the relationship again and now I'm devoid from that experience. I'm solid, I'm real, that's the belief.
And the experience also solid and real even though it's not there, so it is only in the imagination, in the past. It's only remembered as something. So this is precisely if you find, if you look, investigate and you find something solid or you find something tangible, straight away mind constructs a trap out of it. And now, oh, but I had a glimpse and I want to go back. I want to understand it. Throw it away. This is another construct. This is another imaginary construct. All of this is a potential for new discoveries, to overlook the constructed past. The story of me losing something or me having something or me wanting to gain something later or me wanting to progress towards something or understand it better or see it better.
It has its validity in the story but it completely overlooks the reality underlying it. As you say, everything is changing. There is nothing that is not changing. Who knows about the change? The change is being known. So in that you wanna... Yeah, just something that sort of really grabbed me, I hope it grabs other people. No, beautiful. Is that as you were talking about, you know, an experience and you know people may... and I don't deny the experiences and I welcome them and say it's good and I'm not here to knock, you know, www.nisargad.com.au Learn that experience into something inherent something that's really real, that's the truth, becomes now a mere experience.
So to sort of illustrate the point, everything that shows up in this world I'll say is impermanent or dependently arisen. I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am. I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am. The I Am The One . In the end, in the end, I was a little bit more than 10 out of 10. I thought, oh God, you know, immediately there was this frustration. And anyway, what happened, a minute later he came back and said, oh, is that your ball? The dog picked it up. But anyway, but you know, the reactions that come up, we, you know, we are sort of thinking there's a reality in that experience or there's, you know, so on.
The meaning of the word is that it indicates that it is impermanent, not real, not some independent substantial thing. We think they are substantial things. What shows up we are seeing them as substantial things. But if something shows up it means it is insubstantial and lacking. I am enjoying what Tony has been saying, very eloquently speaking about things and all sorts of different things. But when you were analysing, you were heading to the point where there was nothing that The They examine smaller and smaller parts of things which are unknowable. So they eventually will get to the fact that nothing authentic can be known. They've actually, the quantum mechanics, they only talk probabilities.
They don't have any certainties. So it's fascinating that the world is so beguiling that we think the answer is in the world, but it's getting to the point where something which seems to escape dependent origination is the fact that awareness doesn't change. Awareness is being, it's pure being, really. It doesn't change. What Tony was saying, and I actually quite liked it, when you start deconstructing everything, you deconstruct, you realize that everything who has any substance or even idea, even the idea is awareness. Can you point, find some? No, you can't. So you only you left with non Only non but then Tony also pointed even the non or emptiness you can make to a thing as something permanent Even non-existence is not a permanent thing because there is nothing permanent.
So it actually gets really reconciled because going that way you end up in a place where I don't know anything. Totally, there is nothing to be known. There is totally nothing. Everything is interdependent. Nothing has independent nature. Nothing stands on its own. There is nothing that has any substance. So there is only nothing that never changes. So the truth is nothing. And in a way, that's true. As Nisargadatta says, when I'm nothing, this is wisdom. Wisdom is nothing, everything is nothing. But there is the other side of the coin, because it can only exist if it exists dualistically and it flows. And this is what I was kind of attempting to show you initially.
Relax out of the thinking, relax out of investigating. Everything that was said is very helpful and it's very true. And we know it, we talk about it intellectually, yes, that makes sense, yes, that's logical, of course. You go into the atom and you see that they are just a field of information. And that's right, that's all okay and we can grasp it. If we are smart enough we can actually grasp it and we can stay grasped in the intellectual understanding of it. But there is another side of the coin in which when we just relax out of the thinking and drop into that heart of the essence, on that existence, There is the same wisdom there, totally the same wisdom there.
Yes, it is all dream, it is all appearance. Wow, amazing. I don't know what anything is. When I stop interpreting and I just, it's just pure being in which everything shows up, the sofa shows up and the label sofa shows up and all my wisdom, past wisdom, oh, this is sofa, it is a leather sofa, oh, leather comes from cow. All of it shows up together with whatever is appeared. The understanding what it is, what it is for, how it originated, the beginning of it, it all appears in the mind, in that presence, in that nothingness or cognizing emptiness that doesn't even exist. You can't say that it is and you can't say that it isn't.
