Zoom group recording from 28th of Oct 2024

Truth. He wasn't talking about himself, he was talking about that sense of presence. And knowing that you are. That knowing that you are is life, it's not. Being, knowing, loving to be. Satyaritana. Name and form. And Hinduism. As I said, anyone who is not existing right now, anyone who is not conscious, anyone who is not happy to be, all that simple descriptions, you are that already. And isn't that the great mantra? I am that. Everyone knows that. That everything is that, one essence. Because that's the chair you're sitting in. That's the room the chair's in. That's the space in the room. That's the tree. That's the flower.

That's the bird. That's the planets, the stars. Everything is already that. And what is discriminating? The word, the concepts, the labels we put on them. How many words were you born with? And you're looking into it, you can't remember any words at all when you were born. And you didn't pick up any words till you were around about two, two and a half, might have been a bit earlier, might have been a bit later, it doesn't really matter. But you weren't born with any words, you didn't have any words. Till it wasn't until that capacity of reasoning developed in you, that you picked up the word you picked up, you began to look into it and see and recognise that the word is not the thing.

Try and drink the word water. Try and swim in it or drown in it. The word fire, try and cook with it. Burn yourself with the word. So when you look into these words and see they're not the thing itself. And it tells in the Bible, in the beginning it was the Word. The Word was of God. All things were made by him, by the Word. That Word we've learned, we've learned that. There ain't got to be a higher power or greater power. Not realizing it's all the one essence. All things were made by him, by the word. And isn't that so? There was nothing made that wasn't made without the word.

Tells you that, I say, have you still to know that I am, is God? That sense of presence, not the word, what it represents. The awareness of presence. Anyone who is unaware of being right now, And you'll know for certain, I'm not unaware. If you're not unaware, you must be aware. That awareness is what you are. And the Buddha called it a cognizing emptiness. We think we cognize or know the emptiness, but it's not. It is the emptiness itself that is cognizing. It is the awareness. And he made the statement then that emptiness is form. That all this form, all this manifestation, all these are emptiness.

And that's what he told you, emptiness is form and the form can be nothing other than the emptiness, appearing as different. And that again, as Veda they tell you, that it is the manifestation Manifestation is appearance only. Manifestation is the absolute. It's how it appears. We take the appearance to be real. But when you investigate and say it's all imagined, Nisargadatta tells you that nothing can trouble you except in your own imagination. Break that word imagination down to imaging and you'll see that all this manifestation is images. This body is an image. The world around you is image. Look in the mirror, what do you see?

You'll see a reflection in the mirror or an image. Now you can't say that reflection is not there. Try and grab it out of the mirror, you can't grasp it. And you realize the manifestation is appearance only That only seemingly so Nisargadatta tells you nothing can trouble you except in your own imagination And that all our problem is We are imaging in, creating these mental images and believing them to be real and get caught up in the image and lose sight of the true nature. Pure awareness, pure being, pure knowing, pure loving to me. Absolute. Now, if you recognize you are absolute, what can be added to absolute?

Nothing. Wouldn't be absolute. What could be taken away from it? Nothing. It wouldn't be absolute. Nothing can be taken away from it. And you are, recognize that you are that absolute. Who can ever be superior to you if it's all absolute? Nobody or no thing. Who can ever be inferior to you? Nobody again. And what would you want from anybody else? If you know it's all absolute, that everything is yours. And everything. No matter how or why it appears. But that's all it is. Our parents have it, seemingly real. And Shakespeare tells you that also. And he says, nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Look at the way you think and realize you're always thinking dualistically. It's either good or bad, pleasant or painful. Happy, sad, loving, hating, positive, negative. Watch this thing called mind and see if it functions any other way. We've got this idea we are this person, this body, mind. But the person is not reality. Just another word of a label we've learned and comes from an ancient Latin persona, a mask. We've got this mask or conceptual image which we believe ourselves to be, an image. This artist has nothing to trouble you except your own imagination. If you're not creating that mental image, what are you? You can't say you are not.

