This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
What is the most obvious fact that we are already that? I am trying to find the answer in thinking which is basically moving away from that obviousness of existence. We bring back the attention into that obviousness of existence. We basically beat away all the distractions. We question the distractions. Because the distractions come from the fact that we were told that we were the body or we were the mind. Yes, so we just, yeah, we basically start from the fact that we are already that. Whatever you think that that is, you can call it God, you can call it emptiness, you can call it awareness, intelligence, you can call it just plain being or presence.
Whatever you call that, this is what you are already. There is no need to look for it, there is no need to do anything about it, it is already there, always and ever. We are already that. And that regardless of what our story or what we think, nothing can change the basic fact of the existence. We may believe that we are the body because we were told so or because we experience sensations located in the body. We may believe we are the thinking or the story, the bundle of memories that we have. But regardless of that overlay of beliefs, we are already that, always and ever, we are that life.
So the whole thing is about bringing back the attention to the obviousness of presence, of existence, of being. And disregard all the distractions, all the lies that sit on top of it. So the way we do it, the way Bob beautifully does it, he looks at every aspect of the distractions, reminding, start from the fact that you're already here. Where else would you be? You already now, when else would you be? And that here-ness and now-ness is undeniable and it's obvious. You can't deny your existence. You can't even try to not exist. I mean, you can try. Good luck with that, but it's not going to be effective.
And there is an awareness of this existence. We know that we are. There is awareness of existence. And as Bob points also, awareness of existence is, there is a preference for that existence. Like obviously none of us has a knife to commit a suicide right now, and even if it was, it still didn't happen, so there is a preference for existence at this moment. If the distractions are less, that preference for existence matures to the sense of joy of being, Love of being or even bliss of being. But on the very basic level there is a presence, there is an existence here and now. And we know it, it's undeniable.
And it is joyous. So that's the reality. Now on top of that reality Bob often uses the beautiful, simple, elegant pointer of Sat Chit Ananda Nanda, consciousness and bliss, consciousness-stillness. This is the definition of reality, that which never changes. There is being. We don't know any other place, any other state when there is no being, obviously. So that's what never changes. And there is Nama Rupa, which is name and form. This is what is put on top of that being. Now, instead of limitless, spacious presence, awareness of presence, there is a contraction. I am something, not everything and nothing, but I am something. I am the body, or I am the mind, or I am the woman, or I am the man, or I am whatever.
There is something. Suddenly, out of the totality, there is a contraction, like compression. And that awareness assumes the identity of the costume that it wears. So the Nama Rupa, this is the dream, this is the falseness, this is the Maya, this is what is not real. This is what is constantly changing. The body is changing all the time. The cells are replaced in the body, the body is breathing in and out, the chemistry is different every moment. Mind is also changing and they are interconnected. I may think scary thoughts and the body will start producing cortisol. Or the body will start producing serotonin and I will see someone and fall in love straight away.
Because the connection, the interdependence of the body and mind. But again, those are changing. The bodies the cells the hormones the thoughts the feelings the moods they are all changing according to the environment around the body So they are not reality They are what is overlaid on that being that plain presence But because the body-mind, the Nama Rupa, is so designed for its own survival, then the mind is totally busy with the unreality, with the illusion. Mind cannot think about the being. It will think about the trees and the enemies and friends and what it wants, the desires, the goals. That's how it is designed.
When you actually realize that this is what it is for, it is for ensuring survival of the body or the whole unit. It is about chasing pleasure and avoiding pain. When you realize that this is its function, you don't bother with that, you're fine with that. I mean, okay, great, that's what it is for. So you don't try to stop it, you don't try to silence it or kill it or change it or fix it. You let it do what it does. And you watch it, you see it from the perspective of unattached witnessing presence or consciousness. You see how the mind is following the pleasure.
You see how it is avoiding pain. You see how the body is dictating, interacting with the environment and dictating the wants and desires. You see how everything becomes all about not this, something else. Hello, Bob. Hi, I'm Flo, I'm your nurse tonight. How are you? Good, thank you. As soon as the nurses are done with him, I will start more persistently request he show us the face a little bit better. And I do hope he will jump in and add a little bit because he had the major surgery. I mean, that's really major surgery yesterday. So he says, don't expect me to take over and speak, but maybe he will join in and add a couple of pointers.
So anyway, that's back to the nonduality. So it is really about recognizing what is always and already so. It isn't about gaining anything new, about learning anything. It isn't about becoming anyone. It isn't about adding to yourself, accumulating. It isn't about self-development or growth or becoming a better person. Oh, is he by himself now? Darling Bob, can you tap on the screen and unmute? Just put your finger on the screen. We will ask you for that same thing later. Anyway, it is all about discarding the falseness and staying with what is real. Recognizing what is real moment to moment and discarding what is not real.
So what's not real is the nama rupa meaning name and form, meaning what we think on top of what is. What story do we have on top of plain pure existence? So we may look at some of those stories or we may basically, because some stories feel more real than the others, like story of physical illness or anxiety, it does feel more real. Suffering is the thing that feels the most real of everything. When the suffering kicks in, it feels like it is real and can't deny the fact that it feels like it, but it can be questioned. When the story underlying suffering changes, the suffering dissipates, especially if it is not a physical pain, because physical pain is inevitable.
That's the part of the way the brain is wired to receive the signals from the vehicle, from the body, and it needs the body to see and hear and taste and touch. But resistance to pain is what causes suffering. Pain as such is something to endure, to put up with, is temporary. Even people living in chronic pain, which we know from many interviews when we spoke with people asking for help, living in chronic pain, even for them, pain disappears when they sleep at night. Pain disappears when they are busy watching a grand final on TV or something. Or when they, whatever, have sex. The pain is not constant.
It fluctuates. That's what makes it so debilitating. You never know what's going to happen next in a chronic pain. But even if you are open-minded and you endure one moment at a time, I Am I Am story of I comes into the picture Let's see if he can unmute right now. Bob, can you tap on the screen? Bob? Thank you very much. I am sorry, I am not able to hear you. Yes, now we can hear you. Okay. All right. You don't have to hear me. Carry on. Don't be... Please. Okay, I would just like you to participate. I don't feel well enough to participate.
