No such thing as Enlightenment - DOCUMENTARY about Sailor Bob Adamson

I can't teach you anything. I can't tell you anything. All I can do is point toward and ask you to look at where we're pointing to, to see for yourself. Not talking to anybody, that's non-duality we talk about. I'm not talking to anybody, I'm not talking to any mind. By that I mean I'm not talking to your body, mind or entity. I'm talking to that I am that I am. The I am that is that I am that's talking to that I am. Just to this, nothing else. Bob Adamson was born in 1928 in a farm in the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia. At the age of 15 he had his first encounter with alcohol, which developed into full blown addiction.

At 17 Bob joined the Navy, but after two and a half years he was discharged because of his drinking issues. He got the name Sailor Bob at the alcoholic anonymous meetings that he'd started to attend. Tragic events showed Bob Adamson that he could decide to stop drinking and be given a second chance. I had no idea of being a seeker or being anything so-called spiritual. I was an out and out atheist. But the way life took me, took me to places where I had to look elsewhere and see elsewhere. And it was the end of it. Look. I saw that maybe there was such a thing as a higher power or a god, which they talk about in the fellowship of higher power or god as you understand it.

Right, had it all blocked out, wouldn't have a bar of it, or a closed mind as they say. A little chink in the armour came when I saw that maybe there is such a thing. And it was desperation and chronic alcoholism and psychological problems. Sick and tired of being sick and tired if you like. Bob investigated many paths including Pentecostalism, Methodism and Christian Science. He got baptised with full immersion and attended Mass. In 1962 Bob started practising mantra meditation after seeing Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Eight years later he joined Baba Muktananda core group in Melbourne and was given permission by him to initiate others with Shaktipat.

Despite many spiritual experiences Bob was unsatisfied. There was still an effort in gaining these states and Bob had yet to find the source that had given him a second chance. While spending time in the ashram of Baba Muktananda in Ganashpuri, Bob came across the book, I am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj. Nisargadatta would be his final teacher. The main thing was all the seeking dropped away. Though I was doing very strict disciplines and repeating mantras and chanting and doing all the meditation and all the stuff at Bhuktananda's ashram and I was staying there but doing it earnestly and sincerely and recognising what Nisargadatta pointed out, that all dropped away.

It wasn't like a big awakening or anything, it was just like a dawning, if you like to put it that way. Just like the sun comes over the horizon, ah, it was just like that. Things that I was locked into for years and the dawning said yes, I can't be this body-mind that Nisargadatta would tell me I wasn't. If I'm not that, what must I be? I can only be that, because it's the Mahavaka. I recognise, I grasp what he said. Nisargadatta Maharaj is one of India's most respected sages of the 20th century. His collection of talks, I Am That, published in 1973, brought him worldwide recognition and is considered by many as a modern spiritual classic.

Nisargadatta strictly adhered to the instruction of his guru, Siddharameshwar Maharaj, to attend to the sense, I am, and nothing else. In very few years he realised that, he was the self. Nisargadatta sold Bedi's Indian cigarettes and held satsangs in his humble house in the Red District in Mumbai. He taught that mind must recognise and penetrate its own state of being. Nisargadatta is an exponent of Advaita, non-duality, but also emphasised love of God and guru and the path of devotion. His message is simple, you are already what you are seeking. Don't disturb your mind with seeking. You are that. For several decades now, Bob Adamson has been sharing this understanding with all who come to listen.

Bob holds meetings three times a week in his home in Melbourne, Australia. He draws people from around the world and his influence on the contemporary expression of non-duality is widely recognised. There's absolute certainty here that there is no individual entity that has any substance or any independent nature can stand apart from this manifestation or anything in it. And have a look at that yourself. See if you can stand apart from this presence awareness, which is another label the Buddhists put on. They say it's non-conceptual, ever fresh presence awareness. And they add on to it just this, nothing else, again pointing out that that is all there is.

