What are we looking for? Sailor Bob, Kat and the nonduality group investigation. 1 Sept 2024

Raman, Nais, Tony, Joseph, Kristen, Carl, Jim, Cathy, Eddie, and Paul, Ross, Peter, Dean, and Bob. There you go. I couldn't hear whether it was going round the names or not. It shut my ears off. Well, everybody knows what it's about. What do they call nonduality? But very few seem to recognise it. The simplicity of it. Nonduality. One without a second, not two. Only that. As they describe all appearances and possibilities. In other words, everything is that nondual, pure intelligence energy. And you hear people talking about nonduality, when it comes to the mind, or they try and bring the mind in it, or something else. But it's nothing other than that.

The one essence that's patterning, shaping, forming, appearing and expressing as everything. In all this diversity, there seems to be many different things in this room right now. Recognise and look into it and see it's only and ever that one essence It has the capacity of seemingly to appear and be other than what it is. We believe we are these separate entities, these persons, these individuals, and we have These are the experiences. We see this and see all the patterns, shapes and forms, experiences, words, concepts, ideas, images, appearing to be many. Look around the room or even seeing outside. You'll see that all the seeming things that appearance, appearing in that basic space phenomena.

This is what they call it, the basic space phenomena. Book, they're describing it, the precious treasury of the basic space of phenomena. It's all there and it's said several times now, it's been said. And look at it, you'll see it's said everywhere. It's all that space, like awareness. Now what do you think space is? Anybody who is out of space right now. And what we know as space is no thing. And the definition of reality is that which never changes. Now look in this manifestation. There so many things in this manifestation Everything is changing coming and going accepting space Because space is no thing There no beginning You can't find a beginning to it.

No end, no dimension, no centre, no circumference. And yet, everything is an adornment of space, or the content of space. But space being no thing, can the content be something? It can't be. That's where it's hard to understand or see. That's why I need to investigate and look and get a grip because there seem to be many people in this room, many things outside the room. But is space separate and apart from anything or does all of it appear in space? It's all the content of the space. The space being no thing has no content. But there's a capacity of appearing as something. Just the same as you've got a mirror.

A mirror appears to have people in it or things in it. But it meant the things in the mirror are nothing but reflections. They are not reality. Try and grab a reflection out the mirror. It is not there. Was it ever there? Will it ever be there? It won't be. But you believe it to be when we look into it until you investigate. And see no matter how amazing and wonderful it appears, go and try and grasp it. You never can, because it is no-thing. Space being no-thing, can something come from no-thing? If it did or if it could, what would it be? There will be something other than the O-thing.

And would that be nonduality? If there's something other than the O-thing. Nonduality, they say, one without a second. There is nothing other. No thing whatsoever other than that. No you, no me, no room, no space, no world, Nothing at all other than the cognising emptiness or the basic space of all phenomena. That's what they call nonduality. How many of us, a lot of you might recognise I know, but how many of us are living from that point of view? Or are we still believing that we are this person that needs to acquire, become, or achieve or get something? Has it ever happened? I've never acquired or got anything.

There were thought there were many things I acquired and I thought there were many things I've lost. But looking into it, it's still the basic same life as far back as I can remember when the fact that it was appearing and expressing truth, the body was different, the places where I lived were different. Everything is constantly changing and transiting, accepting that basic knowing that I am. The I am came about when I learnt words. And then it been I am this I am that I am something else And today it still that I am What's that mean? Does it mean the body or the mind or the way it appears?

Or is it that sense of presence? The basic knowing or awareness of being. When I looked into it, it seemed to be the same awareness that has never changed. Yet the content of Space Apart has been constantly changing. All seemingly has a beginning and an end, a time and some space to appear in. And so the division, the sense of separation keeps happening. Look into that sense of separation. Why are you unhappy? As what's the name tells us? Because everything you say, everything you think, and everything you do is for yourself. Well, he's given you the answer. It's because we're thinking, doing, and believing things we are not.

How can that be happiness when there's always conceptual thoughts, ideas, imaging and functioning going on? And what's the opposition? Or why are you unhappy? Because everything you say, you think, is for yourself? What do we believe ourselves to be? We believe ourselves to be a person, a human being, an individual, a separate entity. Isn't that all words, concepts and ideas? But basically, anyone who is not alive right now, or not being right now, Well, could there be a person, this thinking, this or that, if it wasn't for that being, that life? The being, the thinking, the feeling, it's got to happen to some body or something.

It's not noticed if it's just purely happening. When you look into what is, who is it happening to? And the concept and idea comes up as happening to me. What's me? Me is believed in person, as individual, as separate entity. How did that come about? When words were learned and picked up, told it, flossing around their parents, their parents told you, your little Johnny or your little Sally, and they took on the words I or me. Before that we had no words, and now they've given us a clue, and they tell us you are that, you are Bill or Jane or Sally, whatever your name was.

And you take it on board. That sense of presence, that sense of presence, that beingness, translates to the thought I am. And that fits it quite well. Well, I am. I've got to be something. So the only thing I know I am at this stage is what they've told me. I am little Johnny or little Willie. So that's the belief that is taken on and believed in and that's reinforced continually because as the reasoning grows, the sense of presence grows and the more words I take in to try and understand and grasp it, the more words I learn, the more concepts and I am the image the word A concept What a concept A thought a feeling an emotion Thoughts, ideas, are the feelings and emotions.