Okay, okay, fine. Fine, I'll leave you alone. If you feel like jumping in, please. Yes, okay. Okay. Okay, so it is the basics of the nonduality. Nonduality meaning not to. It basically brings back everything to one essence, or one field of probability, or one intelligence. That when it doesn't move, it is nothing. When it moves, it creates multitude of shapes and forms and patterns. So that's what it is. One, moving or unmoving. It feels like two, but it isn't really even one. Because you can't say the electricity is still there when you flick off the light. When it doesn't flow, it isn't there. So it isn't.
It's nothing and everything, and nothing in between, and nothing and everything are one and the same. Potentiality and real life potentiality. So it is really all that. All that as expressed, it shows up as let's say, body, mind, thoughts, stories, feelings, emotions, trees, galaxies, suns. Or as plain space, pure screen, pure possibility of expression that hasn't been realized and nothing. So it is Advaita meaning not two, that means one, and in fact it really is less than even one, because one already presumes that there is something other than one or that one exists in the nothing, but that's not true. It is all no-thing with the potentiality of manifesting as everything.
And what we see as the manifested everything is dream, is the way it expresses. If not for the expression, there would be no realisation, there would be no awareness, self-awareness or recognition, obviously. So that's the way it plays out. And that's the way I, you, play out, because this is our essential nature. Me as the totality, to have the snippet or glimpse of my own existence, I create the form, and the form seems separate from the space. But it really isn't. It is just illusion. As Bob often says, nothing can come out from nothing. Like space is nothing. How could anything come out from space and be anything else?
So it really is just a mirage. It really is just a phenomena, a dream. The quantum mechanics will tell us that this is a very, very fast rotating, sprinkling, bubbling particles that create illusion of a matter. Just when you see the helicopter blades floating or the tail blades, probably even better, it looks like a solid ring. But there is hardly any, there is mostly space, but it rotates very fast, it feels like there is something there. In the same way, the whole subatomic particles create matter, seeming matter, which we know is 99.999% space and the rest is just the probabilistic movement of some sort of an information field.
That's it. Just like in the dream, we go to sleep at night and the whole world comes into existence. The same way this waking dream is really a nothing It appears to be something I don't know what we see, Bob. Okay, that's better. Yes, so to recognize that all that dreaming capacity comes from the mind, comes from the narrative. The easiest way to see through it is watch our own mind, watch the imagination, watch the daydreaming. We are sitting here and we can collectively go on the trip like a lot of spiritual circles. They go for the guided meditation, close your eyes, imagine you are on the beach, imagine you feel the breeze on your body and suddenly you have all that imagination, very vivid and it feels like you are on the beach.
And your body relaxes and all it gets heavy or it gets tense. All that imagination creates the experience of real world. That's what happens. In the same way, we were conditioned right from the day one or even before the physical birth, we were conditioned to recognize the sounds in particular ways and make sense of them, recognize what we're seeing, label ourselves and everything outside. So the world has been created by interpreting the signals that brain receives as the electricity and projecting it outside on the world. That's how the dream come into existence. So now there is, one could say, there's multitude of layers and perspectives, Basic understanding of how the mind functions is the six senses.
Five senses, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, creating the world as we know it without any interpretation. Just the world we see, we hear, we taste, we can touch. And the sixth sense, which is the commentary, which is interpretation. That sixth sense overlays the whole new dream, the whole new world on top of what is created by the senses. Senses create the space that we are in particular place, we have particular shape as the body, there is light or less light or more light or colours, even that is already pre-digested by the mind. But on that basic level, when the story is not being told of it, we could say that's kind of like a first generation experience of the reality, just the way animals experience reality.
And then comes the story. And the story overlaying it comes from the narrative and it will tell you, oh, this is here because that happened. This is here because it was created 14.8 billion years ago. Or I am here because I was born 47 years ago. Or this person doesn't like me because... All the stories containing time, containing because, containing justification, overlaying the basic sensory experience of being and seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. That is the dream. That is this layer of the dream which can be recognised for what it is and can end the suffering. Because if I am in the world the way the animal is in the world, or the way the young child, a baby is in the world, Just processing the sensory information and not creating time on top of it.
I'm curious, I'm happy. Creating the time and making use of time is a wonderful capacity. But if it is known for what it is. Now I can use time and plan my visit in the hospital tomorrow if it ever happens, because we're still fighting for the possibility to actually see each other physically. And that is the use of time. I can use the story. I can tell few stories to make it more plausible that it will happen. I'll be there. So this is wonderful capacity, but knowing it for what it is and using it somehow more with the awareness of what it is, rather than completely forgetting that this is a story, this is a functional capacity of that software.
And getting tangled and attracted so badly that we completely lose sight of the basic presence and of sensory experiences. Because that dream, that overlay, that idea of time where everything has a wonderful story attached, when everything makes sense and I can understand it, I can grasp it, I can understand it, how the surgery is being performed, How exciting, how fascinating. So I get excited and fascinated with the storytelling in my mind to the complete negligence of the miracle of existence which goes on underneath
I am a person who is completely neglected, even though it really is a miracle. The story is fascinating, fantastic, every story.
It is to be fully appreciated. It brought the humanity to the top of the food chain in the dream. The collective stories that we tell ourselves, the fictions, the whole beliefs. But if we want to wake up from the suffering, if we want to realize the miraculousness of existence, those stories can be questioned and seen for what they are. They can be understood for what they are, merely stories. And that is the invitation to actually see the stories, see the mental activity, seeing the narrative, the commentary overlaying us what it is. That means whatever the mind is saying is not that important. It may tell you that, oh, you need to save your life, prepare for future, or your wife is going to leave you, or this is going to happen.