You can't negate your beingness. But you call yourself a human being. You believe in God, you'll call God a supreme being. What happens if you take that word human, and then take the word supremal? Try and negate the beingness. Try and tell me you're not being. You wouldn't be able to say you were being or not being without the word. In the beginning was the word. And you know that too when you look at the scripture. At a so-called out of an Eve the story goes, we're in the Garden of Eden, paradise. And they learnt the words, or the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, they learnt words.

So that's where the problem begins, with the learning of words. And that's when the problem begins with you or I. I didn't know anything about these things until I learnt words. And the words I was pointed to had me believing that I was a person, an individual, a separate entity. It was only with a little bit more investigation and looking into it, I recognised that the person is not the reality. It's only a conceptual image. So you see that me, this believed in me, or so-called ego, is the cause of all my problems. The effects are, the effects of that cause, believed in me, are the fear, the anger, the jealousy, the envy, the hate, the anxieties, all the problems in life come from the belief of being separate, an individual.

Now look at that word belief. Belief is not the actual, only a conceptual image. You believe you are this person this individual And the definition when you look up the dictionary you look up the definition of belief It's an unquestioned acceptance of something in the absence of reason. Acceptance of an alleged, or without knowledge or proof. We've taken on the belief that I am this body, this mind, this person. And I tell you that the false won't stand up to investigation. That's what needs to happen, needs to be an investigation of these concepts we've taken on board. When we learnt words from our parents and then went to school and learnt all words, and seeing this whole manifestation as we know it as so-called human beings and made up of words, concepts.

What is a word? A word is nothing but a sound. Sound is a vibration. A vibration is a movement of energy. Cats of the bus. It's all a vibration of energy. And the word is not the thing. Take the word water. Try and drink the word. And the word fire, try and cook with the touches. I think I pointed that out before. That's the way it's going, it's repert to itself and all arrested. Doesn't matter anymore. And that's it when it doesn't matter. And you know that. What do we call spirit? Spirit is essence. Subtle essence of spirit. The matter is a seemingly solidified form.

So when that's recognised as spirit, then you're not caught up in the material idea. And you know that already because when something comes up and you're not too concerned, you So it doesn't matter. What's happened? Well, you haven't allowed it to solidify into the material. Still only that essence. And the other one is too, when you don't mind. Somebody goes up, can you do this? And you know it's not gonna affect you, you say, I don't mind. When you haven't taken the thought, belief in the thought, leave everything as it is. Leave it as it is, unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. The patterns, shapes and forms change by themselves because there is nothing static in this manifestation.

It's constantly changing. This body, you mightn't believe it, is changing right in this moment. There are thousands of cells dying in it right now and being replaced. What were you doing about it? Nothing. It's happening by itself. What have you ever done about it? Nothing. It's all happened to itself. But we've taken on this belief that we are the doer. We can change it, alter, modify or correct it, instead of leaving everything as is. What is means just as it is right now, unaltered, unnotified, uncorrected. No preference, no partiality, no comparison. And the change is naturally and evident. That's what needs to be recognized and seen.

The recognition, as I call it, in the scriptures again, I call it the basic space of phenomena. The base of it all is space. And what's the very first thing you see? You'll say, I see that, see something else. Space is the very first thing you see. And all the contents in this manifestation are adornments of space, just appearing in space. They haven't altered or touched the space in any way, shape or form at all. It only appears to be so. The basic space, the phenomena is that awareness. Awareness of being is another way that puts that Shadananda. Being, knowing, loving to be. For awareness of being is bliss.

So recognizing that, re-cognizing, we think that we are cognizing but the Buddha called it cognising emptiness And he made a statement emptiness is form All these forms are nothing but that vibrating path of energy appearing in the different path shapes Emptiness is form, and he turned it around and told you that form can be nothing other than the emptiness. So that emptiness is pure being, pure knowing, pure awareness. Awareness of being. Anybody who is unaware right now, and you reckon, no I'm not unaware, I'm aware. Anyone who's not knowing that? Well, of course you're not. Yes, I'm the knowing. Are you happy to be? Yes.