So what am I doing? Adding on to this pure being these concepts, feelings and emotions. Instead of saying that it's all appearance, it's only seemingly so. It's that which appears to be the definition of phenomena. Call it a phenomenal manifestation. It looks great, it looks amazing and wonderful, and it appears to be so. But also, because it's constantly transient changing, it looks in its opposite too. And that's how the functioning goes on, always in the pairs of opposites. Thoughts, feelings and emotions. Thought, have a look at thought. Thinking comes up and thought comes up, and what's immediately related to its opposite. Shakespeare tells you nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

How could you discriminate it if you didn't put the opposite on it? If you left it as it is, just the one life, the one expressions, the one being. You can't say much about it. What damage is it going to do? I am the The Nisargad The word was God. The word was God. That's what we've done. We've set up a belief in a higher power or a greater power or being, which we call God, because the things have gone bad, it'll make it good for us again, because I can't do it on myself. I've got to get in a belief in some other power that'll do it for me.

And that's what we've been looking for. Some power that will take over and make it rightfully. Not realising that all these words, concepts we've learnt, seemingly divide into the opposite. But not any one of them are opposite at all. They're all two ends of the one stick. The other end of good is what we call bad. Like one end of the stick is thick, the other is in thin. Or two sides of one coin. One side we call heads, the other side tails. But there's still the one coin, still the one stick. And there's still the one essence, the one life in this manifestation. Though it's seemingly dual, seemingly two.

The problem is that the word is a label. A label we put on it. Now you go into a shop or grocery store, you'll see plenty of things, most everything has got a label. A name they put on it, a fix to it, which we take to be what it is. But a label, when you look at it, is just another word, another concept, which might have been made up to be the thing, but the word is not the thing. It is all one thing, so it's all what is, just as it is in itself. Not what was or not what it will be, but just basically is.

Right here and now. What or who are you? When I have a look at myself and ask me that question right now, well I'm here. Where's here? It is present. It's not over there or not somewhere other. It is right here. And when is now? It's not what it was five minutes ago or yesterday. It's not what it will be tomorrow or in five minutes time. It is right now and And its presence is not past, it's not future, and it's not unaware. I'm not unaware right now, I am aware. And there's awareness of this, of that, of all these sort of things. But the things have come and gone and changed.

But has the awareness? Or is there still the same awareness as far back as I can remember? I can't grasp it with the concept. But there's never any time, present time, now that I can say I am unaware. Always that sense of presence there, beingness there. You'll say, what about in deep sleep? Well, in deep sleep there's no idea of anything going on. There's an awareness of your unawareness, seemingly unaware. But there is still an awareness of unawareness. When you wake up, you'll see that wasn't a disappearance of you when you were asleep. You know you were still there through that sleep or you wouldn't wake up.

So that awareness is still there. It hasn't changed until the life or the awareness drops out of this pattern you call the body. And then we call it death. And everybody is fearful of death. No one feared your birth. It happened spontaneously and naturally and you didn't know anything about it, just the same as you didn't know anything about deep sleep. But you were a being, you were formed in the womb and you were coming out of the womb. And there was lots of pain for your mother, for your parents, things were going on. But that person you believed yourself to be didn't know anything about it whatsoever.

It didn't know the nine months it was forming. Yet it was forming. And doesn't it imply there must have been a life or an intelligence forming it, living it? When it was born, came out and was able to breathe and the heart beat and the functioning, the cord was cut and started functioning on its own. And it's been living on its own ever since. But the capacity of reasoning, the intelligence in it, that capacity of reasoning developed and we formed words. And in the beginning was the word, that's when our problems started, with the learning of words. Now in looking into the words and recognising the word, ask yourself, am I a word?

I'm making this statement I am. I is a word. Am is a word. Am I that I am-ness. What does it mean It means a sense of being presence It means there an awareness of being present It not the word it is the sense the sensations And so sensations become thoughts, labels, ideas, images. So the word has seemingly become the thing. And we beat ourselves with the words. Yet, what do they tell you? The word is no thing. And no thing has ever happened. But we say, oh, nothing. We break it down to nothing. That's when we get mistaken. Nothing means zero, zilch, emptiness, got none of it.

But no thing means it just hasn't got any shape, any forms. It is, but it is not how it appears. And the appearance is not reality. So you see where we're functioning from. We're functioning from this idea that we are a person. Many seemingly good things can happen from that point of view, but many terrible things and unhappy things What can happen from that point of view? Bring about a lot of fear, a lot of anger, a lot of depression. Moments of happiness, moments of joyousness, moments of sense of well-being. But they don't last. But have I stopped being at any time at all that I can remember?

Realize, no, even in deep sleep there's a knowing awareness of that unawareness. But with the so-called life that came into this body and emanated, when that disappears out of it, what happens? All to say that it's not functioning, watch the body and see what happens to it. It breaks down, it rots. It's either burnt or buried or got rid of or rots. So it breaks down into what? Follow it. See? Breaks down into nothing but space. Well it breaks right down, breaks down into space again. Now can you separate this body from the space right now? You can't, not even in its pattern, shape and form you can't separate it.

