This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
Okay, you're going to get the same old, same old. Always do. And why? Because if you go into it too much, you get lost in the story. You put in all sorts of concepts and beliefs into it when it's very, very simple. There's nothing simpler than one. And it's not even one. That's why they call it non-duality. Not two. One without a second. Only that. That's the great mantra they talk about. I am that. Innately, innately, every one of us, knows that. Because you say, that's the chair I'm sitting in. That's the room I'm in. That's the space that's in the room. That's the tree.
That's the flower. Everything is that. Which we discriminate by putting the words on. And none of the words are the real. Got this idea we are this body, mind, this entity, this person. And we've got a name and form. The name. The word. Have a look at these words. None of you can say, remember your birth. Why? Because you didn't have any words at birth. How could you remember it? You didn't pick up on words until you were about two, two and a half. When the capacity of reasoning developed. And we learnt words. And the word is not the thing. See that. Take the word water.
Try and drink the word. Try and drink the word. Get the word fired. Does it burn you? Can you cook with it? Can you heat yourself? So, you see these words are just labels. We put on all these things. And we move sight of what the basic message is. There's only the one. And they have words on this one. They call it God, the absolute, the great perfection, Brahma, Brahma, Jiva. All sorts of labels they put on that too. And it even tells you in the Bible, in the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God. That's all that God is, is a word.
All things were made by him, by the word. And there was nothing made that was made without the word. Well look at that. Look around you. Name something out there that, that has the word on it. You've got words for everything. And all those words have been acquired and picked up. No word is it. So, without the word, they call it the great perfection. That's a word too. And the absolute. What can you add to the absolute? If you could add anything to it, it wouldn't be absolute, would it? What can you take away from it? If you took anything away from it, it wouldn't be absolute.
And it's the same as the great perfection. What can you add to the perfect? Nothing. What can you take away from the perfect? Nothing. And they could give it to you in Buddhism, as the great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. Now, in Hinduism they call it Sat Chitta Nanda. Nama-rupa. Sat is existence. Chitta is consciousness. Nanda is loving to be. And the nama is the body, the name we've put ourselves. And the rupa is the form, the body, the body-mind. And they tell you that nama-rupa is illusion. Its body-mind is Maya, it's illusion. It's only appearing to be so. And they tell you it's a phenomenal manifestation.
And the definition of phenomenal is that which appears to be. So all this appearance that's going on around us, that's all it is. It's seemingly so. Appearing. Now with the Sat Chitta Nanda, existence, there's anybody who is not existing right now. Anybody who is not conscious or unaware right now. And you realize, no, I'm conscious. I'm existing. Anyone who's not happy to be. Well, you're all happy to be. Nobody wants to be dead right now, damn. So you are already that. And if you recognize you are already that, what's this concept of being? The right error or belief in the search. That you need to become something.
That becomes the problem. Because if you're that already and it's absolute, and what you're seeking to become something, trying to add something more to it, it won't happen. It can't happen. And becoming is not being. You are being right now. Not becoming. Becoming implies a future time to become something. And when you investigate time, you'll see that's a concept, mental concept also. If you ask yourself, is there a past if I don't think about it? Have a look at that. And you realize you can't say there's a past, a future, without a thought. Without a thought, it's just as it is. What is means unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected, no preference, no partiality, no comparison.
Every so-called thing is as it is. When do we take on words? Well, you weren't born with any words. That's why no one can remember their birth. Birth, I should say. You can't say you were born and you couldn't remember. And you couldn't say it because you had no words. And you didn't have any words for the first couple of years of your life before that capacity of reasoning developed in you. But you were living for the first couple of years of your life without the word. Then we picked up words and we learned words like I and me and this and that and all that.
But you were getting an all right without, for the first couple of years, your parents were looking after you and you were living and breathing, hard breathing. Getting an all right without the word. And then with the capacity of reasoning, we've learned words. We started to think. Parents told you, you're little Billy or you're little Johnny and you're a good little boy and so and so and yes. And then again you took it on, I am little Johnny. Put the sense, the thought or concept I. And what's this I am? When you realize I am, the thought I am is just a sense of presence.
It's not your body, mind. It's a sense of presence and knowing that you are. But somebody comes in and say, who are you? You'll say, I am John or I am Bill. You put that label, you put that word on you. Don't say I am the absolute. You can't get around saying I am the absolute. People will put you in the funny farm. Absolutely. And so we've taken on these concepts, these words and believed in them. But you can't do much with I. So what do we do? We add other concepts, thoughts and ideas on. I am Bob, the Australian. I'm a good fellow. I'm not so good.
I'm happy or I'm unhappy. This, that and the other. All the concepts and ideas and images added onto it. Form a conceptual image. What do I believe myself to be? A conceptual image. Image made up of concepts. Concepts are words, thoughts. And we take on the belief that I am this person. Where does that word person come from? It comes from the ancient Latin language persona. A mask. So now we've got this mask of concepts which we take to be real. Conceptual image. We believe ourselves to be this conceptual image. This person. Without investigation. The capacity of reasoning comes upon us and we learn these words and we take the word to be real.
But when you look at it, what's word? When you investigate it, all word is a sound. Noise. It's a vibration. A vibration is a movement of energy. So all of this concept of being. Concepts, ideas and words we think. When they're thought silently. It's only a subtle sound going on. When it comes out as word. It's sound, it's vibration. So it's only a subtle vibration or movement of energy. That's why I don't use the term God here because you get confused with that term. We all come from different backgrounds. Different traditions and different religions. And you can get confused with it. I use the term intelligence energy.
That's just another concept also. But when I'm talking about intelligence, I'm not talking about your intellects. I'm talking about the same intelligence that's rolling earth around the sun. Causing the seasons to come and go. Causing the tides to come in and out. It's what's breathing you. It's beating your heart. Growing your hair and your fingernails. That life essence that you are already. And that's what Christ told you. If he was around, it was such a thing. He says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. People thought he was talking about himself. He wasn't. He was talking about that sense of presence that he knew just the same as you do.
As the thought I am. It's that I am the knowingness. That I am is the sense of presence. The life. The very life of you. I am the way. I am the truth. And the life. When you investigate it, you'll see. And the other thing we say that the false cannot stand up to investigation. We've taken on all these false concepts which we believe in. And look at the trouble it gets into. It's only me that can be fearful. Only me can be anxious. Unhappy. Guilty. Jealous. Envy. Me is the cause of all my psychological suffering. A word. And in the beginning it was the word.
That's all it is. The word's not the thing. Are you this body? Are you this mind? And you'll say, my body. But if you've investigated that, what's this body made up of? You'll see the body's made up of elements. Made up of air, earth, fire, water, space. Just like these elements around you. Well, if you're thinking of the body, try and separate yourself from those elements. Take the water out of your body. Your body's 60% water. You won't last too long. Stop breathing. Again, you won't last too long without the air. Take the fire, the body temperature. Soon get hypothermia and die. Get off the earth.