Christianity and all of the other things, Christianity and other traditions use three aspects to point at it. They call it omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. Omnipresence is total presence. Omnipotence is total power. And omniscience is total intelligence. Not three things, but three aspects of that. Just the same as steam, water and ice are three aspects of H2O. There is nothing other than that. And they know, they tell you that in the language there, because don't they say, I am that, this is that, that's the Mahavaki, the great word. They are that, this is that, I am that. Everything is that. Now can anybody tell me what that is?

Has that got any description or any shape and form? Has it got any back, any front, any height, any depth? It hasn't. And this presence awareness that you are, can you give me that any shape, pattern and form? You put labels and concepts on it. But is it the presence awareness? I met Bob about seven years ago. And I've been coming to his place probably close to three times a week for all that time. And prior to that, I was heavily engaged in seeking, looking for the way out, looking for a reward for all the work that I'd done. And it involved meditation and austerities and dieting and a bit of savour, service and all this sort of stuff.

And then one day I just really thought, where is my reward for all this work that I've done for all this time? And I googled enlightenment and Bob popped up, I think in the first two or three entries on the web page. So I went to see him and I thought, I'll be able to tell this bloke a few things. And as soon as I walked in and I heard Bob talk, I thought, he knows something that I don't know. There was a very strong resonance there. And I've been coming ever since. And Bob essentially freed me from my seeking. So I don't look anymore.

The seeking stopped, yeah. Not immediately, but I'd have to say, over time. But, you know, it's certainly not there now. Well, if you are the seeker, you've got to try and abide in that, but you can't. In recognition that you are not the seeker, you are the entity itself, there's a natural abiding, if you like to use that term, that comes about, that happens of itself. Sailor Bob has completely changed my perspective on life. I mean, I first started coming to see Sailor Bob in about 2007. And I was actually doing final year law exams. And I was pretty sure I had an anxiety disorder.

And when he told me, you know, pause a thought, I was actually incapable of doing that at the time. My mind was racing. I started coming three times a week, like as often as I could. And I got really immersed in the message. He said, you only have to hear this message once. But I used to feel like I came here. And when I went back out into the world, I got sucked out of it. And he said, you know, if it grows in you, then you'll be able to draw people in eventually. And I actually sat those final year exams without anxiety, which is, yeah, it's quite amazing.

And now there is, there's no firm belief in an I here. There's just present moment functioning in the world. From the perspective of mind, it's totally altered my life. But nothing's really happened. You know, it's just a seeming liberation from believing you're a separate entity. So, but, you know, life is different. Life just flows the same way as it always did. It's really about the message, not the messenger. It's the intelligence that's kind of in the message that cuts through belief. And Bob was pointed to this, whatever you want to call this, by Nisigurada. And he was pointed by somebody prior to him and blah, blah, blah.

So on it goes back. But it's the same living intelligence that's not actually in time. It's timeless, timeless awareness. And that's, I mean, from a perspective of being a person, discovering that, it demolishes belief, belief in anything really. All beliefs are cut through. So you see, it's all that one essence, what I call intelligence. And I don't use the term God here, purely and really, purely simply because we can get confused with that term. Because all of this come from some different tradition. Some of us might be atheists. Some of us are agnostic. Some of us could be Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews. If I start talking about God, I'll relate it to what my traditional belief is, what I've been taught or what I've learned to understand and not get a true picture of what I really am.

Get a confused picture of being put out there by these different traditions who believe that their description of it is right and the next one is wrong and all the rest of it. And so dividing the indivisible. So that's what we basically point to here. Have a look. See, investigate if you are what you believe yourself to be. A human being. And you really know that you're not a human being because you're called God, the Supreme Being. You call yourself a human being. But what if you took the label off the Supreme and the label human off and try and separate the beingness in this room?