It will create sense of urgency, it will create anxiety, it will bias all the other senses to get the attention through the sense of danger. But if you know the truth, the truth will set you free. You will know that every paranoia, every anxiety, every projection of the future has its functional level and has it out of the just the crazy habit kind of a level. Because the animals, they also prepare for future instinctively. Some of them, the bears get fat for the winter to survive the winter. Queerles, collect the nuts and whatever. That happens instinctively without the paranoia going on and horrible black scenarios.
Oh, what is going to happen to my children? Oh, I'm going to be dying horrible deaths. None of that is necessary in nature. And it is not necessary in our case because we are the nature also. And the storytelling capacity is also nature. And it's a wonderful, wonderful capacity. When it is used safely, so when it doesn't cause the suffering. Basically suffering is not necessary. It's not God's so-called God's intention for its beloved children. Not that there is such a thing as God and their children, as we said in the beginning, there is only one. So dividing it into a god and its followers or children or parts or whatever is just a metaphor.
It's just a romantic metaphor which may bring sense of wanting to surrender or devotion. All the stories humans tell themselves are just a beautiful romantic poetry and are to be seen as such. There is nothing more to it. They are not reality. There is no thought that is ever true. I can't see Bob. I hope they will bring him back to the hospital. Janin, you just joined, we had Bob with us for last half an hour and right now he just dropped off. And I had him on the video calls for all day long nearly, I mean for quite a few hours and the phone ran out of juice and I called the wards and requested the nurses to put it on the plug.
But it just may be a bit too much for the phone to... If you both Bob will ask for help, we will have him back in no time. So anyway, this is about how much Bob is giving on the Spiel. So if you would like to maybe jump in and add to it, and then we can have a discussion or we can focus on the particular aspect of it. Maybe just share something? I can keep talking forever and ever, but it's kind of more effective if we have a direction to follow. We could talk more on the identification with the body, or we could talk more of the anxieties of the mind, We could talk more on the concept of time or the reality of timelessness or whatever you may be struggling with.
I mean, people often struggle with the fact that, OK, I'm not this body, so why do I only see through this set of eyes and not other eyes? All the why questions that mind always come up with to stay entertained, because the why question invites the story. I think we can have maybe, because I can see there is a missed call video chat from Bob. I don know if that would be good enough but maybe he can just see us this way because he fell off the Zoom Darling you fell off the Zoom This is a different call so we are on the Zoom here If you could ask the nurse see Janine was with us and she just missed you All the nurses are gone.
I don't even know how to explain it. I sent the link to Zoom on WhatsApp application and on Facebook. If you... No, we are on Zoom, but yes, we are on Zoom. You could just tap on the link. Okay, okay, so I leave you on here. Would you like to be on there? Okay, so I'll carry on and yes, yes, yes, I keep the meeting going. You are with us there on the meeting. Okay. Okay. So, yes, I was on finding a way to direct that conversation a little bit and make it a conversation rather than monologue. And I see Don, you are on mute.
Would you like to say something? Oh, I didn't mean to unmute. Good evening. Good well, Bob. Okay, so we were, I was just rambling on the way the mind is always asking questions coming up with why. Okay, Janini, did you want to say something? Yeah, Kat, this would be great to... I've only just come in, sorry, I never saw your message on Facebook, so I'm a bit late. So you may have already talked about it, but it seems like it would be really great right now about the body and why there is, it feels like there is, that I am in a particular location wherever the body is.
Yes. Okay. Can you talk about that a bit? Absolutely, absolutely. Yes, the seeming sense of location is created by the senses, because this is like a central computer. So if the computer, let's say you have the computer at home, you're looking at the telephone, that's the computer actually. Telephones today are computers. I'm looking at the PC computer, and this computer have the camera in particular location. So, why this particular computer in my home cannot see you? Actually, it can see you because it can see your picture through your computer, but if you switch off, it can't. The eye of my computer is only in that one location in here.
So the unit, the body is a unit through which the consciousness is seen. Just the same way the computer is a unit through which the power, the electricity expresses as the vision from the camera or sound from the microphone. So the body is a processing unit. It has location and it has the limitation. It needs the food, it will starve without it. It needs the water, it needs the air, it needs the power, just like the computer needs the power. The body is like transforming the food and the breath, all of it transforming into that vitality, that life essence. I think we just lost Janine anyway.
But anyway, the body and location of the body is the topic which is always good to address, Because it feels like, okay, if I am everything, then I should be everywhere at the same time. And the news is, you are. I am. I am as that consciousness. I am everywhere at the same time. But most of the places, I don't have eyes. I don't have brain. I don't have the body to actually experience it. So there is no experience. If there is no experience, there is no awareness of the So the being is there, but there is no knowing of the being. Just like when the body goes to sleep at night, the computer shuts down, it switches off.
You wake up and all you know is that some of the senses were on guard, alert, but there was nothing to remember. So there is a gap, there is a gap in memory. So yes, the body has location, the body has limitation. The body is your vehicle, the body is your camera, it is your microphone, it is your car. Like Bob has this beautiful, I mean it's not exactly meant to be expanded this way, but when he says, you think you are the body, but you are not, because you say in your language, my body. I am the body. So it means you are rather the owner of the body.
You also say my car. You're the owner of the car, my house, my shirt or my coat. So I like to look at it like it is really to highlight that you are not the body. But you could also look at it in a way of comparing the body to your coat or house or car. Of course, the body is much more than that, but it just happened coincidentally to be a good enough analogy to actually see how the body is somehow giving a shelter to that consciousness, giving a capacity to see from different perspective to move to that consciousness and also being a dress a costume for that consciousness And of course there is a disclaimer here because it isn that the consciousness is wearing the body because as we started the whole thing from there is not two The body and the consciousness are one.
The body is the expression. The pure potentiality expresses as the body, as the thoughts, as the consciousness, as the basic screen, I mean, that's the non-expression or the potentiality of the expression. So it isn't that there is a life essence and the life essence put the meat body on it and in the middle there is the individual coming up. But it is a good enough of a pointer. It is a brilliant pointer to actually see that the limitations of the body are not the limitations of the life essence. Just the same way electricity expressing through the computer as the Zoom meeting where it is a process of the visual electromagnetic waves and the sound waves.