Do you think you'll separate it when it brocks down to the space again? You won't. There'll still be that being there. There'll still be that knowing there. But it won't be happening to the seeming pattern, shape and form it is right now. But new, fresher new, pattern, shapes and forms constantly appear. Constantly appear and constantly express. Buddha told you there's a cognising emptiness. Emptiness cognising. Now emptiness is no thing. The change they call it, the changes that appear in the empty world. I tell you that, I tell you that in Hensheng Ming, I forget what it goes on to say. Pointing out again that it's all appearance and the world is empty.

Has this space-like thing we call the planet or the earth, has it changed? The pattern, shapes and forms, the appearances have constantly changed. But isn't there still space that was? Go back in your childhood to a place where you lived. See if that's the same. You see everything probably changed around it in the buildings the earthworks and everything the trees and everything the birds But the space hasn changed It is the first time today that we are going to use this method It is very rare to have a second method That is to say, what methods or ways do you use before you create a new life?

This method is, how do you create a new life? You need to have more of a beginning. Can there be a tree, a flower, a bird, an insect, or you, or me, or anything at all, can be outside of space? It can't be. So space is no thing, yet it contains everything. So it's not a vacuum or a void. There's what are called a cognising emptiness, and he told you that emptiness is form. Now all this manifestation is made up of patterns, shapes and forms. But the patterns, shapes and forms are all empty. He says the emptiness is form and the forms, though they're appearing as forms, can be nothing other than the emptiness.

So there's no need to go looking to try and acquire or become something. But there is a necessity to recognising or saying to investigating and recognising is it so. And when they tell you that the false cannot stand up to investigation, they're pointing to the facts that's true. It can't. Because when you see something as false, and there's many things out there in this manifestation that you see as false, You know that they can't be the truth, they're only appearing as false. And that must leave you with the truth. So that's what we point you to, to see that this person, this believed in entity, is a total fiction.

It has no existence, it never has, never will. And that life that you're expressing as you right now is the reality, is the life. And if you're not filtering it through this believed-in fictitious entity, in much better shape and much better form than what's appearing right now, how can it be unhappy? How can it be fearful? How can it be anxious? So, relationship, relativity is dualism. And as I say, that's what we're talking about. Nonduality. So away you go, get into it. www.maharaj.com.pl I am sending you all this incredible warmth and sunshine. It's the first day of spring officially today, so thank you Jane. And more good morning messages and good morning with love and gratitude from James and Catherine and Lovia, Bob and Kat.

So that's that. There are no questions today and there is fewer of us, We do invite everyone to contribute and ask questions and tell us how it resonates with you, what works, what doesn't. Just like someone said on our Zoom meetings, the campfire investigation in a safe space where everyone already acknowledges that everyone is already fully present and fully aware of the presence So there no one inferior no one superior no one who doesn know that they exist And if there is anything standing in the way of recognizing that beautiful miraculous fact of existence any concept that I exist but I am something different, I exist but I am not there yet, or I exist but I am limited, encapsulated in the form, then we can look into it.

We can look if that stands the investigation. If without the thought, that's still the truth, if that's still the experience. And anyone would like to start the campfire investigation? Thank you. Thank you. It's really great to just be with it and if it initially starts the mind going, but then just staying with that sensation and leaving it, it does all disappear by itself. And the fact that if I do interfere with it, it's just adding fuel to the fire because it's coming from the mind, the sense of me, so that just reinforces that whole image of me. I found it very, very valuable to really just stay with it as sensation and seeing how it just goes.

Things go by themselves and you don't know when it'll go. It just disappears. It's quite amazing to really contemplate that further, that all the good things, all the bad things, where are they now? And where have they gone? They just disappear. Everything passes in that way. But it's just that habit of perhaps trying to change it or trying to get rid of it, which is resistance, as Bob keeps saying. Kind of just seeing that for what it is. Yeah, that's all. That point. Thank you. That's beautiful. Do you want to say something, Bob? I just said enough. Oh, hey. Along the lines that Kath was saying, you know, in more recent years, I've noticed that the mind, among all the things that the mind does, it judges.

And it says this is right or that's wrong and good or bad. I mean just the pairs of opposites but in particular it judges. I mean it might do other things like analyse but it judges. And you know if you and this mind has sort of noticed that what this mind is doing and it even makes a judgement about its judgements of course. But what happens is the judgments get replaced by, oh no, this is just how it is. It is like this. It's not right or wrong, it's just, it happens like this. And for this experience, that gives a lot of peace. I had a chat yesterday with someone who actually we did a little

I'm not sure if I can get into that.

Really, inherently, they are to protect that mechanism, that body. Like the animals will also have some calls, they don't have symbolic language, but they have call for danger, which is more kind of emotional sort of a source than conceptual. We can warn each other with concepts, so we can judge things with concepts and set preferences. But really, if you see that there is a perfection, even in the way that narrative mind works, Even in the way it imagines the self through which it relates everything, even in the way the suffering comes in the package with it, if that life, and Bob often quotes Dzogchen, the great perfection, the non-conceptual awareness, the life essence, if the life is inherently perfect and it experiences and expresses itself in that ten thousand ways, I Am That, Ramana Maharshi, I Nchagiri, Dzogchen, Veda, Veda, presence-awareness, Mahavakya.