Get out of space. When you investigate, you'll see you can't. Separate yourself from those elements. And all those elements can be broken down into subatomic particles, into pure energy. So all this manifestation is, is a vibrating pattern of energy. So how can you say you are the body? But you call it my body just to say it's my house, my car, my coat, my hat. You know you're not the house, the car, the coat or that. Maybe you're not the body. Maybe you're not the body either. Investigate and see for yourself. Nobody can do it for you. You've got to do these things yourself. That's why I can't teach you anything.
Can't tell you anything. All I can do is point toward and ask you to look to where I'm pointing to to see for yourself. Because nobody can teach you anything and nobody can tell you anything. Because there is no body apart from the one essence that's patterning into different shapes and forms. What we call, put the label on this, my body, my mind. Have a look at that my mind, the same thing. Show me a thing called mind if you think of the mind. I can't show you anything called mind. And when I look into it there's no such thing as mind apart from thought.
And if mind is thought and I believe I'm mind, which particular thought would I be? Well I'd believe that I thought. Well if you were that I thought you'd be frightened of going to sleep at night. Because that I thought disappears when you go to sleep. And you've got no thought when you're in sleep-sleep. But you don't disappear without it. And you can pause a thought or a thought can pause with you and be in silence and stillness throughout the day and you haven't disappeared. So there's no such thing as I. And what is thought after all? Well thought is basically sound. What's sound? Word.
What's word? Idea, image. And the saga data tells you nothing can trouble you except in your own imagination. Nothing at all can trouble you except in your own imagination. Get that word imagination. Break it down to image in, imagine. And realise that's what we're doing. We're creating mental images, concepts, ideas. This is good, that's bad, I like that, I don't like that. And taking the image to be real. Now you look in the mirror and what do you see in the mirror? Have a look, there's a mirror at the end of the room if you haven't seen it. You'll see that mirror is full of reflections or images.
Now you can't say they're not there. But you have to go up to that mirror and try and pull it out. Pull an image out of the mirror. You can't say it is there. So you can't say it is and you can't say it's not. But it still appears to be. When you look into this manifestation you'll see it's the same thing. It's all appearance. They call it a phenomenal manifestation. And the definition of phenomenal is that which appears to be. It's only seemingly so. We believe we are this manifestation. Now what's it all appearing? What is the basics? What is the basis of what it appears in?
Well, you'll recognise and look at it, it all appears in space. Can you find a centre to space? Is there an inner to it? Is there an outer to it? Because it's got no boundaries to it. Can you find a, you can't find a centre, can you find a boundary to it anywhere? Has it got a wall around it anywhere? And the other thing is can you postulate or think of anything that could be outside of space? What would it be in? You realise it'd have to be in space. Everything is the content of space. And you and I, the trees, the flowers, the birds, the bees, the mountains, are all things.
All things. Which we put more labels on, say people, trees, flowers, put all those other labels on. But basically we are things. Space is no thing. Hasn't got any shape. Hasn't got any form. Hasn't got any beginning. Hasn't got any end. Well just ask yourself this question. Can some thing come from no thing? You don't have to be a Rhodes Scholar to work that out. Some thing cannot come from no thing. So though it's all appearing, it's all no thing appearing as some thing. So you recognise that that's all there is. This space, what they call space-like awareness. Which is patterning, shaping, forming into all the content.
The animals, birds, the insects, the trees, the flowers, everything is that. That's the great mantra. I am that. And don't you realise it already, innately though that. Because you say that's the chair I'm sitting in. That's the room the chair's in. That's the tree that's outside. That's the sky, that's the space. Everything is that. Which again, we've discriminated with the word. Now as I say, you didn't learn any words until you were about two and a half, somewhere around that age. But before that you were living, you were breathing. And there was that pure awareness. That pure awareness there. It had no labels on it that could say I am or not.
So you realise from that you are prior to the mind. You're before the mind because the mind didn't appear on you until you learnt those thoughts. Thoughts are words, concepts, ideas. So you are that absolute. Always have been and always will. It's utilising this body, this pattern, shape and form to express through. It's utilising this body, this pattern, shape and form to express through. It's utilising this body, this pattern, shape and form to express through. In its absoluteness, it can't separate itself as anything. So there would be just that pure non-dual presence awareness. Still the silence. With nothing going. So it needs a pattern to express through.
Just like the trees, the flowers, all these patterns. There's that same life essence or intelligence energy expressing through each and every one of them. Just like the trees, the flowers, all these patterns. There's only that. And it's only that. And you are that. And you are that. So that's what we point out. So that's what we point out. And that's what needs to be recognised. And that's what needs to be recognised. How did you come into existence? How did you come into existence? Well, you believe you are this body? Well, go back as far as your father and your mother. That animating life essence, that intelligence energy, that pattern, shape and form of your father.
in that pattern a little microscopic particle through the essence of the food that he's eating and the air he's breathing enabled in that pattern a little microscopic particle called a sperm to form. You can't see it with your naked eye but that sperm was suffused with intelligence. It knew what to do. Now the same in your mother. That life essence had animated the pattern shape and formed your mother, enabled in that pattern a little microscopic particle called an egg or an ovum to form. And that ovum was suffused with intelligence it knew what to do, it had attached itself to the wall of the uterus.
And the sperm knew, knowing what to do, suffused with intelligence and swam to the ovum and penetrated the ovum, and the ovum with intelligence Sheets of fifth touching herself the wall the uterus. Wind. Kn natuurlijk. knowledge is very important provided at two came together what happened? The innate intelligence in those two formed the little embryo, the little fetus which is what you are today. What are you doing about it then and what are you doing about it now? You're saying I've got to take my next breath, I've got to make sure that heart beats. You don't because it's happening spontaneously, naturally and effortlessly and we've learned words to be able to express and pattern through but the problem is we've taken the word to be what we are.
We've listened to our parents what they told us when they say you little Johnny, you're a good boy and we've never investigated and we've gone to schools and they taught us more words and we've investigated and believed in it more and more but now through the ages there have been people, so-called people that have looked into it and so there's a bit more to it what these scriptural sayings tell us. All the bullshit they put on us with the fear and anxiety, stress and guilt and shame and remorse. They've looked into this stuff and they've seen it and it's out there and then people put it on and put their take on it, some of them and give them all sorts of practices and things to do and keep it in it.
And then tell them what they're doing. Tell them they're sinners or they're unhappy, they're fearful, they're anxious, they shouldn't do this and shouldn't do that. Practice other things. And when that sense of separation and fear, what are we going to do? We're going to take on all these concepts and we get very fearful, very anxious, unhappy, depressed, guilty. All these concepts and thoughts and ideas are coming up. All believed, taken on by the idea of me or I. I am fearful. I am anxious. I am happy. I'm depressed. I'm guilty. That's all psychological suffering. Me is the cause of my psychological suffering. And the effects are the anxiety, the stress, the guilt, the shame, remorse, jealousy, envy.
All these concepts are the effects of the cause. And what is what we call cause and effect? Isn't it so called karma? Karma is cause and effect. But if you see me is the cause of everything, me is the cause of all these effects, and ask yourself a simple question, can there be an effect if I'm not relating to a cause? Well you don't have to be a Rhodes Scholar to work that out. If you're not relating to a cause, where can the effect lodge? There's nowhere for it to lodge. It must disappear. It must dissolve. And it does when you see it and recognise it.