And realize you can't. And you look around the room and you say, that's being a chair, that's being Bill, that's being me, that's being you. It's all that beingness which we put labels or words on. That differentiate. What's this word I or me referring to? Isn't it referring to a conceptual image that I've got about myself? Labels, I'm Bob the Australian, I'm a good fellow, not so good, I'm unhappy, I'm depressed. Put a lot of labels on this pure intelligence energy and taken the word to be the thing. Given to some seeming substance and independent nature which is the cause of the world. The cause of all our psychological suffering.

The word. About four months ago I really had a breakthrough due to the suffering coming out of relationship, being really painful. And seemingly it was necessary to kind of solidify the sense of self through which Bob walked me out showing me the conceptual image that I was referring to as myself. And this was absolutely the most transformative experience in my life. Nothing is ever the same again. I mean, easy to say that I can't relate to the past anymore more than to us really just to evaluate seeming progress because there is no progress. Future stopped interesting me and I used to be an option thinking person.

I used to always have a multitude of options. It fell away and the presence just lit up, just become so much more intense. And the life and the joy of being came forth and things started miraculously falling into place. Nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. And so I got to tell you nothing can trouble you excepting your own imagination. And what is imagination? Imaging in. We're creating conceptual images in our mind and believing in them. We'll have a look at this mind we pointed out before as a vibration. See how it functions. And see how mechanical it is. It is in its functioning.

It's a very useful instrument but it's very self-destructing. And if you're looking at it closely you'll see it's always vibrating in the inter-relative opposites. Have a look and see and watch it. Because you're either in the past which is memory or the future which is anticipation, imagination. It's either good or bad, pleasant or painful, happy, sad, loving, hating, positive, negative. Watch your mind and see if it's functioning any other way. Now I've got this conceptual image which becomes the ego. And we're told in scriptures you've got to get rid of this ego. That's the problem. And stuff it under, stick it under the carpet, jump on it, kill it, do whatever you can to do it.

Get rid of it. But we won't point out here. If you look at it closely you'll see it doesn't even exist. We've been bound to a fiction. We've been bound in this concept of fiction. And look at that ego is the cause of all my psychological suffering. And that's all that's caused. And that's all that cause and effect is. That's all that so-called karma is, is cause and effect. So it's only me that can be anxious. It's only me that can be fearful. It's only me that can be unhappy or depressed. This idea of me that we've added all these concepts to. Pause the thought.

If you ask yourself what is wrong with right now if I don't think about it, to really look at that, look and see what can I say about this without a thought. Pause the thought for a moment. Realise you can't say anything about it at all. But you haven't stopped seeing. You haven't stopped hearing. You haven't stopped breathing or heart beating. All that functioning is going on. But thinking is paused for a moment. And you realise you haven't disappeared. You haven't fallen apart without the thought. The life is still there. But the mind has been paused for a moment. So you are beyond the mind at that point.

You are prior to the thought. Because the next thought that comes up must start on what was there when the thought was stopped. Because if you were that thought, and the thought stopped, then it would be the finish with you. But it's not. Bob in his opening spiel always says there's nothing anyone can teach you and there's nothing that anyone can show you. So implicit in that is the fact that you have to go and do the investigation yourself. So that's essential. You have to do an investigation. It doesn't matter what you think might be doing the investigation. Just go and do it. And to do the investigation, Bob gives us lots of pointers.

And at meetings there are lots and lots of concepts. And there are lots of scripts and videos about Advaita. But it's very, very simple. If you just pick one of Bob's pointers, and my favourite is, is seeing happening now? Then is seeing happening? I investigate. And I see is it this mind-body that's seeing? Or is it just happening spontaneously? And to me, so to speak, that's very clear. And then what is this value or this other aspect that is seeking or seeing or thinking or hearing or in fact doing anything? It's not the body-mind. It is that cognising emptiness. That cognising emptiness that Bob refers to.