The mind is not engaging with any narrative or any somersaults that the mind is doing, jumping. What's the mind? It's just a stream of thinking and it is habituated and it is completely interrelated to the environment. It is completely dependent on what's happening outside or inside. Either way, there is no outside-inside. Whatever happens in the environment, whether the inner weather is changed or the outer weather is changed, they are completely interconnected and interrelated and inseparable. So seeing the mind in this way, and this is one of Bob's main pointers, look at the mind, see the mind, see how it functions, learn how it operates. Just be curious about how this instrument is doing its job, because as you do that, you see it as an object in consciousness.

So then you are the consciousness being curious, being interested in the mind, including the mind resisting or desiring or whatever it comes up with. It's the endless entertainment for no one really, because this is ultimately this moment as it shows up is what life is experiencing and expressing. So if there is any objection arising to what life wants to experience and express, that objection is included. Life is experiencing and expressing this moment with the objection to this moment. So you're just giving it a space, not touching it, leaving it as it is, And just being like mind-blown by the incredible depth of that moment, which will never ever be the same again.

And like Bob was saying, all that you can say about it is that it is here, it's happening here, it's happening presently. So nothing can ever, deep down in that non-conceptual awareness, can cause any ripples or any upset. The upset is the content and it's coming and going, it never stays the same. I was also chatting with someone who was saying that sometimes you get to the point when you're all worked up you all upset you all completely in the head just objecting to everything or projecting a future and that causes an anxiety of course Or you are in a place of spaciousness and unconditional love and compassion and joining and that feels like true But it really is another point of view anyway.

Any point of view or any costume or any sense of identity that arises, the limited one, the petty, judgmental, unworthy piece of whatever, or the beautiful spacious recognizing oneness or projecting good intentions, that is also an arising role in the consciousness. Consciousness is prior to any roles arising. And of course everyone prefers the more pleasurable ones, but life doesn't. Life doesn't judge one over the other. It experiences, and if it didn't, it wouldn't know any. It experiences both. It needs the opposites. It needs the winter to have summer. There are places on Earth where there is no winter. Well, you don't really call the opposite summer.

It isn't. It's just like equal, no weather really. So to have the seasons you have to have opposites. To have the day you need the night. To have the pain, to have the pleasure you need the pain. And whatever life is experiencing and creating is the creative force. So through the experiencing this is the creation, this is the projector, it actually interprets whatever is happening. So it creates it at the same time as it experiences and expresses it. Appearing, experiencing and expressing, as everything, as thought, as resistance, as judgement, as the presence witnessing resistance or thought or judgement, as the emotional behaviour, just the position of the heart, all-embracing, all-inclusive, opposition of the mind, petty and just projecting dark scenarios, and if it didn't, well who knows?

Who knows? We are all the offsprings of the great great ancestors who were taking dark scenarios seriously. Those who were positive thinkers didn't make it. So it is all for a reason and it is all beautiful and wise and it is all great perfection, the way the life has organized that experience and expression. I see if there is anyone who says anything. Yes, we have... Michael says thanks Bob, wonderful spiel. Sandra arrived back from Europe yesterday so spending some time together today. Much love to you both. And love to you and Sandra and hope you are being celebrated on Father's Day. And Joseph. Yeah, Cole was saying something about unjudgmental, like the way it is.

And Kat was saying something with the mind projecting and has its story. And when Bob was talking, I, also yesterday I find it quite interesting, I went with a friend. I was like, I put the cards from Bob's, from you guys' made out and then that person has never, I think never looked into it and then we sort of reading the cards. I was feeling quite relaxed and it felt like a sensation sort of in the below the heart, sort of warm feeling. And I was like really enjoying that and just more being in that sense. I am a person who is in the state of being and been alone I thinking I alone and then the thoughts go back in and then the sensation changes But I've also been in space where I feel like alone and not thinking I'm alone and then listen to the music and I feel at warmth as well.

So, it's hard to know when it happens when it doesn't happen. But I'm sort of like listening what you're saying about the mind and then I watch it and it's like, yeah, when it stops happening, what is the mind doing? So, I might be probably relating to the mind when it changes and engaging with the mind in the future and the past. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah, endless learning curve, isn't it? Yeah. Incredible. So, yeah. Hmm. And also in the silence, like, be comfortable with silence sometimes when you're in a, When you are in a dual situation, like with two people, and usually there is always talking happening, and to be comfortable it's with silence, and then when you are comfortable with silence, it's also good to see what's going around, like in the forest or you hear the birds, it's very different.

Because when you are in conversation you are always in the mind, listening, thinking. Sometimes this morning I was thinking, should I just relax or should I use that time to think about some job I need to do. And then I started finding solutions for that job. And I could see then, I look into this and look at certain mechanical things and can I use this for this job? And after maybe 10 minutes I got a bit tired of it and it's like, oh, look in the mind. I can see that sometimes it's good to not engage. And you don't have a choice. Yeah. See the way you've noticed, and that's beautiful how you noticed, that you know the thought has arisen, Translation And you resolve to just watch where is the attention going.

So the attention goes into that seeming choice. And now the attention goes to one of those options. And after a while there is movement of attention away from that option. And the narrative, of course, it constantly narrates, Oh, I'm sick of it, I had enough. But that I in the sentence isn't real. That is just a translation of the urge of the body. The attention somehow is ready to shift. There is no I in it, just shift of attention. And the mind translates it, I had enough. So if you actually watch that mind as a movement of attention and as a translation to the sentence having an I in it, like I noticed the feeling.