But if you look at your own heart, can you say I am not? Well, on the mental level you can say it, but really can you try and not exist that witnessing consciousness which is not it, it is not something to be found. It cannot be found if you are it, but that I, that Is, that Isness, that plain untraceable being in which everything shows up. As you say, things show up, labels show up, understanding of what it is, they show up. I made that up. I like it. The New Zealand Tony, you remember Tony from New Zealand? Oh yeah, yeah. She also uses that language.
Yeah, yeah. Yes, and I do like it too. It kind of, yes, it pops in, you know, stuff pops out. There is no one there. You can say two truths. Well, that sounds very dualistic and so on. And so on, you know, an ultimate, you know, the conventional truth and the ultimate truth. And the conventional truth of, say, the table is the general appearance of the table. The ultimate nature of the table. I like your point because if you do away completely with ultimates and so on, it's not quite that either. But the ultimate nature of the table is the emptiness of the table. That's the ultimate nature of everything is the emptiness of the thing, not the seeming substantiality of the thing.
So in that sense, that's the ultimate nature of anything is the emptiness or the lack, the lack of substantiality of anything. And I like your word, I say seduced by the appearance, you had another word there. Beguiled. Yeah, beguiled, yeah. It's a magical appearance. Appearance. There's a memory of experiencing and having glimpses of all these things that are being discussed and experiences and having these experiential insights and glimpses and revelations and then the conceptual framework would formulate around that again and begin and begin and continue to. But like to actually, so in those experiences to see the emptiness of something, of this I am-ness, this being-ness is in itself absolutely empty, like completely empty and somehow the perception factor,
The faculty stops functioning in the way that it used to and then there's this, you could call it apperception, I guess, or the opposite of perception, where there's actual real seeing.
So there's no effort to try and see the emptiness inherent in anything, including this and that, because the perceptive faculty ceases. Consciousness recognizes itself as itself, being itself. The only reason why it is doing this is this inherently empty dream of love, like an expression of just, I don't know, that's all I've got to say. It is beautiful, absolutely. It is all movement. Movement is expression and expression is love for being, love for existence, love for the appearance. It dances to itself, it's like a great beautiful entertainment which doesn't have any existence and yet it stands all beautiful in front of your eyes, the ten thousand things.
And as Tony was saying that almost one could say because for things to appear they have to be duality, they appear dualistically. So you almost have two realities, or you could even say three realities, or you could say whatever the number of realities. That one is the conceptual reality, the constructed reality in which the body does its thing, in which the body interacts, creates the enemies, the friends, the like, the dislike, the aversions, the craving, all of it. It happens and underlying this is the reality in which everything is known as illusion, as a dream. If there wasn't the innate, inherent knowing of the fact that the world has been constructed, you wouldn't be actually resonating with it, you wouldn't be here listening to it.
Because everyone has experienced the paradigm shift or the perspective point of view shift. You see something as a bud and then you look from another angle, that's good. So you know that whatever you think is not the ultimate reality, it's just one way of looking at things. And you also know that beyond all of the ways of looking at things, there is a space which doesn't have existence, or which does have existence, you can't even say because it's beyond the language, which enables the change to be known. Existence is a characteristic that we impute on things. But the things from their side, they don't have that characteristic existence.
It's been conceptually imputed, you know, a characteristic called existence. I was thinking that this Nagarjuna bloke who's in a, well, I presume, who knows, doesn't, I don't care, he might be the next door neighbour who wrote the stuff, I don't care where it came from, but what I'm reading is supposedly in about the second century or something or other, supposedly called the second Buddha. He taught what the first Buddha spoke. His method was, you could see if you're with anyone, the thing that people are, the basic thing that causes suffering and that they're caught up with is that things are real, substantial, independent, stand-alone entities.
I Am Real, The House Is Real. The I Am the Self The investigation is freedom from belief, freedom from the solidity and freedom from belief in any concepts that are not of the same nature. So, when Bob is inviting people to do investigation, he is investigating the separateness of the seer and the seen. It just the seeing it one stick it not two The seer and the seen is constructed The investigation is empty Even all our deciphering and throwing it around and stuff that also empty I Am That Ramana Maharshi I Nchagiri Dzogchen Veda Vedanta presence Mahavakya I have no idea how to put this.