But if we've got the habit, because we believe it's never good, never relating to these things, so that habit, when you're looking into it, investigate it, and see for yourself, the habits can be broken. And where it says when the habit's broken, they tell you in some of the scriptures, let it rest. Relax into it or let it rest in its uncontrived singularity. It's a singularity. It's only the one. Let it rest. Relax into it. Try to become something. The idea of becoming implies being. You are a human being. You call yourself a human being. You believe in God. You call God the Supreme Being.
Take away that word human. Take away that word supreme. Tie and separate your beingness right now. Try and tell me you are not. You can't. You can't say I am. You are that beingness. Don't need the human or the supreme. It's just in its purity, in its natural state, pure being. You are already that. How does that work? Well, have a look and see how it works in you. Something comes up in your mind and you like it. Now, we don't want these things that we like to go. Not realizing that everything is transient. It's changing constantly. There's nothing static in this manifestation. There are thousands of cells dying in that body that's a core of you right now.
Not one or two, but thousands of them. And being replaced. And each cell is suffused with that intelligence. The skin cell is not going to replace a heart cell. A liver cell is not going to replace a kidney cell. Or a brain cell is not going to replace some other cell. What's going on there? Each cell knows what to do. And it doesn't. So the functioning, the growing is going on by itself all the time. Something comes up that I like. I don't want it to go. No, not realizing, no matter how much I love it or how much I want to keep it. There it's going to change.
But you don't want it to go, the good stuff. You want the good stuff to stay there. So what do you do? You resist it from going. You try and stop it. Try and cling to it. Got to keep this one. Recognize that resistance is conflict. If you are resisting anything, you're struggling with it, you are in conflict with it. Conflict makes you uneasy. Makes you fearful, unhappy, depressed, not good at all. So another word for uneasiness is dis-ease. So there's resistance, conflict and dis-ease coming up in us all the time. Look at it the other way. Something comes up that I don't like. Oh, you shouldn't be thinking that.
That's a bit evil thought. That's a bad thought. I don't want that thought. I don't want to be abused in this one. I ought to be happy. So again, what do we do? We resist it. We try to throw the bad thoughts out. And again, we're in conflict and struggle. And again, there's this resistance, conflict, and uneasiness coming up. So you see whichever way we go, we're in that resistance. There's only one way out, is to leave it as it is. Unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected, just as it is. it is. And we're dividing it anyway, what is indivisible, because we think there's, as Shakespeare told you, there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
And we're thinking there's good and the bad, and they're two separate things, but they're not. They're two ends of the one stick, or two sides of the one coin. They're not separate. So the good and the bad are not separate. Just like you go to the South Pole, you can't go any further south, the next step will be north. Go to the North Pole, your next step will be south, when you go any further. Where do they meet? At the equator. Why would they call it the equator? Because where it's equal, where it's even. But you see the North Pole and the South Pole, the way we put it, they're not separate at all.
They're two ends of the one Antarctic... continent or whatever's there. Two... One planet. Yeah, the one planet. And then on the continents, one planet too, yeah. So we separate them, and that sense of separation, because we isolate ourselves, we're fearful, we're anxious, we're unhappy, we live miserable lives, which we don't happen, don't need to. There's only one self. They call it myself. There's only one self they tell you in the scriptures. They call it the Atman. The one self. And you and I and everything else is that one self that has the capacity of vibrating, patterning, shaping, forming and expressing as everything. But it's never left as true nature.
So that's what we're all about. And open it up for questions or some of you know it. No problem. Subtitles by the Amara.org community Subtitles by the Amara.org community Subtitles by the Amara.org community corrupted. But now these days when we've got computers and everything, there's a chance of everybody to see it and recognize their true nature. The Buddha called it the cognizing emptiness. We think we cognize or know the emptiness, but we don't. It's the emptiness that does the cognizing. It's recognizing itself. And he made the statement that emptiness is form. It's this emptiness that's patterning, shaping and forming and expressing as all this manifestation.
And he turned it around the other way and said the form can be nothing other than the emptiness. So that's all there is. And you are that. So get into it. Want to say something? Yes, so we have over 30 people with us online and welcome everyone online. And you welcome messages from them saying... Good morning, Bob and Kat, and everyone, not even one, even reminders from them. And there is a request from Tanya. Bob and Kat, could you say something about the death of a loved one? I can't see there is no judgment on the intense waves of energy that are appearing and the stories about death and the lead up to it are being seen to be just stories.
And we're seeing more and more each day without any effort. No one to effort anyone. A deep sense of loss is appearing right now. Thank you. And Amanath has already an answer. No death in love at all. No lover and beloved. Death itself is the form of love. Would you like to say something ? Very should help us say that better? Do you have a question? You were talking about the loss of the loved ones, so it already happened. I remember you were saying your dad had terminal illness, but yeah, really sorry. Just embrace the waves. You want to say something about the death of the loved ones?
Well, naturally there's a sense of loss there, and that'll be believed to be so too, and it would cause a lot of strife. But if you look at what was born, you can't remember your birth, but you were here patterning, shaping, and forming, and you see it's transient, it's constantly breaking down, it changes. Where did you come from when you came from out of that space, that empty space, pattern, shape, and form, from the elements and everything else that formed in it? Where are you going to go? Emptiness is form, and the form is nothing but the emptiness. You go back into the emptiness. The pattern, shape, and form breaks down, but the life essence that you are and it is is still there.
It's not going to be a reincarnation or anything like that, because you'll never get the same drop of water out of the ocean when it goes back into the ocean. But that's a good analogy for how it's functioning the same way. It's in the function. You go outside on a cloudy day, would you say the sun is not in the sky? No, you know the sun's not in the sky, but it's forked, seemingly obscured by clouds. And you ask yourself, what forms the cloud? Investigate, and you realize the sun itself forms the cloud. The sun doesn't know anything about the cloud, but it's in its radiance, it evaporates water.
Water rises and cools down, and forms a cloud which obscures the sun. The sun continues to radiate and might blow the cloud away, or bring it down as rain, and that rain will find its way back into the ocean again. So you'll never get the same drop of water out of the ocean again. But more clouds will form. That is the same with this. It goes back into the one essence it's always been. Pattern, shapes, and forms appear, play around, disappear. And with that certainty, or recognition, or understanding, or whatever you like to call it, you're going to miss the ones you love, the very dear ones.
You're going to be very sad for a while. But recognize the essence that they are is still right here, mingling with this essence that is now. It's not just binding on you. I've lost all my... ...relloes. And I'm not too concerned with them. There's that old saying they put on the people when they die. It's loving friends be wise and dry, straight away every weeping eye. What you see upon the bear is not worth a single tear. It is a simple, simple seashell, one out of which the pearl is gone. The shell is nothing. Leave it there. The pearl, they all, is here right now.
Well, Antania answers, actually, thank you. She says, thank you, Amarnath, and beautiful Bob. The life has not gone anywhere. It's just not being expressed through this form. Beautiful. I met these beautiful people, like, about maybe three or four days before my dad died. And I just feel like... I was going to say something about belief earlier, but since this is a topic that's coming up, I found a few things to be really helpful. I somehow made the decision to go see my father's corpse. And when I did that, the first thought that came to my mind was... Well, now I know what it was. I was like, I'm going to die.