I don't want to be dead, so I'm happy to be. So you are already that. But in taking the word and taking the word to be real, we'll get lost. Lost in the word. And the word is not the thing. That's what was pointed out. And I ask you to look along those lines and see for yourself. Because there's nobody that's going to do it for you. Because as I say, it's nondual. It's only that presence-awareness. And presence is not the past. It's pre-senseless before you put any concepts or forms onto what's representative. Just this pure being, knowing and loving to be, expresses as thoughts, feelings, emotions.

It's constantly transient. This world for you and me is changing constantly. I am not unaware right now. Unawareness is ever fresh and ever new, ever changing, pure being. How did you come into existence? Well, go back as far as your fathering, look at yourself, can you remember your birth? You say I was born, but is there anyone there who can actually remember your birth? And when you look at that and see, how could you remember your birth when you had no words? How could you say I was born? What label or concept could you put on it without the words? And realise you lived for the first couple of years of your life without the words.

Wouldn't that tell you that you're not this person, you're not that person. You are prior, you're before the word, before the idea of God. You are that pure being and the pure knowing of that, pure loving to being. That's what it was in the scriptures. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, the Word was God. God is the Word. All things were made by him by the word. And there was nothing made that was made without the word. And isn't that so? All the things, the so-called things we see, we put labels or words on, instead of seeing as they are, just this pure presence-awareness.

Presence-awareness, not time bound, not the past. Past awareness or a future awareness, Where does pre-sense, before the label is good, bad, they're all sensational words, happy or sad. Pre-sense is awareness of being or knowing the present. And that is all there is, the change by itself. This world is constantly transient. It's constantly changing. Shakespeare tells you that. Nothing either good or bad but thinking likes itself. And you look at that and see that's the way we think. This is good, this is bad, this is good. Constantly dividing the concepts up. Not really as though it's changing by itself, naturally and effortlessly. How does it work?

Well, have a look, something comes up and you like it. How do you know? That's good. I like the good things and I don't like the bad things. Not realizing no matter how much you love it or how much you want to keep it there, it's going to change because this manifestation is transient. It's constantly changing and you don't want it to change. Not wanting to change what we do. Well naturally resist it, trying to keep it there. If you're resistant to change, recognize that any resistance is conflict. If you're resisting something, you're in conflict with it. Conflict makes you fearful, angry, depressed, or unhappy.

All these conflicts come up conceptually. Unhappiness, the anxiety, the stress, guilt. No matter how much you love them, try to keep their boundaries. The recognition of that constant resistance. Resistance is conflict. And this conflict makes you uneasy. And another word for uneasiness is dis-ease. So there's resistance, conflict and disease going on in these patterns all the time. It's all labelled to the believed in us. The conceptual image we've taken on board, me. So it's only me can be fearful. Only me can be anxious or unhappy, depressed. He is the cause of all my psychological suffering. And the effects are the anger, the depression, the guilt, the shame.

All effects of the cause me. And that's where all our psychological suffering comes from. That constant conflict. Resistance is conflict. Something comes up that you don't like. I shouldn't be thinking this is terrible, makes me terrible. Thinking, what have you done again? You've resisted it. And there's conflict again. That's what our life is made of. Because we never knowledge the truth, the fact that you are that ever fresh, uncaused, ever fresh presence. Just this, nothing else. Some concepts we don't like, we try to get rid of it. Again, when trying to get rid of it, we're resisting. But leave everything as it is, unaltered, unnotified, uncorrected, without preference, partiality or comparison.

And it changes. It's constantly transient. And this manifesto, when you look into it, is transient. This body you're sitting in right now is not the same body you woke up with. There are thousands of cells dying in it right now and being replaced. And that's This is constantly so. So, body, mind, and then of course, there is a thing we call time. Time is just another mental concept. Is there a past if you don't think about it? You can't say there's a past without a thought. You can say, I was in the past. Well, try and live yesterday. Try and live another day. You can't.