You know, it's hard to sort of refute that nihilistic thing. And that's how it will be perceived. So you sort of have to counter that. And you know, it's not nihilistic. But anyway, thanks. It's completely nihilistic for the mind. For the mind as a conceptual thing it has to be nihilistic, but it's not. But in reality I guess it's not. Yeah, that's a good point. Yes, it seems nihilistic and it is nihilistic from the mind's perspective because we are deconstructing the constructed reality. We are proving that constructed reality, reality constructed by the mind The mind is not real, it is empty. It denies the reality to where the mind puts that reality.
That's what the investigation of deconstruction is. Until you are left with nothing. When you are left with nothing and you still exist, you still are, I am, and there is nothing. Nothing here, nothing there. I am that nothing. Then you realize how that nothing appears as everything. So now, oh gosh, I am that nothing which is everything. I am that everything. And as Dean was saying, that flow of nothing expressing itself as everything, dancing as ten thousand things, that's the movement of love. That's the love for being because all those things appearing to be because they love to be and they are glimpsed. This is how the infinite or the absolute glimpses its omnipresence, omnipotence, because it doesn't have visible presence until it gives itself a vehicle through which the presence can be glimpsed.
And omnipotence also, every power is part of that one flow or one potentiality. Your power to think, your power to see, the power of the universe to roll around, All of it, all the constructed, imagined and perceived universe, the dream universe, the power that you have when you sleep at night and you climb the mountains, is part of that omnipotence. Another point that, like, the question will be, well, how on earth is this, you know, what's taking place in this world? What's it all about? So on. And basically, and who are we? Now, this is probably not going to be, go down well. No, go on, go on.
We don't have that. But it's like, you know, what is, what on earth is taking place? And according to Nagarjuna, and I've sort of checked it out as best I can, I think he's right. I hope he's right, because otherwise I'm going down the gurgle. So, you know, I just hope he's right. But all that's taking place is conditions coming together. But the conditions are also empty. Yes, yeah, and those conditions are exactly. Now if you take fire, the fire is dependent on say fuel, oxygen and a spark or something like that, those conditions. And when those conditions are favourable, they come together, there is an appearance of a thing called fire.
Now when those conditions are not favourable, for instance the oxygen is removed, the fire ceases. And we are like, we are just a matter of, we are a bunch of conditions coming together. I've said you. No, no, no, wonderful, wonderful. And, you know, of course we want to be more than that, you know. But, you know, that's all we are is a bunch of conditions. What are those conditions? Well, parents. The basic condition of this supposed who we are, the basic condition of this self or supposed who we think we are, is a body or some aggregates. And that will be the basic condition of this self.
You'll need some aggregates. I Am the One and Only God The Now in ourselves The The So there's no entity that can die because if there was nothing born, how could something die? There was nothing born in the first place and so we are, in a sense, we are sort of mere appearances. In this sense, the I Am the One There is no self that is to wake up, there is no self that is going to get enlightened, there is no self that is going to understand something or liberate itself. There is no one to get liberated, no one to wake up, no one to get anything.
It is the realization of absence of that self which is liberating. Not the self that is going to get something or see something or learn to perceive the universe in a different way. The certainty of that absence and what goes with it, the certainty of everything else drops away. Like Julia was asking, we were having a little bit of a chat the other day, if I feel certain about something, is that an invitation to question? Or is it an indicator of a belief? Indicator of a belief, good point, yeah. And I said the seriousness of it indicates the great investment. So what's that serious? You know, me and my future and my situation and my relationships, my awakening, my spiritual seeking.
If there is no my... Isn't that seriousness coming out a little bit from a sense of certainty? Isn't that why maybe the seriousness is there, is there's a sense of certainty? You know, hey, if I don't do this, I'm going to die. Okay, that's, you know, that's what I'm certain, right? Blah, blah, blah, right? And that's why I'm serious, is because of a sense of certainty. Yeah, you could say the next level to believe is certainty. And it is false certainty, because how can you be certain about something that is not happening right now? You can't, you can only believe that it is real, But you can't really know it.
The only thing that you can know right now, without any doubt, is the fact that you are knowing, that is an awareness of presence. That's the only thing. If you know that you're going to die, you are knowing that you're going to die. This is not a certainty, this is not the truth, this is the belief. So yes, you could say the sense of certainty is an indicator of the belief. And the suffering is an indicator, is an invitation to question. The seriousness is the suffering already. It is like a prerogative of the suffering because something can be serious for a moment and may not hurt yet.