No, there was a feeling, there was a sensation present. And the mind translates that presence of sensation into I noticed the feeling. Consciousness is the consciousness of both the feeling and the narration. The next one is thought arises. Should I do this or should I do that? Again, there is an urge in the body, the movement of attention, the option has arisen in the consciousness. The narration, translation of the mind straight away brings it into the I. I wonder or should I choose I, I, I. But that I doesn't exist, it's just a translation. The seeing is ready You open your eyes in the morning the seeing is happening And the mind translates it into I see the room But there isn any I A moment ago there was no thought and seeing was still there.

So now the same way the urge arises or the movement of attention away or towards or the choice or the option arises and the mind translates it into I I wonder what should I do? If you see it this way, you see the whole landscape, you see the urge, you see the emotion, you see the sensation, you see the narration, the interpretation, all of it. And now, wow, how rich, how brilliant, and how brilliant how that narration gets the attention, more attention than the original sensation. And that's how the illusion, that's how the magic trick comes into existence. Now there is a belief that, oh, there is an I, there is a little Yosef inside, and that's what he is doing now.

He is choosing to do that, but there isn't any he, it's just a movement. Attention, like in a little baby, is attracted or repelled, is moving towards or away, or is vacillating. Just a movement of attention, like it is looking out of your eyes, but there is no Yosef looking out. It's just the pure consciousness. But it's a great way, you know, you narrate the observation. Just include the narration in the field of knowing, of observation. And it's gonna be even more fun. Yeah, so let's say that Joseph is sort of judging like, okay, should I go with that movement or should I keep the idea and keep doing that?

And so that was earlier today morning when I was like, oh no, I don't want to engage further. But you know there is no Joseph, it's just the attention moving. Yes, I understand what you are saying. But the decision-making seemed to be in the mind. Of course, it's a human capacity, like seeing or digestion. All those capacities are unquestionable, they appear to be there. So I saw more the movement, attention, noticing that attention earlier, and I wasn't too much in the mind, because then I noticed when the mind is too much into it, I get into the little details and the thoughts just keep going and I lost.

And I'm like, oh hang on, what just happened in the last half an hour? The solution is not there yet, so just maybe follow the intention more than the mind thoughts. More and more conscious of the thought going in the same direction. That's what I'm saying. Or maybe that brings it more to the point. Beautiful. That's it. You just notice, observe what's happening. Even the inability of the decision isn't ready yet. Now what is the body-mind going to do? Oh, it is going to do this. So you're not doing anything at all, you just kind of hold space for whatever life is doing through that body-mind.

That makes it so natural and so easy and so impersonal, just like this pair of cats. They don't have any concepts of any right or wrong or any decision-making. Attention is moving and the body-mind is following it. And then the narrative doesn't happen, so they don't construct the imagined self, which takes credit for those actions. There is no credit taking. It's just the attention moving the body, the life moving the body-mind. We differ only through that narrative, which creates the illusion of self, Self going through time, self that was born at some point, that was growing up, that was changing jobs or changing relationships. And that self is still, it always is there.

Everything outside it is changing, but the self doesn't. That's not true if you look closer. Presence is what doesn't change, but the self is constantly changing. The image of self is constantly changing. Your image of self as a child is completely different. Your image in a good mood is completely different than the one when you are pissed off or worked out or irritable. The image of self is constantly changing. What doesn't is the presence. And the presence is unlimited. It doesn't have any shape. It doesn't have any I in it. I mean you can call it I, you can call it anything. Oh, so you're used to the I.

Yeah, it's life appearing as I. It was good when you said the intention and then the I comes in and says, I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll do this. It's the thought judging whether I go with the intention or keep going with the thought. That's enough. More attraction, that is where the energy is going to go, that is where the attention is going to attend, and that is what is going to actualize or create or manifest or project. Even if they are, you know, like seeming, oh yeah, now I can choose to be mindful or I can choose to be mindless. That idea is just another layer of life expressing itself as a thought.

But there is no I there still who have that choice. So the decision to the morning, it didn't go further to that thought. The thought didn't go further because it seemed to be in a loop. And therefore I felt like frustrated, tired, and like, oh this is too much to come back. And then I get exhausted. I thought, and then therefore I, the feeling was, leave it. That's not ready yet. Go with the ease more. Get up, do something else. It's very hard right now. Like different than I, I notice it more before I get to that tiredness, before I get like mentally exhausted. I was like, okay, leave it.

So that was what happened today morning and it was that intention, I followed that intention. Attention was more away from that tiredness. And doesn't that come back to the whole idea that prior to what we don't notice, it sort of reminds me of the fact that prior to all those thoughts arising and translating, there's that pure knowingness. The thoughts are so close to that knowingness, that's just the mechanism. There's an immediate translation and we think it's all about thought. But actually there's that pure knowingness prior to any thought that already knows. Like we were saying about the baby, knows without the thought. But we've acquired the words and we don't see that pure knowingness that discerns.