I'm going to die. Well, now I know why they call them stiffs. But the second thought that came up was, if this is not 100% proof that we're not these bodies, I don't know what is. And I remember noticing before he died, even, what I'm in love with is a description. I mean, you can go look at the... Go and sit with a body that's not being animated. And yes, the form was nice, but without that life aspect, without that life essence, you can tell there's something missing. It's the life that you're in love with. And so what I found really helpful at the time, and whenever I lost something I loved, was just to ask myself this question.
If I'm not believing that what we are are these bodies, and if I'm not buying into a belief or a thought, can I find where we're separate, where I'm separate from him? And that question always was like, you know, there was no separation without a thought. And so that kind of was something that would help me whenever I caught myself missing something. And then another thing that I found really helpful was there were times when I noticed wanting to get something, wanting him to listen, wanting him to hear me, wanting him to talk to me, really wanting to get something was happening. And then I remembered something I'd heard elsewhere that really it's when the love is passing through us that that's where the most joy is, and I don't need him to be present for me to love him.
So I could just love, whatever, that life essence, that no thing, that whatever it is, just love. My heart, if that's what's hurting, love that, love whatever. And I found that to be really helpful when I was noticing that I was wanting to get something, if I could just love that and love him. I found that really helpful. And then I was just going to add on or say something about what you were saying, about belief. You know, you go to Christmas time and they have those words, it's like, wow, for 30 years I bought into Christianity. That word believe, it was sold so much.
Wow, just that one thing, just believing that that's what we are. You know, and seeing through that, that's been so profound and so helpful. So I'm very grateful. Did you want to say something, Dean? Oh, I have, I have a couple of questions. Oh, okay. A couple of answers. Good morning, Bob and Kat. Peter McKenna here. I was talking the other day to a friend about how back in the 70s you met Irish Bill and helped him through his struggles with his mind. Would you care to share how you helped him, if that's appropriate? Well, simply, Bill heard what I was saying. Took it aboard and it helped him.
He was pretty wild, pretty rugged and rough. He was the one that used to stay. Brought up in the Catholic, by the Catholic priests. And I think they'd given him a hard time because he wasn't too happy with them. And he used to, he'd talk, he used to thump the table and yell and all the rest of it. And he said, souls. He says, they talk about souls. He says, I got three of them. The soul in each of me shoes is me arsehole. Anyway, he was hearing what I was saying. In a little while later he got cancer of the liver. And he had nowhere to stay at the time.
He'd, wife had died and he'd sold his house. He was living in a boarding house. And when he got cancer, she wanted him. She wanted to put him in a restaurant. He didn't want to go there. So we were in a shop at the time. And we put him above the shop. The doctor used to come and see him there. And the doctor was so amazed at the way he was handling death. Because of his understanding and recognising this stuff. Handling death so well. And the doctor started coming to the groups too. There is a couple of comments. Tanya says, there is definitely no reincarnation that is true.
Reincarnation is a concept only. Oh, beautiful Bob. Thank you for that most profound poem. No birth and no death for the life you are. And John David says, I'm also facing loved ones facing death. Very grateful for this talk. Thank you everyone for sharing. And Byron says, only dead people are truly united. And one. And Tanya says, what a profoundly beautiful sharing Julia. Thank you. No separation. No love to get from anything or anyone. Nothing needed and nothing lacking. And Byron, are we already dead? Just not in touch with it? Just one more. Sorry to hear that John David, that's from Tanya. This help you, help for you also.
Sending you lots of love. And John David says, thank you to Tanya. Love to you. And we hand to Peter. Thank you. I think death is an experience for deeper life. Is it not? Where people around us who we love die. We come to the point of death ourselves. It is an experience of deeper and more profound life. Life in as much that as we join together in love or discover love, perhaps for the first time in the experience of losing a loved one or facing one's own death. It's something ultra profound, which goes way beyond this notion of a separate person and enters into a kind of wonderful, loving union with everything.
Is that not true? All of us are not immune to this. We all experience this at some point or other. Unless we're made of concrete, which some of us are I suppose. Just kidding. Yeah. To me, the experience of unity is an experience of the one heart. We drop all the concepts and words when we find in each other the one heart. We all go home eventually, I believe. Thank you. And the other way, yes? I say it comes from the absolute. Must go back to the absolute. Can the absolute ever, or has ever, or will ever be touched or split or broken apart? Can't.
It just is. And is there anyone who didn't experience sense of love and sense of loss? Like, it is, what is that one that is experiencing the sense of loss? What is it that is lacking something? Because in your absoluteness, and, gosh, I've lost quite a few very, very dear friends. Not to mention, you know, even loss of an animal. I was actually, I have a friend back in Poland who had a terrible accident reversing back and killing, and killing his own dog. And that sent him nearly out to the loony bin. That was so unbearable. And he had a pretty good understanding. So it can be really shaky to lose a dear one, to lose the spouse, the parent, the child.
Another friend of mine I just got message this morning lost a child. And he was my age. I remember him from school. So he was kind of, kind of, yeah, that's how disheartening is that. And animals are experiencing sense of grief as well. Because the way the whole body is designed is to preserve the instinct, is designed to preserve the security and the safety of the body. And if you are a mother and you, or you are a partner, you know, there are birds that mate for life. The animals that we, that we breed to take away their children, kill them and eat them. They also experience that sense of very, very strong disturbance when things like this happen.
And yeah, that's the duality of life. I mean, who would imagine having a day without the night and pain without the pleasure? That sense of loss, which is like Tania, you beautifully said, it is the waves of life, the waves of energy are coming over and you just embrace them all. You embrace the sadness and you delight in your capacity to love, which expresses itself as deepest crying of the heart. There is a great beauty in that capacity. There are people who do not have it. They can't feel that deeply. How sad. But of course, that experience is complete as well. The absolute expresses itself in every form and every experience is complete.
But yes, what you do so beautifully, Tania, answering your own questions in the way you express them and giving in the same wavelength, the pointers to other, embracing those energies, seeing them as they are. And what Julia beautifully highlighted that yes, is the sense of need. You know, I don't want that to happen. I don't want my loved one to not be physically here. But is he physically there? Was he physically there even when he was alive? Like my mother is very much alive and kicking, but she's not physically there. And there is no sense of loss. She's a thought in my mind and my heart and I love her as such.
I didn't see her for quite a few years. And so that's what we love. We love our stories about the forms that we have. We love our attachment to the story. Same, the sense of loss is the shattered dream. If we imagine that we had something that the presence of the other person was necessary or required for, and now this is shattered, you know, like broken relationship, broken hearts. What is broken? The hope for future. The story. Hope for pleasure, fulfillment. And this moment now, it is never broken. Even if it contains the deepest of the feeling of grief. There is a beauty in grief.
There is a beauty to be embraced. When it's so allowed, you know, and so welcome. It's been my experience that even if I'm like, I don't know if I'm angry and I'm like, I want to be angry. Is that a problem? If I'm sad and I'm okay with this sadness, it's not a problem. And when I'm so celebrating or, you know, just allowing so deeply, I don't know how else to say this, but whatever is coming up, it has a hard time staying. It's been my experience anyway, because when it's so welcomed, what is allowed to come, comes. Yeah. I think I like, I like the way Ramana Maharshi said it.