That's how the electricity is being processed by the processor in the computer. The same way this life essence is being processed by this computer in six senses, in seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and thinking. In creating the meat body and the thoughts and the feelings and the emotions and the stories and the world outside. So this is really analogy which kind of takes away the need to even dream or wonder, can I be in every body at the same time? Well, you can and you can't because this particular vehicle, this particular way it expresses and experiences is a unique pattern. But as a collective field, as the collective life, life essence or even electricity field, you are in everybody.
You can't be like this, my computer right now cannot be aware of what the computer of someone in China is experiencing right now. Unless there is an internet that connects them, then there is a certain amount of awareness flowing through. And that's perfectly fine. That's how the experiencing and expression covers up all and everything. I am the one who is the source of everything. Because if there was no differences, there would be no appearance. If there was no diversity, there would be nothing to differentiate any experience from. So to have infinite amount of unique expressions is part of the miraculousness of that life. And if you bring yourself back to being the source of that life, and you stay with that source, rather than focus on the diversity, yes, diversity is to be appreciated, absolutely, is to be bowed down and loved deeply.
But when you stay with the source of it, that's where the miracles origins. That's where it really starts. Miracle of even seeing. We take it for granted. There are people who can't see. The miracle of pure, plain existence, but even on the basic sensory experiences, even of experiencing the suffering, even to experience pain, you have to be first. For some reason, the way the computer processes information, it overlooks the most obvious and the most important and focuses on the most distressing. That's totally appropriate for the way it expresses and for the function it fulfils. But that causes suffering. And recognition of that brings you back to basically to your power of being, because that's the all power.
We say we are not the doers and we have no power to do anything, to influence anything. But what we are is all power. Sitting at that source of creation and marveling at every moment, which could not have been there. The whole existence is here in front of our eyes. The being is here. And we give it no importance. Because of some stupid story what someone tells about me or what am I gonna buy tomorrow or eat for dinner. Like, come on! There is just life has this magnificence, miraculousness to offer. Just diving back to the source and just looking that there is the awareness of presence.
And it is precious, it is blissful, it is incredible. And then the stories, they fade away. They're still there, yes, they still have relative importance. Whether I will have the money to pay my bills, or whether my children will harm each other, I am a person who is not aware of the reality of the world But when you really remember that this is just the dream just like the dream at night then you just have that open field of awareness curious awareness and the openness which allows you to endure moment by moment to experience moment by moment without freaking out without suffering Without needing to defend any position, without buying to any story.
That's the freedom. You can see them all, enjoy them all. See both sides of the stick, enjoy both sides of the stick. Rather than be fanatical about anything, about the diet, or about the vaccine, These are all exciting, but they are all of secondary importance to the fact that there is a presence going on, there is aliveness going on, which is not interesting for the mind. Of course for the mind that dangerous stories or exciting stories are more compelling, but for the heart, if you go to the core of your essence, to the core of your existence, go to your heart, there are no words there.
There is no need to see or hear or say anything there. It is just the fullness, just even being in the heart without any words spoken. Hi Tas, Bob is on the mobile phone, we lost him on Zoom, he was on the Zoom with us, but we lost him, so you have to see him on the mobile phone now. Can you see Bob Tas is waving to you? Hey Bob! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh no, he's there. Can you see Tass is waving at you? Hey Bob. Hi Tass. So nice to hear your voice. Voice is just sound. There you go.
Well, it's nice to hear your sound and your vibration. Let's put it that way. Yes. Speedy recovery to you, Bob. Pardon? A speedy recovery to you. Yeah, thank you. I'll take it. I'll take it, please. Okay. Come home soon. Yeah, so you want to tell us a little bit about the voice being vibration? Sorry. Thank you. Someone else is coming, so okay. Bob, can you put the phone a little bit better so they can see your face a little bit, because we mostly see the backlight. Oh, that's much better. Hi Ernie, we have Bob on the phone, he dropped off from Zoom and there is no one to help him to get on it back again.
He's here. Hi Bob, hopefully feeling well? Yeah, you feeling well darling? I'm alright Kat. Yeah, okay, good. Hey Kat, do you want me to call the nurses station to ask them to help them out or something so that you can continue the call? Maybe that's not a bad option. Would you like Bob to go back on Zoom? Julia could call nurses to come and put you on Zoom. Just text me, remember, and I'll call them. Okay. Okay? Yeah, sure. I'll just have to find it. What are you doing? Yeah, I wanted to, Julia wanted to call the nurses so they could put you back on Zoom, darling.
So you could be on the screen with everyone. Oh, I think they're charging shift now. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay, so yeah, fine. Yeah, they're changing shifts now, they won't pick up the phone. We'll try a little bit later when they finish the changing shift. Okay. Okay, so we can we can pick up from the, or maybe anyone would like to add anything or say anything or ask anything or share, so we can take it some direction. I don't know. And then maybe it's beneficial to Bobby or he knows his stuff, but it may, I don't know, seeing as we're talking about pain a little bit today.
Yeah. There was something that I thought of once I was traveling on an airplane when it was flying to Australia from Los Angeles. So it's a 15 hour brutal flight. Yes. What occurred to me during the flight is what makes it really bad is waiting for some other moment. Your head waiting, you know, wanting this other moment to happen where I'm not feeling this or I'm not experiencing this. I'm not, I don't know, you can jump in Bob and correct me on that, but I felt that the same could apply to pain to the degree that you're embracing it and letting it be If we're comparing it to moments when we didn't have pain or when am I going to have, I don't know.
I'm just babbling about that bit. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, that's a really good point. Went back to, well, you know, I'm here now, I guess, you know, this is it. This is all we have, This is an interesting moment, we are dealing with this moment, sometimes it sucks. But I think to the degree… I remember noticing, to the degree we are fighting it, we make it worse. I remember growing up in New York. Australians have no clue of what cold weather is really, unless you've been to the snowy mountains or something like that. And you've been to the T-shirt, you don't know. Okay.