You can go back and recall it, but you won't be able to recall all of it because of a certain past that won't be remembered. Can't recall the past. And what's the future? Future is anticipation and imagination. You anticipate what you're going to do after you leave this meeting or what you're doing. And imagine. Anticipate and imagination. It's not the thing again. Nisargadatta tells you nothing can trouble you. Nothing at all can trouble you, except your own imagination. And when you look at that you'll see it's there. Break that word imagination down to image in, imagine. That's all we're doing. We're creating these conceptual images, believing to be real, getting caught up with them, and being bound into them.

Little bit of investigation, little bit of looking into it Recognizing the false is false and you can believe in it anymore but it loses its hold And it loses its hold See what happens then See what life does then Brings up what is necessary. That's it. Enough for me. The voice is going again. So, you get a bit of an idea of what it's all about. Now, everybody is that, always have been, always will be. And you wouldn't be looking into this if you hadn't had a taste of it. Some of you have had a good taste, expresses just as well as I or anybody else.

Others can be, gotta look into it or get rid of some of the old ideas I'm not sure what the concept is with that. But that's why we ask you all to share in this. Tell us what you've understood or how you're going. And somebody else might hear it, might be saying it a different way to what I was saying, and it might resonate with you that way. But that's the only way you can pass it on. So, sitting there without doing anything, not going to help anybody much. And there are quite a few of you on there that know the truth and can express the truth.

Well, don't hesitate to do it. I'll turn it over to Julia now. She can host them. Walter and Joe, you're both unmuted, but since you're, I don't know, like whoever speaks first, you start. All right, I'm on. All right, it's you. Hello, Bob. Hey, Mum. Are you having a good day? I'm getting into the drinking room. I think it's been a wearing down process, I can say, particularly about this body idea. And I'm amazed how before the mind would say, yes, you're bloody enlightened or you're formless and all these words flow so freely. Can you hear me first question or not? Could I have trouble asking?

Can you hear me? I'm a little bit muddled, but I can hear some of it. I heard bits and pieces. I heard you use the word enlightened. I don't know of such a word like that. Oh, you've heard it, yeah. I'll turn off the video and I'll just use the sound to speak that word. Is that any better now, Julia? I don't know. Keep going and let me see what I can do. Oh, if I'm too muffled, just tell me and I'll get it all off. Because I can hear it on my other one. I can hear you pretty clearly. I can hear you. No, keep going.

All right. So what I'm saying is, one of the biggest problems which I've let go of now, and it's actually quite refreshing, is the mind kept telling me, yes, I'm not the body, you know, and I'm awakened and enlightened and all this. But I never believed, especially the idea of not being a body. But now it's releasing. It's so obvious, even intellectually, if I'm not the body, then I'm eternal. The body is just an appearance of an imagination, I guess. But anyway, it's what also Bob said and I've said before myself is allow everything to be as it is. Allow what? Allow everything to be as it is, is the key for me.

And also now, seemingly after all this time, I'm seeing, I'm believing, how should I say, you know what I'm saying. I can see now I am letting the body go. I am believing more that I'm formless. So it's not like a sudden thing for me where, oh, I've got it. But it is happening and I was amazed and it's probably going to take longer. That's all. So whoever's having trouble with that, I think we've had this conversation many times and I think other people have too. And so So I always knew in principle about allowing everything to be as it is, but I never wanted to really let go.

But it's happening, Reggie, and I'm okay with that. Thanks to what you say about expressing it. It's been quite valuable for me. Even when I had the resistance, I kept coming back and yeah, so it's a wonderful thing to happen. I wish you all the best, Bob. You roped up the aqua lung today, eh? Thanks a lot for your help. And thanks to you too, Julia. I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you all Hey Jo you also unmuted Can you all hear me I can You also unmuted Can Can y hear me I can Is it like this is like a holographic projection of consciousness or life essence That what it is But it doesn't seem like it.

Is that because of stories, the projector says, in past and future? I'm not sure I got the question completely. Can you repeat yourself? I'm sorry. Okay. Well, it's like a projection of consciousness. It's like at night when you wake up from a dream, but when you're in the dream, it's real. But then when you wake up, you see it was a projection. It wasn't real. Is it like consciousness or life essence is projecting like a holographic images type thing? Yeah, like what if what if the there's yeah, go ahead. Okay. Um, there's no difference between the dream that you had last night and the one you're dreaming right now, except that this one seems to have a sense of continuity.