He said, let what comes come. Let what goes go. I think he could have also said, let what doesn't come not come and let what doesn't go not go. But if it's so allowed, it seems to help a lot. It doesn't hurt so much because there's no resistance when it's allowed. Exactly. Just continuing on a little bit about life and death. To me, reality is directly knowable as awareness now. I am, I am, I am. I know this directly without any interference of mind. And in that knowing of, that I am my being and my, the love that just overflows from knowing that, these things I know directly.
But I know nothing of death. I know nothing of death except through the filtering of the mind's concepts, which I know are totally ephemeral. So then, it only takes one more step of logic to conclude that there is only life or one knows only of life, not death. Just one other thing, I just wanted to share, no, like I'll say. No, no, you go. I'll say that I had the experience of my brother dying. My brother is five years older than I was. And he died of cancer, colon cancer. So did my mother, actually. But when my brother died, I, I went to see him and I had a lifetime of sort of difficulty with him.
And, although I loved him dearly, and just a few days before he died I went to see him and had nothing else to say to him except, I love you. And he, he replied by saying, yes, I love you too. And then in that, in that moment everything was resolved. All that, all that lifetime of pain and suffering was gone. And, you know, him and I were just that one thing that I knew we were from in the beginning. All that, covering over with all the concepts and hurts and, everything, just disappeared completely in that one moment of union with him. Does that not speak to the ridiculousness of all that that we put in the way?
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I have a couple of more comments. Amarnath is answering to what Byron says, the body knows loss and pain and sorrow. The body is real. And, now Amarnath is replying, are we, are we already dead? Just not in touch with it. Amarnath says, beautiful eye death, which doesn't exist. Yeah, eye doesn't even have to die because it's been imagined. It doesn't even know. And now Tanya says, thank you Kat, beautiful. Hope any pointers expressed through these words are useful for all. Yes, that's right. Like, even if you have not, which is highly unlikely experience in a sense of loss, as we are aging, that's inevitable.
Ask Bob. He just said he outlived all of his family, parents, obviously all of his siblings, his first wife and a lot of friends that, it is part of life that we never experienced as Peter pointed out our own death. But we can see everyone else dropping. We can see leaves dropping off the trees. We can see seasons changing. We can see, the skin cells dying and being replaced by different ones. So that's what we can see. But what can we experience? Even the ego does not have to die because it has never been alive. It has never been real. It has been imagined into existence.
It just needs to be dispelled. And Amarnath says, there is only death of inquirer, husband or wife, and not of the soul. And that's what we can see. There is only death of inquirer, husband or wife, mind or image. Nothing happens to the mirror. Yes, you can say this way. Yeah. Although even that, you know, if I consider myself a wife or a woman, that wife or that woman doesn't die. It's just seen to be a reflection, not a mirror. But yes, you can say it this way. And Biden says, how to talk when dead. That's a good point, Biden. And life expresses us a form of life, which is capable of talking.
When it doesn't express us a form, it can't talk. And Rohan, and, Rohan had a birthday. Happy birthday, Rohan, his name. Douglas Harding once said, something to the effect of, and Tania, by the way, she had a birthday too. Which, yeah, collided with the, the, And the friend that Bob was talking last week, Danny, that dropped dead, his two boys, teenagers, had a birthday a couple of days later. That's how life plays its game. Rohan says, Douglas Harding once said something to the effect of, if I am the one that is seen reflected in the mirror, then I've had it. But the one in the mirror is a terminal case, getting closer to death every day.
The great delusion of the as-if world is that what is really, really am here is what I see in the mirror out there. Yeah, good point. I remember Bob bringing someone to the mirror and try to show them, are you the reflection? Of the body. Obviously the reflection of the body is flat. It's not even alive. You could not possibly be that. And Amarna says, thought equals death. Remove I, thinker, from that you are immortal. Words are death. Supreme, unbroken silence is the immortality. And John David, thanks Rohan for the quote of Douglas Harding. And Byron says, the dead cannot and need not get any closer to dead, as nobody needs to do anything at all.
I think what the Christ said, let the dead bury the dead. Yeah. And we only know life. We're only conceptualizing about death. We don't know anything about it. You only know life. And if it's trouble in life, wouldn't it be best while you're alive to try and clear that up? Yeah. Recognize if there's problems there. Recognize the truth. And then there's all this concept about death and arguments about it and fights about it. Might drop away. There'll be a time when you won't know anything about it. There was a time before you were here, you didn't know anything about it. And there's no such thing as time anyway to know it.
Now, uh, I'll try and give some examples, some of which I see in the book, and this has been thinking about for a while. I'm excited to start getting some information out from the audience. So we'll begin with the first question from Amarnath on the subject of having a purpose. And the best way, and the best way to express yourself is to message your Now. And that, what does that mean? Yeah, I think that is a pretty, it's a very important thing in this book. It's really, it's, it's a very important thing, because we usually, we don't need to really get into that, we need to be angry with ourselves, and we want to have a positive connection.
And I think that, Emptiness is now here, not after death. And Byron says, no, not after death right now. And Rohan says, how would we know about the label death, dead, without consciousness to say so? As Bob says, you can only talk about death if there is such a thing, a birth. Are there not just labels? They're just labels. Yes, so anyone else? We're done with the online comment. Please, Justin. Hello. So tomorrow my first son turns eight. And so we had a family gathering last night. He has a birthday party today. But something that commonly comes up, people say, oh, how fast it went.
And it sort of points to the illusory nature of time. The reason it seems. So fast is because we don't have any direct perception of it actually happening. It's just a concept that it happened. If you try and perceive it, it's only an instant or spontaneous. So I just thought it's like a common colloquialism of how fast time goes. And I'm sure Bob could maybe express something to do with that. Apparently been around. As fast as time goes. And in a sense, nothing really arises and nothing really passes. It's just spontaneous. That's all we can directly perceive. Anything else is really a concept. Yeah, I quite like that.
Anyone else would like to contribute to the meeting or ask questions? Dean, you're going to say something? No. I'm just over there. I have one comment from... Byron, he says, If you cannot hear the silence right now, you are not listening. Beautiful. Silence is never far away. The words... Can you hear the silence? Can you hear? Yeah. Can you acknowledge it? I mean, you don't even have to hear it in a way as like a gap between the notes. That's how music is possible. But can you actually acknowledge it? Didn't I make a song or sound or something? Yes. Give it to me. Every position we take as being solid and firm, whether it be conceptual or physical, is really an extreme outpost of untenable exclusivity.
Is it not? It's like everything is like that. So this is the folly of thinking that any kind of mental activity or position we take, is what it is. It's just the flow. And that's all that's going on, really. Everything here, all this discussion we have, is total bullshit in the end. Because it achieves nothing but further positions of withdrawing to some form of relative exclusivity. If you take this position, then that position is excluded, is it not? If you take that opinion, then that other revelation about that may is excluded. And it's unable to make itself known in the consciousness that we are. Exactly.