It discerns, it's got that discernment if it does, you know. Okay, I don't want to go into that looping of thought that just goes on and on. There's always that pure knowingness that is pointed to here prior to all those thoughts. It's intelligent energy. This week there was a lot of trees that came down around my house. I realized how much of an impossible situation I was in. I had Parkinson's disease, I can't move very well it seems. All these things occurred. I just for a moment got really bound in my mind I was thinking God how am I going to fix this How am I going to do that How am I going to do all these things The point is that everything comes to this sort of situation where eventually it is an impossible situation.

It's impossible because no idea lasts very long. And oftentimes we don't know where the solution is going to come from. We don't have any idea where the solution will arise from. But arise it will. Because everything is resolved in Buddha mind. All this is resolved as we let it go. All we are experiencing here, the complexity of the world and everything is just the fact of resistance which is happening in a moment but won't happen in the next instant. That's all. We see that every idea rises in the same place, flows through and then goes somewhere. I don't know where it goes. Then we come into this realization of the essential equalness as they say.

There is a great emphasis to point out in that book, Perfection of the Great Treasury of Basic Sposive Phenomena. Every idea is equal to each other. You really come into that appreciation. Nothing therefore has any real import at all in this world of illusion, I, the I comes into existence when I believe these things, these thoughts. But in the spontaneous recognition of how impossible everything is, the explosion takes place. And I realise how much I was, in this particular case with the branches coming down, Realising how much of holding onto something, what am I holding onto? What was I holding onto? Well, it was an image of self which was going to get thrust through the neck with a big branch coming through the roof, or being unable to fix anything, breaking down, anything like that.

In that moment that became so impossible, something else kicked in immediately, which was the realization that, well, I'm not this body at all. I'm not a body. I'm not a thought. I'm a series of thought. I'm not the flow of thought. None of that's occurring. I am rambling on, so I will just stop there. Thank you. How about you, David? You had branches coming down at your property too. How did that resolve it? I have seen into the depths of what it was sort of like to be aware of being unaware almost, before I was born, and to see these real deep insights, to come back to being confined into a body, to clenching every muscle and nerve and feeling the neural pathways saying, I am saying fear there is a branch about to fall on my head And then do this whole circuit of seeing the whole universe and parallel universes and deep understandings and then to be constricted And all of them appear in the same space.

In today's spiel you spoke a lot about the space. And it was particularly very easy to notice that everything is occurring in that space. It doesn't matter. So actually, what have I learned in these ten years? Nothing. Nothing at all. Really, nothing. There's absolutely... I haven't learned a damn thing yet. What have you unlearned? Yes, and it's constant unlearning. And there's a recognition of an appearance that is always spontaneous, always... And in this appearance is these, you often refer to as patterning, shaping and forming, you know, and the space is patterning, shaping, forming. Sometimes it's a constricted idiot dean who doesn't know what he's doing and feels very much in this body that's going to die.

And other times he's expanded and travelled the whole universe and time and space and everything is collapsed. And this pristine meditative Buddha, like whatever, like God. And what difference does one make or the other? They're actually all, they're all the same phenomena appearing in that space. And then, so I think in that time I've learnt nothing, but the understanding of that alone, what's been described, is it. That's it. And then there's no real worries or doubts or fears or anything, although they all appear in that space anyway, if they do. Which they don't, because the recognition somehow changes the wiring or the chemistry or everything.

And I think that's all I'll say today. Thank you. That's beautiful. Yeah, that's it. How was that for you, for the description? Good. Beautiful. Yeah, that's the unlearning, that's the freedom, that's whatever life wants to experience, whether life wants to experience constricted sort of a limited fearful identity who doesn't want to die, which is love for being. And that's the beauty that, you know, all of those positions or all those roles are available, All the points of perceptions are available and all happen in the consciousness. Jim? I'm not sure, but I often sometimes go through phases of confusion when the mind kicks in and then I let it be and relax.

And today some questions arose and I'm thinking of these more concepts. So the two thoughts that arose were in nonduality, where does grace and faith fit in? Did you hear that? Do you want to answer that? Or are they more concepts? Where the grace and faith fit in? Or is it just more concepts? Just different labels on different things, grace and space. Faith, grace and faith. Grace for who and whose faith. But at the same time they are not bad words, they are beautiful words because they can be helpful in a way that the dualistic mind always conceives of itself as an agency of change.

I will fix it, I will achieve it, I will do it. And now the grace is something that the I can't do. The I had to just rest its case and just open up and wait for the grace. Although it is still in the language of the duality because there is a separation between the I and the grace. But it's not about as a pointer. However, ultimately, there is nothing but grace. There is nothing separated from it, so it doesn't have to rest or shower upon itself, because there is only one You can call that one grace or life or love or God or anything And the face again is not a bad pointer if someone comes from the perspective of the mind And then, okay, I can't do anything, okay, I get it, I'm powerless, I can just surrender because there's nothing that I can do.

I only can have faith that the life will shine its light on me. But again, this is the language, the duality, me and the life. I have faith in something, what is the I? But for the language, for the sake of pointing or expression, it's not a bad pointer. But you know better, there is only life. So the one who has faith in that life, is life itself dressed up as something separate from itself, it's a cosmic joke. Did you want to add something? If you try to grasp it with a concept and you fail, you're bound to fail because it's non-conceptual. Neither grace nor faith have any value whatsoever.