Just saying. It's bone chilling cold there. And so I was in New York one day waiting at the bus stop as a kid. Okay. And I just remember feeling how cold it was and something. I don't know why I did it, but I just decided to relax, you know, make my muscles like limp spaghetti. So to the degree that we relax into the pain, okay, we can... If you could stop doing that, I'm trying to make my phone talk, I'm making much... I'm sorry. I've got a kid talking, like playing his guitar for me. So I get distracted easily. When I relaxed into the cold or allowed the cold to be, I was aware of the pull, but I wasn't as disturbed by it because there was no resistance.
Anyway, I mean, I know Bob, I'm preaching the choir. There's nothing I could tell Bob he doesn't know, but maybe other people who have dealt with pain or whatever they might find this helpful. Yeah, so Bob, is that how you're experiencing it now? The pain? Just taking a moment at the time and not thinking about the next moment when it will be less? Bob? I've got to think about it. You've already answered this then. If you're gonna think about it, how you're taking it, so it means that spontaneously, naturally you take it without thinking. And yes, that's a really good point, that situation, you know, whether it's cold or it's raining or whether it is a waiting room somewhere, where you have to be, you wanted the waiting to end and you want to be in the next moment.
Maha Maha, that means, a person who can experience change in their own life, and their own humanity. I mean, not so bad if you could just stay with, you know, not trying to have this moment be something else. It actually can be those moments which usually the mind tries to fast forward. They may be the most transformational moments when the mind surrenders. And I used to have the same sort of story with actually flying because I used to work at sea and I used to work as an officer on the ships I was sent away, even being in Australia, I was flying every four or five weeks to Brazil, like there is no further route.
You can go both ways of the globe. Sometimes the trip would take 48 hours, sometimes it would take 37, depends which flights, what connections. I was doing it for 17 years, long flights every few weeks. And initially I was suffering a lot because I wanted to be in the next place. I wanted that flight to be over because it was always someone much bigger than me sitting next to me, a bunch of children crying, like taking shifts, which one is going to be screaming louder. I am a person who can't sleep. There is no chance to sleep. There would always be someone eating a sandwich with eggs and peanuts and then farting just after that.
My attitude towards flying was self-fulfilling prophecy. There was always something to be upset about. For the first few years, I don't know how I didn't end up with some stomach problems, because there was so much anger, resentment and disappointment. I loved my job, but I hated commuting in and out. And then I learned meditation I went for the meditation training for the course Vipassana course and it positively transformed my attitude to the points where there is nothing else to do Where there is nothing else to do you just watch what is You just watch your body, watch your senses, watch the sensations. You just be presence-awareness, do nothing.
There's nothing to do, just do nothing, be nothing. And suddenly, out of that, within one ten days course, my experience of flying has changed from absolutely dreadful to blissful. I was falling into that sort of a soft kind of meditative state of complete receptivity and complete curiosity, Delightfulness of the moment of plain being without needing to do anything or understand anything or be anything. So a story comes to mind is this that I met named Kenny. And I was thinking like, well, probably one of the worst places to be is not an airplane seat, but a prison. Okay. But they say in prison like like what do they punish you like the worst offenders in prison is they send you into the call the shoe solitary.
Right. Oh my god solitary horrible for them but if you're a Zen monk you're in nirvana. And so this man that I knew, Kenny, was incarcerated in prison and that's where he like, well, woke up. There you go. Love you, Bob. There is a lot of moments when we could notice that this feedback mechanism that we have in the body gives us the impulse that something is wrong, something is not right, that we want something different to be there, something else, something better. All those moments where there is uneasiness, when there is resistance, all those moments are wonderful opportunities to be used for actually examining this moment as it is without the story.
And every time you do it, at least in my experience, every time you investigate and you see the story and you come to just be okay with however it's unfolding, the same kinds of events that show up just can't trigger me the same way. Just not as much. So it really is like so that I'm at least in my experience, not that there's a problem with feeling upset or angry or whatever, but it's just becomes easier. That's all. Yeah. And it is actually an opportunity. Because when life, and that's what life does, life is engaging, it's engaging us with interacting with the environment all the time.
Not only by exchanging air and water and food and all that stuff, but also by solving problems, participating in the communication and just living the dream in a positive way, living the dream, just being engaged, working, doing things. And now... Yes? ...at Bob's place, at your place. It's just a little picture, I think, of a cat hanging out of the tree or something like that, and it says, another fucking growth opportunity. I'm sorry, I interrupted. No, no, it's perfect. So when the life gives us that feedback that something's not right, something's not... something could be better. I don't want this, I want something else, I want to be somewhere else, I want to be someone else.
That's the opportunity to close your eyes, to sit down and really see what's happening in the reality. And what is happening in the reality and not in the story is only one thing, a vibration going on. There's a vibration floating through the body, that's all. So being with it as it is, giving it due attention. Bob sometimes says if there is pain somewhere, physical pain, there is a call from the whole unit, whole the computer, call for attention, something can be done about it or be careful, don't crush it or don't touch it. There is an information. So if there is uneasiness, not physical pain, even lump in the gut or anything, that is also This is a call for investigation and attention.
There is something not right in the body. There may be something not right in the mind, in the story. But this is an invitation to drop the story and see what's happening in the reality of that sensations, in that world of the five senses, the world that creates space and experience in space. Because just cancel out the time of it. The moment you get out of the mind and mind is time, you are staying with the uneasiness. But now time is mind, mind is time. Now this uneasiness is not caused by anything Because only the mind will tell you oh I feeling uneasy because they don like me or they judge me or because I'm not enlightened or because whatever.
There is a story of time that what I want is not there and what I don't want is there. That's a story, the mind in time. The moment that mind or that storyteller The time is discarded, we are left, that uneasiness becomes just a vibration. It doesn't even have the label anymore. It's a vibration in the body. A moment ago it was an anxiety, now it's a vibration. A moment ago it was an anger, now it's a vibration. A disappointment, vibration. When it is a disappointment, now the story goes, oh, it shouldn't have happened this way, they shouldn't have treated me this way, I should have got it by now, or whatever is the story, it reinforces the uneasiness.