That's about it. Otherwise, it's both dreaming. Isn't a lot of what keeps us in our stories that we're telling ourselves about a past future anticipation without a past? Yeah, that's all it is. You're observing stories. That's just the layer on top of the basic space and what he's saying is always here. That's the base. So you might notice a story and the story is consciousness creates and consciousness blah blah blah whatever or I am or I'm upset or any of it. All that mental, all of it is just a story or it's a narration or it's an obscuration of what's What's already here, what's always been here, and that is just this basic space of just being.

This sense of I am prior to the words I am, that which is aware, this awareness, this consciousness, that's the base. And then you're missing it, we don't see it because the mind is attending or the attention is going to what's being imagined. And we're noticing the movie and we're not noticing the screen. Yeah, so a lot of it is coming back to the moment. Right. And stopping, just stopping and noticing. Exactly. And not getting into the story. But then the story does come up. Like, you can stop thought for a little while. And it's like, okay, next thing you know, it's going again. I am a person who is not aware of the truth.

I am a person who is not aware of the truth. You can get into the story and it's like just lost. Yeah. No, you don't even notice the story is happening, right? It's just happening and you're not even noticing it. You take yourself to be the character. Like if you go into something's going to happen tomorrow, say, and then you're seeing like a movie of yourself and some projected and then that, but that's not, you know, that We need to investigate, and so it's, it's important that the event, say, did, does happen tomorrow, it won't be what you saw anyway. It'll be whatever comes up here now then.

Yeah, so you took yourself to be the character so that that can happen, or that's happened. But when, but when you investigate what happens with what I mean, do you, are you doing that now, or is that something that, by the way, that's been happening in the past? It's something that I didn't do commonly. You go to the past or the future, like images of things that happened in the past. That's the reason we kind of recreate our stories and is our past gets projected to kind of a future. Ram, did you wanna jump in? Hi, hi everyone. So Joe you mentioned about the stories Yeah What are you without the story Let break it down even more What are you without a thought I don know Well, have a look and see.

In that, even if it's only a tiny moment of silence, right? That's what Bob says, pause a thought. In that tiny moment of silence, what are you in that moment? See, that's where the answer lies. The answer doesn't lie in the ruminating and the trying to figure out this or that or the story or whatever. Recognize what it is that's prior to the story. It just is this. It just here and now is this. There's just a beingness, isn't there? Yeah. It's just a pure beingness. That is the non-conceptual. And that's where the answers, all the answers lie there in the non-conceptual. You're not going to find any answers in the mind.

You're not going to find, it's good that you can recognize the story. But by mulling over the story and questioning the story constantly and going into more stories about the story is not really going to give you the answers that you're looking for. What is the answer to this question? Because the answer is in the silence. And when I mean silence, I mean in the non-conceptual, in that beingness. But even when you're in the story, you can notice that there's a part of you that's not the story. Oh, this is a story going on. And then when you say that, that's not it. That's just a noticer of it.

Bill 1 But what's noticing the story? Lineage terms Right. Yeah. Bill 1 What is noticing it? Can you tell me what's noticing that story? Lineage terms It feels like what you said, beingness or isness. It's not judging. It's just, okay, this is happening. It's just that awareness. That's all it is. Yes, that's it. It's awareness. Yeah. It's the intelligence energy or the awareness consciousness. It is that silence, that emptiness, that space. Fundamentally where you're seeing the story from is you're seeing it from space. You're seeing it from absolutely nothing. From that point is where the story is being seen. What is being seen? So you're, in other words, from the non-conceptual.

The conceptual is seen from the non-conceptual. Yeah. Because the story is the conceptual. That's all the mind stuff, the thoughts. But it's being seen from that place of no thought. It's like you can be walking and it's like if you get centered it's like you're not even walking it's just noticing it with the walking. Yeah observing. Yeah. But there is no observer that's the thing. See we use the word observing but then immediately we bring in an observer. There is no observer, as in there's something there that's observing. It feels like there must be though. It feels like there's got to be, it feels like if there's an observed, then there has to be an observer.