There is just seeing. We are always the pure subjectivity. Knowing or seeing. We can come up with all these concepts. But then always go back to the position of, yes, I know that concept. And that I is not a little I. It's the big I. It's the cognising emptiness. It's the knowing or the seeing or the seeing. It's the innate intelligence that just continuously operates. And it can't not be that way. It can't not be that way. It has to be that way. The Buddhists, they call it a cognising emptiness. It means an emptiness that is cognising or knowing. When we think of cognising emptiness, we think we are the cognisers.

But it's not. It's the cognising emptiness. And it's already been cognised. When the seeing it again or recognising it, it's the cognising of it. So that's what they say, recognising. It's recognising what you already are. Seeing what is the constant. And it's the constant that gets seemingly obscured. That's why in the scriptures I call it ignorance. I'm not saying we're dull or stupid. But the meaning, we are ignoring our true nature. Focusing into the belief and concept. So it's always there. And if you don't know the truth, and you're into this belief you are an entity, this is where all the psychological problems come from.

And come about from. And most of us are constantly relating to the psychological problems to some extent or another. Some worse than others. And we say here it's not necessary to be that way. You can see through all this psychological stuff if you investigate. There's another point we make. The false cannot stand up to investigation. If you investigate something and see that it doesn't stand up to that investigation, that it's false, then you are free of it. How can you believe in something that's false again? And you know that from the things you have investigated throughout your life and seen they're false. When you can't put any energy or belief in, are they going to exist or subsist there?

And if they don't exist, can they subsist there? Without a belief going into them. And that is another thing we point out. Have a look at belief. The definition of belief is an unquestioned acceptance of something in the absence of reason. Acceptance of an alleged fact without positive knowledge or proof. And if I ask you, do you believe that you are or do you know that you are? You'll emphatically tell me, I know that I am. And nobody can knock you off that perch. You don't believe. You've got all sorts of conceptual images about yourself and the very fact of being you cannot negate. And all these things point to the truth, the actuality, the fact that we are.

But we've got lost in the concepts, in the beliefs, ideas and images that have come upon us. How did all this happen? When we take on this belief out of the body and mind, we need to look at that and see. Are you this body-mind that you think you are? And innately you know you're not the body or the mind. Because don't you say my body, don't you say my house, my car, my coat, my dress or whatever it is. Are you the coat, the car or the dress? You know you're not. So mightn't the same thing apply to your body if you investigate it?

Just a label you put on this pattern of energy. And what is this body made up of? Investigate a little bit further and see for yourself. You realise this body is made up of elements. Made up of air, earth, fire, water, space. Just the same as the elements around you, in this room and around you, outside you. But have a look at that. Are you these elements? Are you the air, for instance? Can you separate yourself from the air? Are you a separate entity, I believe you're a separate entity, separate from these elements? Separate yourself from the air if you can. And you realise you can't separate yourself from the air.

You wouldn't last too long if you'd stopped breathing, would you? If you take the water out of your body, your body's 80% water. See if you can live without that element. And you realise you can't. You die of thirst. Take the body temperature, temperature of the fire. And you get hypothermia, you die. Get off the earth if you can. Get out of space. When you investigate and have a look at it, you realise you can't separate yourself from any of these things. So in essence, you must be all of these things. I work as a ship's officer. So basically I'm working on the bridge of the ship, pushing multitude of buttons, driving the machine, sometimes keeping it in place, sometimes moving it.

And of course it involves a lot of planning. I have to know the wind and the thrusters and everything that I've learned. So the body has the skills already. So it doesn't need an entity to relate to whatever has been learned. Because it is in the system. So basically the same activity is happening. It's only no stress associated to it. So the likelihood of making a mistake is much, much lower. I'm basically discovering how the living reality, how it is the truth, at every moment, that things needing done are appearing in my mind as a thought. And then basically thought generates action. And the action happens through the body.