But the moment we give priority to the reality of the physical experience, we go back to the body, And feel and see and taste and touch and smell rather than listen to the narrative. That makes it really easy to recognize that what is going on is just a vibration. Bob, we can't see your face again. Let's see the cable. So did you want to say something Ernie? I see you on mute. Jump in, say something. No, I'm just listening. Okay. Anyone else would you like to jump in and say something or share something or just, yeah, maybe you have some insights or some realization about that because everything that you actually got if you say it out loud it helps someone else.
So share it. Go on, Trimali. Okay, now sometimes when we look at the tree or something, so the, just see the tree, like forget, sometimes forget that we are here, we just see the tree. In that moment, we are the tree, you see? Like we become the tree, like I mean, there's no I, so tree is that. Is that it? Yeah, yeah, you can by all means, you can play with experiencing non-separation because you are separate from the tree only when you tell yourself, I am the one that is watching the tree. So, that brings up the sense of separation. If there is no me watching the tree, it's just the open field of the seeing, and in that open field of the seeing, the tree is contained.
So, the tree is part of the field of the seeing, is in the gaze, and I am all that field. So I am the tree as well. That's one way of experiencing it. There is also another way which Nisargadatta was suggesting to play with, based on recognition that being is tasteless and is always one. He had that invitation to put your index finger and the thumb together just like this. Now imagine that your attention is on the thumb. You are the thumb, you are the feeler. And now this one is felt. So the feeler feels the felt. If you really put all of your attention, you incarnate into that thumb, then you see that you are experiencing that, you know, you're kind of checking that up.
Okay, that's what it is. And then you switch. And now you are the index finger and you are feeling the thumb. He says you can do the same with infusing with that field of awareness any object that appears in the consciousness. Just completely forget the identification with the body and look at the tree and you suddenly follow the branches and you feel you are those branches and you feel the wind in the tree. You can have the glimpse of that feeling because being is always the same. But this is all just play of consciousness. This is not something that has to be experienced. Just like not everyone has to be a composer or painter.
It was his invitation just to play to see that the real awareness of presence is not limited to the body. And I love it. I love it. I found it really liberating because to actually be able to experience that being in any other form, you really have to abandon the thinking. I am not a person who is completely blind. Otherwise, you use your imagination and that's kind of fake and you know it. So when you see me do you become me I don think about it See the thing with realizing that the mind is a little bit overrated and mind stories are not that attractive what it makes you do, it makes you kind of not get too excited even about the possibilities of the mind.
So, whatever shows up, even describing it sometimes gets a little bit difficult and confusing because you have to think to describe things. But you see, I am, and right now the computer screen is in front of my eyes. Do I think I am the computer screen? No, I don't think at all. Do I think I'm not the computer screen? No, I don't think that either. It's just no thinking going on. So, and even if I did have that sort of an experience, it doesn't mean you will have to have it either. It is really much simpler than even describing and comparing experiences. I am a person who is not aware of the existence of the world.
I am a person who is not aware of the existence of the world. Basic experience of continuous existence. That is a miracle. That is a miracle. You can't even imagine not having it. But instinctively, you know, that's the most precious thing. Like everyone is protecting life and wishing that life to be And to be happy and to be pleasant and to be blissful is something infinitely valuable about it. And we take it for granted that we don't give it any due attention. We don't see the magic of that incredible gift of plain existence. Because the computer here overruns on such an attractive, interesting, colorful, I am a person who is not aware of the existence of the world.
I am a person who is not aware of the existence of the world. And from there, incredible insights come. And those insights, even putting them in words, is actually killing them. Because I can tell you the insight, you rest in that nothingness, you fall back, like you see what is seeing, nothing, nothing, everywhere just a deep, infinite nothingness. And it just basically, you dive into it and you spring out as the whole universe with every single particle constantly expanding. Now the description kills it completely. Because it isn't really what it is. Description is never the described and it has to be experienced directly rather than imagined.
The thousands insights, it shows itself in many ways, not all the time. Because most of the time you are engaged, you know, the body needs to attend to its own needs. It needs to feed itself, it needs to work, it needs to talk to others. So in this, the attention is spent where it is needed. So obviously you're not blissing out being one with the universe or whatever the, you know, like seeing the inexpressible miraculousness of the dancing expanding universe because you wouldn't be able to drive your car. So the way the attention plays out and is taken where it's needed. I see there is a question, Nas Ersan is asking, isn't all narrative?
Yeah, that's a very good point, absolutely. The whole constructed world is narrative. There is no world constructed in divine without the narrative. Yes, thank you, Nas, that's a good, yeah, absolutely. See what happens when you stop thinking, when the narrative stops for a moment. All the meaning is taken away, all the goals, all the senses, all the comparison, all the future, all the past, all the desires, all the aversions, they are all gone. It's just plain being. And even if you recognize the walls and the ceiling, it is just because they exist somehow ingrained in language and narrative. So can it not be all accepted?
Well, that's also a good point. Yes, it is. Thank you, Nas. It actually is accepted. Otherwise, it wouldn't be here. It is accepted. Then the narrative comes and creates the imagined self, which seemingly disagrees with that and doesn't accept it. But even that self is already accepted. Otherwise it wouldn't be existing, it wouldn't be showing up. So the deepest acceptance is beyond the mind saying yes or no. Yes, thank you. That's beautiful. I'm reading from the screen just so you know guys what I'm getting there. Yes, that's beautiful. Absolutely. The finding of falling back to that place where everything is already accepted as it is, is basically finding or resonating with the true essence or the natural self or the heart of hearts.