But there is actually no observed and there is no observer. They're both just concepts. The observing is what's actually taking place. And the observing is happening right now in the immediacy and it's happening from the no-thing. It's happening from that silence of being, from that beingness. And once again it's the non-conceptual. The observing is the non-conceptual. So this thing about matter and stuff, this body and stuff out there, there's just energy. That's already been proven that there's just energies all there is. Yeah. So what's happening is like with the double slit experiment, when they looked, observed, it was acting like it was matter, a particle.

But when they didn't observe, it was actually just energy away. So that was saying that it was just the observer making that look like there was even anything there. Yeah. Yeah. So in other words, you so in that in that double slit experiment that you're referring to, it's the observer changes the the composition of the observing of the observed. But fundamentally, the observer and the observed

The observed are both just concepts. It's the observer. That's the hard part. The observer is a concept too. That's right. The observer is a concept. That's right. So in other words, the observed is a concept and the observer is a concept and they can change.

As the double slit experiment showed, the observed can change with the so-called observer. But the observer can also change. That's also just conceptual. Right? But the observing never changes. The observing is... How can it change? The observing is happening in space. It's happening from that place of pure awareness, from space itself, from no thing. But it's an identity, it's an identity. Shift, isn't it? Really, it's like you're taking yourself as an entity, separate entity, but then the shift, it needs to be that there's, it's just life essence and consciousness. But where's the direct experience of that is my question. The direct experience is in the silence, is in that what Bob says pausing the thought.

In that pausing of the thought, even for a second, even for a millisecond, you get a taste of that non-conceptual. What's wrong with right now if you don't think about it? Another one of Bob's pointers. Again, brings you back to that same space, to that same place of no-thing. Where everything is happening but that space itself never changes. That is the non-conceptual, non-conceptual awareness. Yeah. That is the observing. It's just observing. There's no observer and observe. No, because they're both concepts, subject-object. And the subject is a concept and the object is a concept. Just it's phenomena. It's phenomena versus noumena. The noumenon is the non-conceptual.

It's the observing. Okay. Whereas the observed... The observing is not personal. There is absolutely no difference between the observing that's happening here in this so-called pattern and in that pattern over there called Joe. It's the same observing. It's just there's only one consciousness. There is no your consciousness or my consciousness. There's no your awareness and my awareness. There is just awareness because awareness is space. It's space-like. Space is everywhere, in and of everything. Yes. Space is fundamentally no thing. Yes, no thing. It's the no thing. Yeah. Joe, when you think about an observer, are you thinking about it from a personal point of view? Most of the time I probably do, but I get that it's, for me it's like, well, it has to be consciousness doing this and not a body-mind entity.

Because when I'm in a night dream, I'm a body-mind entity in a dream world. Then when I wake up, I'm in this body-mind entity world, dream world. And sometimes I bleed over. It's like I start waking up and I don't know which one I am or which one I'm in for a little while. I don't know if that's common or not, but I mean, it's not a problem, it's just interesting. So really then, because we exist in all these different states, it's a question of what role, what mask are we wearing as Bob says? What persona is it? And even the daydream, you could say, of past, thinking of memory, playing a memory of a past, which is a projection of a seemingly body-mind, then a projection of a future like of a body And those are like many dreamlike things Like you can project an image of say this happened and it's not happening now.

It's like the memory and you're here now and it's just thoughts going on here now. But it seems like that you're back there with that happening now in memory Or in projection of the future. Okay, so is the projection of a body man a material existence? No, of course it's not material. I mean, it's clear to see. The hard part is seeing this is not material. That's the hard part. Yeah. But when you are projecting, It's also just projecting from a personality identity point of view. Probably, yes, some of the time. I don't know. I don't really know the answer to that. Well, if consciousness is a blank screen, can it project?