And there is no need to worry about anything because when the thought is required, it will come. And for now, I know it for certain, it never fails. And if the thought doesn't come and something is neglected, brilliant, great. It didn't need the waste of energy. It didn't need done. I'm still here. And the same happened at work where I work in the environment that seemingly needs a lot of ego and controlling. It's just seemingly. It doesn't need anything. Driving the ships, I'm equally empty, just following the thoughts and the actions that happen through the body. Really easy. Bob talks about when we awake in the morning and open our eyes, we can look around without labeling anything.

And I'm really aware now, again, when I came here, I couldn't do it. But when I first came here, I wake up and my thinking has not kicked in. I'm aware there's this space, there's this emptiness. And that that's reality. And then the story of my day is born on that. Even, you know, I'll have woken from a dream sometimes. I'll wake up. I'll see that was a dream. I'll experience the spaciousness. And then I'll see the story of the day start. It just enables me to function very well without having the belief in a reference point. A me that's offended or a me that's got to do stuff.

You know, the belief in doing things. You know, the belief in doership has gone. Nobody can give you what you already are. Nobody can take away from you. It's just a matter of recognizing what you already are. Recognition that you're not the body and the mind, that needs to be understood to be the constant. But out of habit patterns, people go back into the belief in an I. It's like a cloud over the sun. It obscures the sun. The cloud and the thought, I, obscures that pure intelligence. And so it's seemingly lost. But even though the sun is seemingly obscured by the cloud, the sun has never left the sky.

And it's always self-shining. It can't leave the sky. It's the cloud that comes and goes. And when you look at yourself, what's going on in your own mind, you realize the thoughts that are coming out. That life essence is static. It hasn't changed. If I ask you, what happened to you when you were a little child? You say, I did so and so. I'll say, how do you know? You'll say, I was there. And I'll say, what was there? Did you have the same body as you got now? You didn't have the body of a little child. That body changed constantly. Did you have the same concepts about yourself?

You didn't. Because you learned a lot more. So what was it that was there? Mustn't it have been that innate life essence that had been the background of it all, constantly? Never changing. So the changes that come about in the so-called empty world, as they call it, are fictitious. Zen monk in the 16th century called it the unborn Buddha mind. And he says everything is perfectly resolved in the unborn. Why exchange the unborn for thought? If you bring it to the body, then there are a whole lot of things going on, like nails growing and metabolism and assimilation and metabolization and whatever, just all happening spontaneously.

So whether this spontaneous aspect is a big clue to seeing that there is just this immediacy. And in that immediacy, in that moment, which is not even a moment, time or duration can't be. And neither can there be an I. And if you investigate along those lines, I think it's just very powerful. You give us lots of clues on how to investigate, and that's what's always there. It's always essential just to see if there is an I there. And if there is no I there, whether you see that there is not an I or not, it doesn't really matter. But even if you can imagine that there is no I, what would that be like?

If you could actually do the investigation and see that there is not an I, just see this spontaneity, this immediacy, and see that there is not an I, I mean, what an awesome thing to see. If you see that now and reflect on three or four years ago when you perhaps didn't see it and you were struggling and you were a seeker, you would also know that that was the situation then, that there was no I. On reflection, there was no I three or four years ago either. It's such a big concept, time. And I was thinking, I guess, the other day about how is it that everybody believes in this thing, in this thing called time.

So without the belief in time, if you don't believe in time, there can't be a past or there can't be a future. So you can't be plagued by thoughts of, ah, I'm such an idiot, I shouldn't have done this. So as soon as that comes up, you realise that that actually wasn't me doing anything because there's not a point in time that exists back there that you should be worried about. So there's no past or future. Yeah. There's no time and there's no space. There's no path, no destination. What's all this seeking all about? It doesn't mean you're already there. If you haven't got a path, haven't got a future, then the destination to go to.

And can you move away from being here now? Again, only conceptually. And conceptually, you've got to be in time again. So we believe in time, which is not the actual. So this moment is the moment that we're looking for. So this moment is eternity. We're looking for the eternity, we're looking for eternal life. And we think it's six billion light years, we've got to come back, reincarnate, and all this other stuff. But it's this moment. Without beginning, it hasn't got any duration. It's a living intelligence, which is not in time. The mind is time, and time doesn't really exist. It's just a concept. So, um, the essence is, the essence is the actual energy, if you like, the energy that's expressing itself as everything.