Yeah, ultimately they're just words, concepts, which you said at the end of the question. And we have, again, I think we have a question here. Simon says, Good morning Bob, thanks for sharing this wisdom. Your teachings have changed my life. Beautiful. Thank you, Simon. And it has changed many lives. I was hoping Simon would say, put your hands on your head. Even though it's just one life. It's just one life. And then... And then, yes, so Jess says, the I itself is a thought, right? Absolutely. Yeah, what's the I? I is a thought, it's a translation. As Catherine was saying, you know, life comes really very closely, the I aligns itself with that intelligence, like Bob's, it's not really Bob's example, it comes from the ancient text of the road of steel in the fire, or the piece of road in the fire.

It takes on qualities of the fire, it becomes red hot like a fire, it becomes It can burn you just like a fire. But the moment you move it out of the fire, it loses its capacity, its quality. It's the same with the I. It feels, it takes on the quality of presence. You say I when you are present. But then, the moment life essence is unavailable to fuel through that I, it makes, it's nothing. Corpse can't say I. It's just a word, it's just a thought. But it represents that sense of presence, that sense of I am. And Jeff says, thoughtless and free, haha.

And that's that. That's that for the comments. So, anyone? Questions inside? Jim? No? Andras. I just wanted to follow something that Jim mentioned about the faith and grace. When the narrative mind stops, what's obviously still there is what Bob calls the natural mind. And it's in those moments where there's a gap between the thought and there's the presence of the natural mind, that's when it's obvious that there is grace and faith and it's in that moment, it's very, very quick. There's a sort of a thought forming about say a task to be done. But it's just in its very initial stages it's forming and then there's like an explosion.

It's very, very quick. There's the answer. And it's not even in a thought. The answer's there. It just appears in this natural mind. So that's the grace that if one is still, the answers will appear. So that's the grace and the faith is that once that's recognised, the knowledge is there that this will happen naturally. In the future? No, no, it's spontaneous. Now or never. It's spontaneous. And that's always been very interesting in the Sanskrit language because in Sanskrit, the English word spontaneous comes from the Sanskrit root svalta. And the Svalta translated is an explosion. You can almost hear it in the word itself, the Svalta.

Explosion in consciousness. But it's not the big bang, or maybe it is the big bang, but it's the little bang that's more bang for your buck. And if there's enough grace, then there'll be the realization that there's no need for faith whatsoever, because it absolutely doesn't matter if anything in particular happens or not. Just the gap between, you know, that you talked about. And again, it's just the language because you can say that a grace of recognition, grace of recognition ultimately leads to the sense of liberation, even though there is no one who gets liberated. Because recognition is the recognition that there is no self to get liberated.

There is no one who has ever been trapped. The idea of Santa Claus was just an idea. He has never gone through any funnels. He has never roared in the sky on the reindeer. It just never existed. So the self that really wants and craves to find a liberation from itself, from the confines that are completely imagined, can't get liberated. But the recognition happens from a different place, from the place of the freedom of that self, in which it's just like a balloon which is popped, disappears, dissolves. So you could call that a moment of grace, because it doesn't happen to the self, because in a moment of grace the self is recognized as just a mental construct, imagination.

When Kat was describing the difference between the action of a human being and the cat, the cat wandered through the floor and just walked up towards Cole there and you were saying I'm just saying that the cat, just the attention takes the cat, the mind and body, just for a walk up the... You know, it's...yeah, the attention is moving and the cat following where the attention is going. So it's like that natural flow that two people have. Fuck it all. We don't know a bloody thing about anything. I don't know anything about anything. In a conceptual sense, it's all dried up. All my visions of who I am are gone in this instance and bang, we're here.

Everyday life and all what about the veggies and all that sort of stuff We get taken care of We get taken care of What wrong with that Nothing. Well, there you go. Take care. That's the place where nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong anymore. Life as a cat, travelling down the room, or life as Peter, expressing not knowing anything and being fine with that. Life as Dean? What do you have to say, Dean? No, no, nothing. Nothing. What life has to say through you. No, no. No, I won't say anything. Okay, life's not going to say anything. But if you actually look really from the standpoint, it's not a standpoint because there is no location to it, The So what a great dance of experiencing and expressing and nothing ever happened because that same life creates the innumerable worlds with every thought and every dream, the night dream and the day dream, which are not much different, are they?

The imagination or the night dream or the day dream. Us life. Life is looking through every pair of eyes. And sometimes that life is putting on the glasses, no, this is me, this is I, this is Katarina or Bob or Dean or I'm suffering or I'm loving or whatever. This, from life's perspective, how could anything be wrong? It's delightful, it's delicious, it's so beautiful, colorful dance of Maya. And nothing has ever happened. I had to break the news, it was really funny. I haven't eaten any meat for about 35 or 36 years. Then Dean brought some venison sausage, and then he brought something else. And just really for the companion I've noticed that after all those years the concepts that I was holding dear for a long time, the concepts which were coming up from loving compassion for the planet, you know, how much forests have to die for one cow to eat the ton of soy and to drink a ton of water for that soy to grow and how many African villages have to starve to death for a person to have a steak and all similar concepts.

The torture that happens to those creatures. They were a wonderful line of thinking for a teenager and someone in their 20s and 30s to really get worked up and to really feel good about myself that I have all those concepts. And now I look back and they're gone. I can't believe in them anymore. And the climate change and the self-destruction of the humanity because of growing crops to feed the cow which will die in one meal for one family instead of feeding whatever. So what? I was dreaming tonight about three or four different worlds. I do remember my dreams and they are all gone. They all disappeared.