Because what we are essentially is that open field of infinite possibilities where everything is okay as it is. It's only the concept that tells you that it should be different. It's only the narrative. Without it, everything's already pure and undisguised. You wanted to say something, Primali? No, thanks very much, Kat. Yeah, I'm, yeah, I get it. I get it, but you know, still I get entangled in the story. Like, I get it, but a lot of time I'm entangled in the story. And that's okay. That's okay, because that's how, that's also accepted. That's also what it is. Oh, thank you. Nas says that you are beautiful.
Yes, you are all beautiful. That's, yeah, that's the Pure perfection. So the story, the way the story plays out is also part of the dream. Like if not for the collective stories, we wouldn't be where we are as the animals being on the top of the food chain. We all believe in the collective stories. We join together and connect and build communities because we have stories of our nationality or our nonduality or our whatever. They're wonderful. Being entangled in the stories is nothing wrong. It's part of that magnificent dream. It's just that the stories, when they become exclusive, they become absolute truth. They are not stories anymore.
They become reality in the dream. Of course, they're always only stories. But when you believe them fanatically, they backfire. They create a lot of suffering. which is basically unnecessary. You can see yourself engaging in a wonderful story. I tell you my favorite story in the whole dream is this guy and the wonderful love and connection that I have with him. What is it? It's a story. It has time. We have the beginning of that story. We have the way the story unfolds. I love that story deeply and I engage in that story whenever I can. It's a very beautiful, engaging story. And so what? I often tell him, darling, you are my favorite, favorite illusion.
And why not? This body has preference for certain illusions. It rather eats chocolates than shit. It rather hangs out on the beautiful story with this guy than the story about whatever, the conspiracy one or the other. It's just the way it manifests. And do I say my story is better than yours? Well, it's better for me. But that's a story too. It's nothing wrong with the stories. It's just that when you forget that you are dreaming, you're watching a movie and you forget you are watching a movie and it happens to be a horror movie. And you forget to question and you forget that you can always switch off and TV screen will be blank again.
Or you sit in that airplane like Julia was saying and you can't stand it. Shit, that was 15 hours flight. Oh, it's still 14 hours and 59 minutes. Oh my God, now it's 14 hours and 58 minutes. I can't stand it. I hate it. And what you do, you get all that cortisol in the body and you get... And well, that's not the worst, that the body got sick of that resistance because the cortisol and the adrenaline and all that stress associated with that negative story fully believed, that it debilitates the body and in the long term it will give you cancer, that's mild. The biggest one is the neurons there firing in the brain creates the highways, becomes a habit.
So now you don't even need to be in the plane to complain that you don't want what is, you want something else and why the time is not moving. That's actually the most ironic byproduct of trusting the mind completely and fully and agreeing with every warning and everything that it says. Initially, it is a wonderful device, wonderful software to keep the body safe and happy and provide the pleasure, avoid pain. It is totally to be appreciated. But when you lose sight that it only fulfills its function, and you start, you give it all the power, you make it a boss and you worship like a god.
Okay now I want to whatever chocolate ice cream I buy 60 and eat them all together because that what the mind dictates me That unquestioned story and that addictions and that suffering because it is self the sense of uneasiness that is a result of believing the mind And medicating the result of believing in the mind with fulfilling the mind whims makes the story worse. I thought that was a new comment. No, that wasn't. Yes, so it really is about recognizing the mind activity. Bob has very few advices that he ever gives to people, but there is one that cannot be overestimated. Watch the mind and see how it functions.
Learn about that software, learn about that processing computer. See how it tends to compare everything. See how it wants to find a better moment than this, or better partner or better job. How it lovingly always wants to provide something better. Appreciate it, but don't fanatically fall for it. You want to say something, Derek? Yeah, I noticed today, so I've been at my parents' place cleaning up because they passed away. And I noticed, you know, there's a lot of attachment to things and everything. So I had a guy there helping me clean up today and I noticed with there was some cookbooks of mum's where she'd handwritten and everything and you know I was attached to them and I've kept a number of them but I couldn't keep them all.
But I noticed when the guy come in to pick all the books off the bookshelf, he just picked them up and took them out and threw them in the truck and you know, but for me there was a story to the books. And to him there was no story, they were just an item and I just noticed that difference, you know, like my story about the books, what they mean and all that and just he's no story. That was all, just an observation. Oh my gosh, that's beautiful. I'm so sorry you had to go through the story of love because your parents passed away. But it's, yes, that's very sorry to hear.
Did they pass away together or? No, within three months. Oh God. Yeah. Oh God. Yeah, Taz had similar story, very quickly, both parents. That's just, I can't even imagine that. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Thanks, it's all okay. But I have noticed as well, like in the cleanup process, you know, everything's just like a continual letting go of things and attachments to things. Just a continual process. Yeah, gosh. And it's also, that's a beautiful observation how, you know, you feel, and this is again, of course, it is connected, the attachment comes from the connection, the story that you have about your mom, connection with your mom, the love you had for her, the whatever you've been through together, that are cherished story.
So of course, anything that brings up that beautiful vibration is to be cherished. And I can't see why not to fully appreciate that part of the dream. But yes, there is a distinguishable difference in a quality of someone who does not have that attachment. Yeah, it was just very, just at that moment, it was very obvious. Yeah. Yeah, and at the same time, I'd imagine you wouldn't even prefer to switch, would you? You're happy to have that. Yeah, true. Yeah. As it is, always it is. As it is, yes, it is absolutely nothing wrong. It's very profoundly beautiful in that attachment or connection or sentiment or...
Oh my gosh. That's all. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I have the story of letting go of a lot of stuff because I was married before with a very good guy, very sweet guy. We've been together for 17 years. We were just both working very far away from each other, travelling on the ships. It just didn't last. We were great friends but that was it. When I was leaving a country, I moved to America, I had to leave basically everything behind me. I even threw away all my pictures from childhood and all the albums and just completely divorced the past. I have no past, so that's it, that's all gone, that's dead.
And now when I see a little picture from childhood which for me was absolute torture and a horror I hate every apart from maybe a couple of memories I hate most of my memories about childhood That was actually the beginning of my spiritual search the torture and the suffering that I was going through But I still see sometimes the pictures of my sister one or the other. And it almost comes as a regret that that past that I had neatly put up in a beautiful folders, catalogs, I am a mother of two children, my parents being young, my siblings being young, the animals I used to have and love as a child, that I've divorced it, heartlessly threw it, put it behind me, without due appreciation.