And there's no separation. You're not separate from that. So the realization is that I am that. And all of the, you know, the sages that's saying, Tat Tvamasi, I am that, that's what it's pointing at. Everyone is that, whether they know it or not, as Bob says. And Sagada tells you that. He says life lives on life. There is only life. There is no one who lives life. No one who lives it. It's just life living itself in all the different pattern, shapes, and forms. Since I've been coming, there's been insights, there's even been experiences of completely falling away, like experiencing myself as the seeing, in which everybody's actions and my actions are being totally removed from it all.

Insights, all sorts of stuff. But, you know, I find myself still investigating in patches, and I guess still searching. Even though there's the clear understanding, I guess it's not a clear understanding if I'm still doing it. I just wonder, with all of this stuff kind of going on, like, what is it I'm missing? And why do I keep on going? And turning it over? What you're missing is... What that is, is call off the search. Call it off. Or recognise it never started. Yeah. And what are you, a being or a search seeker? A being. What is there to search for? And you've seen it yourself many times, eh?

But you're just carrying on with the old habit pattern. I think I've seen it. I mean, I can't... You know, there's been all sorts of stuff that's gone on, but I, and then my mind might come from saying, this is it, or I'm nearly there, or all sorts of stuff, you know? Or a resignation, or like a censored... I don't know if I can actually point and say, this is what he's been talking about. But who are you relating all to this? Nearly there, and all the rest of it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

If that relationship, relativity is not going on, relating to the mind, what are you? I've no idea. This... No, you've no idea. And you never will have. Because there's not an idea in the mind. No idea is good. The interesting thing, when I started coming and listening to your talks, you say a lot of the same stuff over and over and over and over and over again. And it used to bug the crap out of me. Like I used to sit there and go, oh my God, can't this guy come up with something original? I'm a fucking young man. But the interesting thing for me is, whenever there's that thought that comes up, because you're not seeing it as fresh and new.

You're basically referring it back to something, apparently, that happened in a past time. And if you look at everything as fresh and new, that ultimately you've never repeated anything. According to the third point, according to the simplicity of the Advaita teaching, the non-duality, people say, oh, it's too simple. They try and explain it in words, concepts, ideas, and think this couldn't be it because of the simplicity. But is there anything simpler than one? And you realise there can't be anything simpler than one. So, nothing outside of it at all. So, so-called everybody, everybody, you know what I mean, not all bodies, are that I am.

They're not separate. There's nothing separate. Know the truth, and the truth will set you free. So you're free of the belief that there's an entity here that's got to do something, needs to abide or do anything. And that's what comes about, life comes about. I see it doesn't discriminate. Some young people can get it, interestingly, others, years and years. Others may never understand it. But ultimately, there's nothing to get anyway, sir. Whether they know it or not, they've always been that. Well, when that I thought came upon you, about two, two and a half, your parents, school, society and nations all reinforced it. And you have been reinforced it every day yourself.

Can you blame that habit pattern can crop up for a moment or two? But if you recognise it, it'll come up in your intelligence, hey, wait a minute, I saw through this, is it true? You know now, can you find a static point where it's zero over here? You can't. So you see, it's just like a dream, you see water in the mirage when there's none. What's coming to me now is, you know, I've been coming here for a long time and I finally got to a point now where things will happen and my thoughts will come up and I can just watch it. I can watch the dance, you know, and enjoy the dance.

However, here's the but. There's always that thing for me, that questioning of the judgement or responsibility, you know. And I always like when you say, you know, responsibility, ability to respond to something. Yeah, I just find that there's always that judgement still there on when you take ownership or when you're responsible for something. And I know you're going to say, you know, that will just happen. It will happen spontaneously. If responsibility is to happen, it'll happen. If ownership is to happen, it will happen. There is no one doing. But the mind will come up with. Yeah. If the responsibility or activity has come up, who's doing it?