And if humanity drives itself to extinction, the life, the prolific, beautiful, conscious life will find another way. Or maybe it already does. Who says that planets are not conscious, or galaxies? The freedom from the concepts, even the most beautiful concepts, like they feel beautiful, that oh be positive or have compassion for the victims or hate perpetrators. Even those concepts are still limiting beliefs. That if you are just that open field of consciousness, they must still linger. Like Joseph was talking about you know like how your personality pattern translates that life into action Your you know focus of attention will be different than mine or Bob Everyone is uniquely different as that you know as that lenses through which you know The I should sin or not, I go to heaven or I reincarnate.

The less of that guiding principles, the more freedom. And of course that's not going to be available for every pattern of personality because it also depends on the conditioning. If there was a lot of trauma, those guiding principles may actually be the survival principles. They may be necessary for that body-mind mechanism to function and let that life see and look Thank you for watching! activist, I don't know. That thought, very hardly charged thought may arise. I have no control which thought will arise. It may still happen. And it is not to say that there is anything right or wrong with people who are continuing destroying or continuing fighting for the climate.

From life's perspective, that's the play. And everything is perfectly resolved. It's perfectly beautiful. It's a way for life to express itself in those innumerable ways. And in this unmeasurable depth. What? Nothing, nothing. Come on. I have to give a talk next week and part of the talk is I've got to give a little bio about myself and background. So I thought about it and then my whole history is wiped. Completely gone. There is no, like all gone. Like completely like that. It's just gone. nisargad, Aam Tarraswati, Muthu, Shri Kriyayata, presence-awareness, Maha-Sarvaj, Nisargadatta, presence-awareness, Maha-Sarvaj. The Dhamma, the Nisargadatta, is the state of being. The It's an absolute joke, really.

There's no sense of any truth to any of it. That's why we call it the cosmic joke. It really is. But what a wonderful opportunity for appreciation. If there is any reason for the life to actually show up in those infinite amount of costumes, love is an obvious answer. Love and appreciation is an obvious answer. When you look from that life's perspective and you see that perfection, you see that brilliance, it is inevitable to actually experience that love and appreciation. I would love to hear your bio. I mean, the stories, the personal stories, how incredible. I mean, you know, I try always to dig out a little bit more of Bob's beautiful, colorful life.

And that increased the love and appreciation for that incredible creativity in which life goes into the depth of every experience every emotion every situation every scene I want to see it all It probably a greed for pleasure and appreciation in this system but that what we are as humans the storytellers Don't have a birthday around Kat. She'll dig into every little bit of your story. Just to love and appreciate it. It's just an enjoyment in the moment of a nice little enjoyment. It's just like probably my ears pricked up the most when Kat was telling me about her history of concepts around vegetarianism. It's just like, what an interesting story about Kat I didn't know about.

That's so interesting. And that she did have those particular ones and at those particular times in her life for those particular reasons and then they dropped for this particular reason at that point. It was just a really piece of enjoyment that happened right now, you know, that I got to hear. It doesn't mean anything beyond that, you know, but it was very enjoyable. Thank you. I find it fascinating that, you know, how those ideas drop away. How you can find them there and they're impersonal and the next day you can't find them there and that's impersonal also. There's no preference either way. It's like every single body will have the collection of those and they will be changing throughout life.

Some of them will be changing slower, some of them won't be changing. And in a way it's sort of neutrally bounded because like I've never really been into the stories, I have a beginning, the middle and the end. I like the ones that are snippets of bits and pieces and you know just each thing is like wow this can happen in the universe. Wow this happened in the universe, this happened in the universe. You know that's about it, there's no more thought about it. Yeah and I remember just the one thing, Ramm was here a week ago, a couple of weeks ago and he said when he first met Bob also probably 10 plus years ago, the first question he ever asked Bob, Do you eat meat?

It was so important in the spiritual circles. It was so important. You know, even he doesn't wear any special robes that the gurus do. He doesn't have the behavior chants and necklaces and all that stuff. But meat, you know, and when Bob says, oh, he was actually walking out and eating a sausage or something. What was it that Ram was saying? Hope it wasn't a cow. He got absolutely shocked. He didn't know what, like mind gone blank because it was a cognitive dissonance at this point. And to reconcile that dissonance, in nonduality there is no space for cognitive dissonance because there is really no one who owns any of those ideas.

They just fly through the sky of awareness like clouds. But it might be a shock for people who have concepts. I remember having concepts that enlightenment means you can't have weight issues. You can't. I mean, you wouldn't have desires for sex or other pleasures. You're living in ecstasy. So someone said, oh, Byron Katie is enlightened. And then my friend said, yeah, but she's overweight. She can't be. And she's probably not, maybe she's, I don't know. But those ideas are beautiful to look through how belief comes into a concept and creates a boundary, creates a fake limitation, a prism. Even if we are super attached to the ideas, like ideas of evolution of consciousness, you know, more people awakened, there is an evolution, there is a hope for humanity.

Well, that's a concept, that's an idea. However it might be attractive or beautiful, it's still a limiting belief which completely creates the cognitive bias and misses out and leaves out all the increased poverty and increased the class separation between... Thank you for coming.