Keep close to the mic. Sorry. Because now that you're here. Yeah, I just said even the concept of non-duality can quite easily become a concept. It is already. Yeah, it is. It's just like Bob says, it's not the word. The word's not the real, I think. Bob says, yeah. As soon as we say something's non-duality, then it can't be duality, I suppose. Maybe the conceptual mind wants to grab onto that. Even separation. You think of non-separation, and then you try and look for separation, or try and find non-separation. You won't find that either. It's simple. Everything just as it is. As it is right now.
Unaltered, unmodified. Unaltered. Uncorrected. No preference. No partiality. No comparison. Yeah, that was beautiful, what you just expressed. Yes, even non-duality includes everything. I mean, nothing can be possibly excluded if it's not one, not even one. So duality's included, too. But when you conceptualize duality, you straight away just multiply concepts. Why not just leave it as it is? Beautiful. I love how you said it, Peter, the taking any position, any perspectives, adopting any viewpoint or any definition. It's beautiful. I think we have... There's always two. If there's somebody with a position... You want a mic? All right. Yeah, I was just going to say that any position needs something that isn't that position.
So it's automatically creating tools that are not the same as the person's. And I think that's what we're pointing to. And I think it's also why it can't really be experienced either. What this, what we're pointing to can't be experienced because it has to be something separate from it to be able to experience it. Yeah, I think it's easy to get caught up with, because all life is is experiences. And then we think that the final answer is going to be another thing. That sort of experience. That is that experience is happening. Yeah. In the space like conscious awareness. Yeah, yeah. All positions, all ideas.
Are within that. Yeah, and that you are. Everything is happening within you. Yeah. Within that, what you are. There is a comment here from Amanas, from a beautiful Rohan. There are no meaning in any word, death or life, similarly knower and known. No words in language of self. No knower known in pure knowing. Death is just story, no character in it. Yet it leads to immortality by inquiry. And we have special request from John David. Did Dean have something to share? Please. No. However, like everyone is talking about what we are discussing here about, what are we discussing? But like, so there is no position.
So everyone here can, most people here and online could understand that there is no real position that is correct or right. And each position negates other positions. So that's all really good. But if that becomes like a concept in itself, like it's absolutely useless. So how does one like live like in, it's the most incredible thing, like possibly they can't even talk about it, to actually really live in from this place where there is no position. And it's absolutely glorious because it's the end of positions. It's the end of searching. The mind stops looking for a position to grasp. And then there's this freedom. Like I don't know what the hell I'm going to say next.
But all I know it's fantastic because there's no position. And there's no me to take a position anyway. So it's like, it's just, there's absolute freedom in the loss of positions. Yet the experience of everyone's position, whatever that may be. And so there has to be like that. And that, this is like non-conceptual. It can't, this isn't a concept. It just can't be a concept. It's beyond concepts. It's just, it's just the freedom of this spontaneity of this moment expressing. And that's it. That's all I've got to say. I really, Bob, I just, this argument says we try to grasp a concept and we fail.
And he says you're bound to fail. Because it's non-conceptual awareness. It's just a design. It's called non-conceptual. And as you say, Dean, everything that's happening is already happening in that sphere of open space of consciousness which is seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. Everything, every position, every experience is already happening in that which you are. So chasing or even seeing the mind moving from opinion, oh, I agree with that, I disagree with that, I like this, I don't like that. Even that movement is happening within the open field of conscious awareness that you are. So there's nowhere really to, it's no problem, it can't possibly be if that is recognized.
You just enjoy the dance. You enjoy the show, whatever's there. When you have a position, it's not too enjoyable though, is it? I mean, that can be really terrifying, I think. I was, I received a message through Facebook, messenger from a friend of mine who, or an old friend, who definitely has a position, and she's terrified. And then you look at all the people who have this very firm position, and they have to kill, they have to make the other wrong, and they have, it's really scary. Conspiracy. Oh, yes. You know, there's a conspiracy, and there's a them, and there's some people out there, and oh my God, it's like watching it.
They all worry about me. Yes, and I'm just, I can see what you're saying, Dean, about this position, this position of no position is really liberating, because when we're, when we're locked into some position, that's where we can, well, I could die. My belief can be shattered. I better hold onto that belief, right? Insulting, you have to defend it. Yeah, I've got to kill for it, or die for it. Yeah. Yeah, I'd rather, yeah. All the cherished hero stories. Yeah. But also about, you know, about following your beliefs, fighting for your beliefs. Yes. This is what, you watch the TV and see like, oh, be faithful to your beliefs, you know, that sort of a, this is the consumerist society which advises that model of behavior, as if anyone had any other choice.
As if there was anyone there who would have a choice to follow or not follow. If the belief happens to infect that body-mind machinery, be it a Muslim belief or Christian belief, or be it whatever, superiority or inferiority belief, or separate sense belief, it happens to infect that organism, there is no one there who has a choice to follow or not follow it. That's liberating, too, to see that. Like, that's like, ooh, that's like really helpful to see no choice. And the belief is another question, because you're thinking of something else. I want to say something. It's an absence of reason. Acceptance of an alleged fact without positive knowledge or proof.
So what we're doing right now, are we believing what we're saying or are we knowing? I don't know. I can't speak for you. Just him and Mike. Yeah. You can't speak for her? No. Yeah. Speak for you. What? Just to tie it all up. Bring it all, yeah, bring the whole thing together. all the whole thing together in a sense. We started talking about death and life and moved to looking at extreme positions that we take in reference to our world and we use these extreme positions to define ourselves in relationship to a world and in so doing die. Because every position we take as being a building block of the self that we have created is like trying to stop the universe dead for a minute and hold it still.
And of course a universe that expresses life, if you like, through movement and change is the exact opposite of the self which is trying to lock it in one time and space. And that's what we are now and we understood. So, you know, in that sense you could very well argue that this belief in a separate self is what death is and the opposite is what life is. Beautiful. As you say, we argue about something that hasn't happened yet. What proof have we got about it? Only what you see or what you don't? Yeah, and there is a couple of comments. Amarna says, Mind accepts the present, not the present's pure I am without words or images.
That's good. Accept my position, Byron says. Accept my position is worthy of prize. Beautiful. Yeah, that's a funny humorous comment. Yes, my position. That is where the self-obsession kicks in. That's where the suffering kicks in. If we see how that attachment to the self, the idea first, and then the idea of course is associated or is related to the me, how that sense of position is the cause, is the karma, is the cause of all the trouble, all the suffering. And how seeing that, in seeing that, nothing needs to be done, killed, altered, modified, corrected, nothing. Now something that used to trouble you makes you laugh because it's so ridiculous to believe that you are the voice in your head, that you are the narrative that is commenting on things.
And it is commenting on things, merely to ensure the survival, security, safety and well-being of the body-mind machinery, because without it, it can't experience and express. So even the narrative, even the mind, they all have its place and it is brilliant. And to recognize that nothing is wrong, everything is perfect, it's perfect as it is right now. In that recognition, there is freedom and joy. And in that freedom and joy, even sadness can be profoundly beautiful and can be experienced as another miracle of expression, as something that is worthy of going through, not that you have the choice again. I love what you said once.