Now, even just the memory of it kind of brings that my heart is moving like, oh, yeah, I didn't have any other choice, but it still comes almost like, oh, how could you? So even the attachment, even the preference, even all that very, very human experience, if it's recognized for what it is, it's just totally to be loved and appreciated. Nothing has to end. It's like Buddhism is saying that suffering is source of the attachment. And that's true, but I would add disclaimer, unrecognized attachment. When the attachment becomes compulsion, when it becomes fanaticism. Because that type of attachment which creates the grief when the loved one pass away, It may be a source of great sadness, but that sadness does not have to be suffering.
That sadness can actually be the most beautiful expression of love. And I don't know, luckily, I don't know many people who would not want to experience sadness when their loved ones or when their parents pass away. Yeah, that's exactly right, Kate, because I do remember when it was more recent, you know, that they'd passed and feeling that sadness and, you know, overwhelmed with that sadness. But then I started to actually, I wasn't overtaken by it. I started to experience it. Yes. And it was, it wasn't bad and it wasn't painful as, this sounds a little odd, but as uncomfortable or as painful as it was, it wasn't painful, you know?
I totally know, yes. Yeah, it was just an emotion that I hadn't probably felt so deeply before, but it was It's just another experience really in some ways. Yeah, and it is, yeah, it can be extremely intense. I lost my dearest friend to a suicide and I was experiencing very, very strong waves of overwhelming emotions for every day for a year, for many times a day of a year. But I loved it all. Absolutely loved it. I loved the capacity to feel so deeply. I loved the capacity to have my heart broken in half. And the capacity to cry for the beauty that has been lost, the life that has been lost.
And it was my dearest friend that I just, gosh, even my ex-husband was romantically in love with her because we couldn't help but love her. I was grateful for the capacity to feel so deeply. And as much as the sadness and grief was overwhelming, there was a gratitude also. For every second. There is something, the freedom of recognition, everything that shows up and cherish it as how it shows up, All of these terms are important for the human perception of the absolute, of the pure perfection. The perfect perception has to be faced fearlessly. The perfect perception swaps us off our feet in the most beautiful way.
While being human I also had the experience of being driven by fear of the future that could be unpleasant. I remember the story when I moved in with Bob and our beautiful story started. I spoke with my mother and she said, you are setting yourself up for extreme pain and suffering because you will get attached. He didn't expect to have more than a year or year and a half ahead of him. He had not been in very good health back then, six years ago. And I was purely aware of it and there was nothing that wanted to run away from that pain that was supposedly ahead.
And probably a couple of years earlier that would be not on the menu The possibility of setting myself up for this amount of alleged or projected or imagined suffering would absolutely shut the door to going even considering to go this way that would run my life And since the future disappeared, since the future wasn't believed anymore, that story never haunted me once, ever. And that's a miracle because the last six years we had a pure, wonderful, blissful, easy joining without any dark clouds hanging over of the imagined, projected future. Just taking everything as it comes and appreciating to the fullest. That's the, again, the invitation of questioning when you see the story as something that is totally ingrained in the time, in the past and future, and that natural tendency of the mind to prevent you from suffering and project the dark scenarios just to spare you, really.
But when you see that this is just a story, this is just a projection, you can easily discard it and live fearlessly, live in the awe and in the curiosity of how is the next moment going to unfold. And life will always provide the challenges, it will always throw shit one way or the other because it is a duality. There will always be a winter and a summer and a day and night and pleasure and pain. And all of it will constantly be changing. None of it will last. And without the story, they're all just beautiful. Bob? I can't see your face. I guess the phone was too heavy for him to hold.
I still can't see your face. You can't see my face? No. Okay. Go and ask Douglas Harding. Can you say it out again loudly? I said go and see Douglas Harding. Go out, sweetie. Ask him. I think you might have flipped the camera to the other side because I can see you. Go and ask Douglas Harding. I will call you again in a sec. Yeah, sometimes he touched the screen and the camera flips over and I see the other side. So I'll just call again so he can say hi. I thought he just the phone was too heavy and he put it down. But no, he just touched the screen and the flip the camera.
Okay, that's better. That's better. You had the camera flipped over. It's easier to them to explain. Yes, because we ran out of time, so if anyone believes you have the face, I wanted to see his face, go and ask Douglas Harding, where is the face? You can never ever see the face, you don't have the face. You look in the mirror and you only see the reflection. You don't see the face, you see reflection, you're not the reflection. You are not there in the mirror, you are not looking out from the mirror. So that's a good way to actually wrap it up. And experiencing no-face is a wonderful reminder to just fall back into that blissful nothingness whenever you can, whenever you are not driving your car or engaging in feeding the body or communicating with the family I am a person who is engaged in the attention of the audience.
I do it while I am driving my car all the time. I mean, you don't need a lot of thought to drive your car. Oh, not your car! That's true. But in general, even before my car, I don't have to go put hand on left turn signal. Car in front of me, there's nothing in my head that's doing that. I am a person who is not aware of what is happening. I am not aware of what is happening. Every moment is an opportunity to keep your mind where your hands are. Because I have so much time behind the wheel. Yeah, but I didn't recommend to close your eyes and fall back into the nothingness when you're driving.
That's all. I remember something Bob said. He said, you think a little flap of skin is going to shut out the world? Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Bob, particularly. Thank you for being there with us. Thank you, Kat. Thank you for this chat. Thanks, Kat. Thank you, everyone. Sleep well, Bob. Hopefully, I'll make sure next Tuesday Bob has his phone charged well and he can be on the Zoom, and maybe he will be in the form to actually speak. That would be wonderful. Thanks. I'm payment that. Thank you, everyone. Thank you everyone. Thanks Kat. Bye. All the best Bob. Thank you Kat. Bye. Bye bye.