It won't take long. That's the concept of time, but that's the experience. Everyone, I guess, has the experience of being slave to whatever belief you take, hijacks the consciousness. If I believe that God or devil hates me or I go to hell and I'm slave to the belief, suddenly there is no self, there is just a belief. There is no me having that fight or that belief that, you know, the COVID is gonna kill me or get me or government is gonna kill me or get me. There is no self having it. It feels like it. It feels like there is an entity having these values or these beliefs or these viewpoints.
And they are all mine. There is a me. The me is real and I know it or I feel it or I believe it. But there is no me, there is just a belief. When you see it as such, it completely loses its things, it relaxes itself. There is nothing to hang on to. If there is no self, that belief passes through like a cloud. It doesn't stop at anything. So you can now resonate with every fanatical belief in the world and give them the same, blow them a kiss. And you don't take them seriously. Enlightenment is perceived by virtue of substantial inherent things not being perceived.
Enlightenment is perceived so to speak by virtue of substantial inherent real things not being perceived I Am That Ramana Maharshi I Nchagiri Dzogchen Veda Veda Veda So after Tanya said that she felt she agreed with Kiran that there she's resonating a lot with what you're saying Kiran added I have always felt slightly separate even when I know I belong there is this sense of being just slightly to the side and not quite connected if that makes sense it feels like the closer to I am not separate from him. For the first few months of life and that I wonder if I have ever felt that I must have.
Amaranth added, beautiful what we think about self is unthinkable or unthinkable beyond thinking and non-thinking yet everything is self, nothing is Everything is everything and everything is nothing. Realization is not an event. Nisargadatta. Amaranthal also wrote, there are both components, permanent and impermanent, in seer or seen. Impermanent can see the permanent, yet both permanent and permanent are also illusions from the point of self. What fun. He also wrote, We speak and think about which is beyond thoughts and words. What a fun. And then he wrote, Beautiful Tony, What is beyond existence and non-existence, phenomenal and non-phenomenal, or conceptual and non-conceptional. Without knowing the falsehood of knower, unknowable self-reaching.
Reaching is also false. We were never far away. And then Terry Stevens has joined in and he wrote a message for Tony. I once said you were full of shit. I hope you can forgive me now. It's beautiful hearing the understanding being expressed through you now. And then Amaranth wrote emptiness with fullness in his response to Terry. And Tanya wrote, I can't ever imagine you saying that, Terry. I can! I heard it! Rohan Shakara thought convinces itself of the reality of itself and causes a seeming fixation on ideas and concepts. If it can be clearly seen that whatever thought convinces itself is true can never be known for a fact, then suffering ends.
Existence is the only thing that can be known for certain, and it needs no thinking. I love that. That's good. And Amrit added, self is solid and hard but looks like emptiness. And Nisargadatta quote. Dale, Alison Walker wrote, Hi lovelies and Ram I Om said Satam Shivans, I can't pronounce this Sundara, my love. And then Amrithra, we thank the Infinite Cat and all of you wholeheartedly for taking time for us and in spite of Bob in the hospital. Apparently we are missing him but also we are seeing him in all of you. Much love and gratitude. Yes, much love and gratitude to everyone. Tanya wrote, thank you lovelies, thank you so much for Kat for hosting the meeting today.
Immense gratitude for the pointers and for the home that was never left. Thank you so much Tony for the clarity expressed today. Lots of love to you all. Before I forget, tomorrow morning we will be on Zoom at 9.30 a.m. Melbourne time. You can find the Zoom link at Bob's website. Bob will not be present, well maybe he can join us in Zoom, we'll find out. But we're all going to enjoy the conversation just as much as we did today, I think. Amrit added, conditioning of unconditional beautiful Tony, just a fun game of mind. Ram sent love, Rohan said thank you cat and all, Amruth said beautiful Tony, oxygen can be withdrawn from fire but self can never be withdrawn from non-self.
Self is beyond doer and non-doer, excellent, and Amruth also said excellent cat, living in uncertainty, phenomenal conceptual as non-conceptual awareness. Excellent, Tony. Really a joy to have you. And Joe added, thank you, Kat. And that is the end of the comments. Wonderful. And that's the end of the meeting. That's the end of the meeting, yeah. The time has gone. And thank you, everyone, wholeheartedly for being here and participating. And thank you, everyone online as well. And love to all. And love from Bob also. He made sure I won't forget to pass it on. Thank you.