Cat, I mean I'm going to bring it up again. I'll say it again and again and again. I just loved it. I lost my cat when she died. She was 19. And I was sad. And I'm on the phone with my cat friend. And Cat says, Can you be grateful for your sadness? Because without it, you wouldn't know joy. And that one sentence, boom, sorry, I couldn't hold onto it anymore. And it was not the intention. That's what happened. That's what happened. But actually, I would not advise anyone to brush over the sadness and suppress it or distract yourself from it. But it happened. Yes, of course.
When you see the bigger picture, and see this is what Justin was saying, you have the sadness and now you include the rest of the world in which the sadness is actually a cause for the appreciation or joy. Without it, they wouldn't be experienced. Like there wouldn't be a day without the night. So now the rest of the universe is experienced and the position is not that possible to hold because now you are the space. You are the screen in which the positions are changing, dancing, showing, disappearing. I just couldn't hold onto the sadness anymore. There was a wanting to sometimes. I think there's a wanting to be sad.
You know, I'm supposed to be sad. She was my baby, you know. But I think... I mean, I do think that the freedom is here now. You know, just... Is there really no other time? No. There is no other time. But there's a buying into other moments, you know. And when you recognize that, you come back to what's wrong with right now if you don't think about it. And there is sometimes a preference of enjoying the calm, so I'll stay with now. Who says... Oh, Dan says, everything is happening for no one. Yes, good point. And Amarna says, even if we take our past lives, Janmas, I mean, you mean even we imagine some past lives, also...
Janmas, Janmas, that's... Maybe, okay. No, it says J-A-N-M... Yeah. Anyway, even if we take our past lives, also death is to the body-mind concept, not to the self we are ever here and now. And a lot of hearts. Yes, even if we imagined we have past lives, future lives, even if we remember all our dream lives and see there are no more, and we imagine the death or tragedy or this or the other happened, this is just a passing thought. That's what it is. Because it is passing thoughts that is happening right now, the imagination. Amarna says, just like dream death passes, we remain as it is.
And Byron says, so superstition of sadness is not... Sorry, suppression of sadness, sadness is not now. If suppression of sadness happens now, it is absolutely happening now. I say that I would not actually offer people that sort of a resonance or that idea because it just doesn't resonate with me. I mean, if you would offer people to suppress feelings, that's your song and it's no better or worse. It's absolutely the same. It's just a different song. Like every bird has a different song. Some offer compassion. Some offer pity. And they're equal. They're equal. Sometimes suppression can be useful. Suppression absolutely can be useful. You're on a battlefield in the war zone.
Totally. You don't want to break down and start crying. And you don't have choice in that either. No, you wouldn't have choice. Who knows? There's nobody to have a choice in at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm just pointing out the usefulness of it at some moments, you know, like nothing good or bad, including suppression. Yeah, I just remember that when I was speaking about the appreciation of sadness, the intention wasn't to suppress. No, I know that. I know. That's just, I know. Yes, that's just the intention. And it doesn't mean that that intention will not show up in that body in 15 minutes.
It may. I have no idea what intention, thought or idea or feeling will show up. Nobody does. And if they do have an idea, that's still just an idea. And Amarnath says, just like a dream passes. And Amarnath also says, me too. I'm not saying that I'm not a dreamer. I'm just saying that I'm not a person. I'm just saying that I'm not a person. And Amarnath also says, me and mine, we claim, but it is ever empty, just as words. And he's laughing. Suppression is the exposure. And Richard, what is the meaning of Janmashtami? Hindu festival celebrating the birth, Janma, of the God Krishna on the eighth Ashtami day of the dark.
The fourth night of the month, months of Pad, Pad, sorry, I'm dyslexic all my life. Yes, I'm just apologizing for the struggle. Padra, August, September, the number eight has another significance in the Krishna legend in that he is the eighth child of his mother, the Vaki. That's a gorgeous story. Thank you. Thank you, Richard, for the explanation, because the word was used. So that's. And Tanya says, already nothing wrong or right, already free, never not being free, already unconditioned, non-conceptual, ever present peace that passes all understanding. Thank you, Kat, for the pointer of appreciating sadness. I am appreciating that now. All there is, is now.
Thank you for the most profound sharing today. Thank you all so, so much and love you all so much. And we do love you. We love you. Yes. And did you want to? No, I just wanted to ask you if any, if somebody else, an opportunity to speak, if you haven't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just going to say, I guess from experience, one of the most amazing things happened to me by, I guess, doing a practice with the mind, keeping it in mind. Trying to keep the mind quiet. I sort of did, I guess you could say a bit of an experiment myself. So it took me about three hours, right, in a daily life situation.
It took me about three hours to quiet my mind for like three minutes. And I thought that's really bizarre. And just like normal thoughts would come in my mind, but I set out on purpose. I didn't need to think really about anything. I just wanted to be able to be in the moment. And I was just like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And I didn't think really about anything. So I just wanted to quiet my mind. But, so what I've found is to be like, like absolutely truly present, like present to your environment, looking at the cars on the street, the grass, the sky, the clouds.
Now there's something profound with just even looking at the sky and the clouds. But to do that for just try and be present for three minutes, it was, I was getting frustrated with myself because I was putting in all this effort. And then a mind thought. would come in i was am i going to have for dinner tomorrow i don't need to think about that my my practice is to be present like 100 truly present so i think what i as attained from that most people's minds aren't present now the flip side on this like i said to myself well i want to be present absolutely present for three minutes but took me three hours to do that because i wanted to listen to the radio station right to listen to some great music but i thought no i want to do this and after three hours i finally did it and then i put on the radio you know i did it i did it and that was all just a bit of an experiment but the amazing thing happened actually a couple of weeks later where i it was just a normal day i went to work went upstairs in the office same old same old and uh i was walking towards my desk and there was another guy there and then look an incredible thing happened and i think i put it down to that practice i had probably a few weeks ago and it was like i don't know it was like um this amazing experience where i was like i can remember sort of standing there and they're all like the light coming in the room but it was like particles of light it was like the desk came alive and i can remember sort of just standing there wanting to really just be in that moment of just absolute magic and i think i i almost started to go like that but but i didn't because of another there was another guy sitting there and he just sees me standing there going like that if i did so i was still conscious at the same time but i couldn't be able to believe everything happening in this boring old office you know and i thought wow why did that why did that happen you know but i think as i said to to try and really be like present it's it's hard you've got to you've got to put in effort you know i mean you can listen all to all i reckon all the concepts which are great there's some good pointers there but absolutely to to look at yourself and be be present if if you know you've you've done your chores you've done your tasks i just want to be present witnessing what's happening in my environment it's it's huge effort so i think to to yeah it's just yeah like i said to be really really really really present and i think if you oh i can say for you if you're very intelligent you can try and analyze things this and that but i think in the intelligence is is a barrier because i think even the more intelligent you are you can come up with a lot of concepts but i think the ultimate thing for me anyway was basically to be really like purely present i think for me anyway it was quite amazing yeah i loved it anyways that's awesome thank you thank you for oh you want to talk i think i think we need to put in incredible effort and to realize that um the presence is absolutely effortless less like total total um effortlessness um but we know i think we need to put in extensive rounds of incredible efforts and also see if if that presence is not with you all the time see if there is any time in your life when you are not here because i i was actually waiting when you were saying that you