I don't know. I don't know. Is the entity doing it? I don't know. The entity can't do anything. I mean, in answer to that question, yes, it is consciousness that's projecting, because everything is a projection of consciousness. Everything. But the consciousness itself is what we're talking about, not the projection of consciousness. We're talking about consciousness awareness itself. Forget the projection. Consciousness will continue to project. It projects this idea of me, it projects an idea of you, it projects everything. But who cares? Consciousness is realized in stillness and quietness. Yes. Well consciousness is the stillness, it is the quietness, it is the no-thing. You realize it almost like it's like when you can get quiet enough you realize like it's here for a little while.

It's always here but it just feels like it's uh you are it. Can I also ask you, Ramden, consciousness is the projection as well. So it is the body. It is. Well, I mean, consciousness itself is no thing. So no thing is no thing. But everything appears in that no thing. So everything fundamentally is a projection of the no thing. But that's Maya, that's the illusion, right? The no-thing is the noumenon. That is the base. That is fundamentally what we're talking about every time we gather for this meeting, is we're talking about that no-thing, that which you are, that consciousness, awareness, beingness, intelligence, energy. That's what Bob is constantly pointing us back to every time he speaks.

And that's where the answers lie. All the answers lie in recognizing that which you are, which is that no-thing, which is the non-conceptual. And the wanting to figure it out and all this, all that, that's just keeping ourself where the answer isn't. Exactly. That's just more mind shit, you know, just rolling around in concepts and it doesn't... It obscures the answer, if anything. It's like the answer is already here. We're just trying to like, all that's happening, I think what's happening is we're trying to like make some puzzle fit and then we have some idea of like how it, you know, and so we're like playing with it.

We're like, well, yeah, but yeah, but oh, but all of that is giving attention to what is not. Yes, I was just going to say, it takes effort in my, experience to go to to like just okay stop thought and just experience because it's there's so habitual condition just thought thought thought that's why you've got to keep coming back to the non-conceptual because the thoughts will run that's that's that's what the mind does the so-called mind thoughts will run then you keep coming back to the non-conceptual over and over again And use whatever pointer works for you. Whether it's what's wrong with right now if you don't think about it, pause a thought.

I remember Bob used to tell me that he would say, don't go there. That was one of the pointers that he used. Wasn't it, Bob? Yeah. Don't go there. Because the mind, it has these certain habitual places it likes to go. And it's like you have to catch them early on. So I mean one that was very useful here was I would just ask the question repeatedly do I know that I am or do I believe that I am Because the answer to that is obvious. You know that you are. But it's no point just saying, yeah, yeah, I know that I am. You have to actually...

It's not only that. I am that. But when you quiet, you know that you never change. You've always been like, I know that I've always been me, or I've always existed exactly the same. It's like, oh, that's just me, or it's just this. But it's whatever it is, it hasn't changed. It's experience. It just is this. Beingness has always been the same. The beingness has always been the same. It never changes and it never will change. No matter how young, how old you are, it's never going to change. Yeah. Because it's no thing. How can no thing change? Right, yeah. How can space change? How can emptiness change?

Yeah, and how can it be the body or how can it be the mind when the body's obviously changing, the mind is just all over the place changing. Yeah, the mind is changing constantly, the body is also changing constantly. Right? Yeah, right. Reality is that which never changes. And what we're talking about is reality, that which never changes. Joe, you were saying something about that it seems to take effort to come back to reality. um you know i think that it'll appear that way maybe until it like i think i was talking to cat just the other day about something like this because i used to do a method to just try to like let go and i used to put all this effort into doing stuff until it was doing me i don't let go anymore letting go just happens through me so you know you don't you can call it what you I am a person who is not aware of the reality of the world.

I am a person who is not aware of the reality of the world. I have something to do. The only thing that can be done is just remember that this is it. It's to come back to here. This is this. This is the space. This is the reality that doesn't change. And the moment we go, we're attending to thoughts and thoughts. They can happen. They're part of the mechanism or the functioning of this. The only issue I think is that they're believed in. And that's when we get all caught up because we're starting to think, oh, there's a me. And that's doing stuff that is paying attention or not.