So when you say that, there's no judgement. No. It falls away. Just a spontaneous happening. But it's habitual to judge. It's habitual. To judge. Yeah. Yes. So when does it fall away? When does it ever start? Oh, God, I hate that. But nothing has ever happened when you look at it. Nothing whatsoever has ever happened. No birth, no death, no future, no past, no destination, no free will. It needs to be investigated. And that will happen if it comes up too. Because when you investigate, the false cannot stand up to investigate. All these erroneous or false beliefs that we've taken on will not stand up if you can investigate them and see if they can find any static point where any of them start from.

There's no static point anywhere in this manifestation here. And there is no self-nature doing it. Everything is that. The Sakarati use the term, realise you are dreaming a dream you call the world. And stop looking for ways. Stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your concern. Your concern is that you love one part of the dream and not the other. It's either love all of it or none of it. And the rest will be done for you. So it's not saying divide the dream into good and bad, which we tend to do, but not divide the words into good and bad. So that's where everything is at.

The bad is that just as much as the good. Ordinary point of view, we think this universe is chaotic. But the universe is perfectly resolved. It's working itself out. Relaxing and watching the show doesn't mean to say you're doing nothing. You'll find the body mind taking a very active part in it. But the recognition is there's no driver in the seat. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything is clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set in its flea barn. And when no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.

In the Hindu scriptures, what they call the five factors, Sat Chit Ananda, Nama Rupa, existence, consciousness, bliss, name and form. As Agadatta described it beautifully, a lot of people don't understand what he's saying. When he says, when I know that I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I know that I am everything, that is love. And between those two, my life flows. Well, the wisdom of knowing, that is Sat Chit Ananda, existence, consciousness, bliss. The existence is the knowing. The consciousness is the being. And the bliss is the loving to me. None of them are separate. Existence, consciousness, bliss are not separate. But it vibrates from one to the other constantly.

If you come back to the immediacy of this living intelligence, this livingness, which is happening right now, without a thought, without words, it's very clear and obvious. It's words that seem to divide. And that's what Bob pointed out to me and everyone else, that it's the word that divides. It doesn't really divide, but it appears to divide that unicity, that living consciousness or awareness. And the mind goes down these paths, and the mind goes down these paths, and the mind goes down these paths, and the mind goes down these paths, and the mind goes down these pathways of belief in separation. It's all labels. And that's really significant to recognize.

What about this question? What are you without words? You have to pause and have a look. And what's recognized is that which cannot be negated. That is what you've always been. And it's prior to the birth of the body. It's eternity, you know. We are all of this one essence, no matter who you are, whoever you think you are, wherever you are in the so-called hierarchy of society. Everyone is that. And that's that. If you do the investigation and you see that the I is a phantom or an imagination, that's critical. And if you see that, then by doing some of the very simple investigations that Bob points out, then it becomes clear that the I is really just another vibration, just like everything else.

For me, it was like, and they call this spiritual finishing school, you know, like, there was the me that used to have to acquire a mass, accumulate in order to patch up a fiction, wanting things from out there. And then the last sticking point was the me that needed to seek enlightenment, that needed to get somewhere to have a flash of white light or for everything in the appearance to change. But right now, he's all there is. Well, there is no me, really. I mean, that's it. No, there's no such thing as enlightenment. Because what we talk about, non-duality, one without a second, that is the absolute, and there's nothing that can be taken from the absolute.

Nothing can be added to it. So there's nothing separate to be labelled as enlightened or anything else. It's the one essence. It's patterning, expressing and appearing as everything. Being, knowing and loving to be. Or another way of putting it, awareness of being is this. And that's how I put it, another way again, he says, have an affectionate awareness of being. In other words, love yourself. Be that back to yourself.