were trying for three hours to be present for a moment and you wanted to listen to the radio or the beautiful music how about being present with beautiful music how about really being there to listen to music because to battle your mind to try and still the thinking is actually constructing the emotional state of the mind and the emotional state of the mind but understanding it that the mind is not just a controlled mind that is imagined it is a thought and that the mind is a self-imagined self which becomes a controller this is not this is the opposite of what we are advising because really instead of imagining a controller which is battling the the thought you could just step out and see how thoughts are happening the same way how the breathing is happening and be present with the happening present with the sound of the cars required for realizing what was already there yeah if if it was required to be present like absolutely sorry can you stop okay so yeah we can be present which we are all here and now but often we'll have the the mind thoughts coming in and it is part of it but to to focus more just focus on being purely present and when the mindful comes just just just let it go and to be present because sometimes we can we can even drive somewhere and you think oh i'm here oh how did i get here because my mind was just everywhere type of thing because you weren't being present so for me anyway i had this magical experience and that's what i put it down to yeah yeah effort effort effort to being to be impressive and i think i believe as mrs gadada was saying when people ask him um you know how did you get here he actually said effort is required and it took him three years and he stayed in the i am that he stayed in there for three years so he said effort it's he said there's no part-time thing effort is required and that's what he was doing and yeah i had read the book i am that and i didn't concentrate on i am that i am i i am but he said effort is required and i didn't concentrate on i am that i am i am did for three years you saw well i want to listen to the radio you know in less than three years so he's he's correct i believe he's he's correct in what he said yes in i am that in all of the books and in his private conversation with bob which bob often quoted he says if effort is required effort will appear but it is not going to be me the imagined self that is doing the effort the effort is just part of the happening if it is required if you want to build the house and you need to lift the brick you will find out that the body is doing it not the imagined self so this is not really the imagined self that is staying with the i am or is putting all the effort it is really something that is just spontaneously organically happening and if in your case that huge effort of three hours of battling the mind is happening i think what could be really good of that is to recognize that you are not the doer of it because then you are the consciousness again you are the open field of awareness in which the idea appear to imagine the self that will be battling the mind for three hours and now in this you actually in a right position of being presence being the consciousness in which the efforting is happening and you are not the one that levers the effort you are the one that witnesses it the effort so you are already the witnessing presence and as dean was saying yes it may play out this way that incredible effort is happening in the way bob was meditating for years i was meditating for years and today i know i wasn't doing it today i knew that the life created those desires on those thoughts that made the body sit and do all the battles but and and it it must have been required since it happened right now it is just the effort of the mind and the effort of the mind to do anything it is just just a faint memory but in your case it also produced some sort of an experience which is not which is not now absolutely i did have a first experience uh roughly one or two years before before that experience that was my first experience and that basically came through i guess the words from i am that and and daily meditation and again it was a it was a spontaneous happening I mean, probably an hour, hour past the meditation I did for that day.
Just spontaneous, absolutely. I just have one question for you. Are you willing to fall apart? Lose control completely. Yeah. That's what happened. Stop being, stop trying to hold the self together, you know, by the neck. And achieve things. Yeah. Just let yourself fall apart, my friend. That would be my suggestion. Thanks, great courage. Michael? Yeah, I'd just like to say that I've had a similar sort of experience. I've meditated for 30 years, you know, got up to three hours a day and all that sort of stuff. And focusing on candles and all sorts of listening to things. And, I mean, what I've found now that really helps is that if you treat the thoughts just like another sense, like any sense.
And then you just... Just waiting. So it's fine if the thoughts come, it's fine if they don't come. But just wait. What's the next thought going to be? And then when it comes, just let it go. And then same with feeling and not giving it a concept or a word either. So if there's a feeling in the body somewhere, you can sense the soul of your left foot without giving it a word or a sense or a temperature. But if I found for myself personally, if I kind of treat the thoughts the same way, so I'm just curious what's going to happen next. And then just not jumping into it, not...
Yeah, just letting it go. That really helped me. Yeah. I have a couple of thoughts. Okay, quickly. We are recording. I suppose of comments, Buddhism likes to put everything into categories. I don't know if you've come across that. But I have probably... I think religions do too. But I'm sort of familiar with some of the... They talk about levels of mind. These are all just concepts. You have the level of thought. And if you're living in that level of mind, then the thoughts, they seem real basically. They seem like they're solid. But then the next level of mind would be ordinary awareness, they would call it.
So at that point, it's just awareness. Awareness. It doesn't have a self. So thoughts are like any other object. They're just like the cars going past, the birds. So you can't really get lost in them at that point. So you're present, but there's thoughts. Well, there's presence and there's thoughts. There's no one thinking. There's no one being present. They're just happening simultaneously. So that was, I suppose, the simplest way for me to sort of understand. Because I'm a big thinker, and it took me a long time to be able to have the ability to not get lost in thought, for thought just to be sound, or internal sound, rather than me.
I think there's a famous saying from a Tibetan yogi. He says, anyone can meditate on the sky. Try and meditate on the clouds. And that's sort of pointing to the idea that you can try and still your mind, which for him apparently is easy. But then it's harder to actually meditate on what's moving, on movement itself. I just wanted to comment on your experience. The actual experience is what you described. It was what the Tibetans call Rigpa. You actually saw the light. You saw the light and different sort of qualities of that. And you recognized that it was magic. A way to describe it. That's a perfect way to describe it.
Because that's what they call the third dimension of... Rigpa. Rigpa. I wouldn't say that's Rigpa. Well, Rigpa is the light of the mind. You saw the light of the sun, didn't you? Yeah, we're getting a little bit complicated. You want to make it more difficult? No, I don't want to complicate it. But Rigpa, they call it, the Buddha's call it the light of the mind. But the mind in that sense is really the presence, the vastness of presence, awareness. And that's to see the light is really something. Actually, it's a very powerful thing. It struck you. And also... But you can't see it. Yeah, you can experience.
You see the light. The light's coming here. I saw the light. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. And just like in... I saw the light. It's just like in John Belusi doing hand, you know, somersaults. Seeing the light in the Blues Brothers movie. It's exactly like that. It's magic. Right. So the other point I'd say is just a everyday saying that no effort is wasted. Even though that in the Buddha's path, that's right effort, which is quite different to what you were expressing. So we sort of beat our heads against the wall in this drive to achieve a goal. Your case to be present for three minutes.
Yeah, I tested myself. Yeah, with my mind, yeah. Yeah. Or you cannot, as Bob would point out, you can't not be present because you are the presence, right? I realise that. And you are the light. Yeah. And you are the magic as well. So I think that was, you know, a wonderful example. Yes. Yes, we are much over time. So I'm sorry, I'm not going to be able to read all the questions. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you. I'm fazendo. Thank you for your comments. So they are just comments to that, were very kind of pointy to who it is appearing, who is appearing experiences, to who has the thoughts coming and going, concept about presence or something to achieve.
And this here is already fully spontaneous, they're beautiful, beautiful, beautiful comments. We are so much overtime, we have to just leave within the next five minutes. So thank you everyone. Thank you for your contribution.