But then problems come up and you'd say, oh, this is a situation, you know, that I need to deal with. And then it's like we come back, well, who is me? Who is me that's, can I find the me? Or am I not the whole situation? It's almost like the ego is trying to make something. The so-called ego will try and claim it, try and take ownership of it. So if it's something good, it'll say, yes, I did that. I'm so amazing. If it's something bad, oh, what I've done. Yeah, you blame something outside. Yeah. If it's something bad, you'll blame yourself. Oh, you know, I'm such an idiot.

How could I do that? And you'll beat yourself up. It's conditioning. It's like, yeah, I was, you know, I noticed a lot of negative conditioning, and I use positive conditioning to counteract it. But if you go back to what, who is this entity that can I find it? It's not here anyway. So come back to that. But to that, like before you went to, there's no one here, or no, can I find it? No, just to that empty space where you're just being. And you know, maybe if you notice how delicious it is, maybe at least retrospectively, that it's, there's no problem here without a thought.

Yeah. It's a nice place to be. So then maybe it's more like not like something you have to do, but it's like a candy bar. You want to be there. There's an interest in just staying. So I don't know if I'm making any sense, but there's more of an interest in just being. Well for me, it's like it's the freeing that it brings overall that I noticed that I'm not reacting, becoming less reactive and able to be responsive and not reacting and it's the space, space, it opens up space for anything that comes along and that's before I get My motivation I guess But yeah I don know What your now It's this year.

I don't know. Oh, what's your now? Maybe I don't need to know. I don't know. Maybe I don't need to know, I don't know. Who would need to know? I was going to say who would need to know? If there's no thing there, who would need to know anything about it? It's just it's that non-conceptual space. There's no one that can know anything about it. I Am This and That's That I think Bob said one time that maybe the problem is Like some things, but I don't like other things. I need to either like everything or not like it. Like all of it or don't like it or don't like any of it.

You can't pick and choose though. I like this. I don't like that. You can't say, oh, this is right. That's wrong. Or I like this. I don't like that. Some things I do like and some things I don't like. That's the personality. That's the personality overlay that has those likes and dislikes. That's not your essence. That's not who you are. That's not what you are in reality. That's all that projection that you were talking about. That's all the duality that sets things apart into opposites, into two. I am this and that, separates things into opposites. So it's okay if something separates into opposites, then there can't be anything good without being bad, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Preferences will arise though, Jo. Mm-hmm. Preferences will arise, choices will arise, but there's no choice maker. This body-mind has been designed in a certain way that it has certain preferences, it likes certain things and it doesn't like other things. That's just the way it's functioning. So really you say, well, you know, there's this and it causes fear or it causes anger or whatever, guilt, whatever. Or it's, you like it or you don't like it, you like this, you don't like that. Literally just all essence. Yeah. Everything is consciousness. It's consciousness or just life. Yeah. Everything is. You can't get out of it. You can't get out of it.

That's what you are. You can't not be that. You always are that. It feels like that's what we're trying to get out of it, but really what we're trying to get out of it is believing our thoughts, aren't we? Because that's where the suffering is. Yeah, the belief in the thoughts, yes. Yeah. As Bob says, the word, you know. Yeah. And we learn words, and we start to take on ideas about who we think we are, who we think we are. And those are conditioned. It's like you condition these things happen in your life. And then these preferences all over the place, these likes and dislikes all over the place.

And you just notice them, But it doesn't make you good or bad, it's all just essence. Everything is that. Yeah. Just see where the noticing is coming from. That's the thing. That's the non-conceptual. That's what Ron was saying. That's what everybody's been saying here. Just before any of this stuff is happening, I am that. Anything else that comes after that is just conceptual awareness. Thoughts arise. Thoughts are just a function too. Thoughts are just a function. They just happen. They just arise. They don't have any substance. They don't last. They're just ephemeral. As soon as it arises, it starts to evaporate. But when we attach to it, then we keep getting that thought to return.

We start thinking that's us. We define it. We name it. And we say, that's me. And this thought belongs to me. And somehow I am that thought. Or it has to do with something that attaches to my personality. I attached to it and then I start cycling it. Identify it as a movie. Like you have a thought and it's really, it feels a strong attraction and then you won't, you can let it snowball a bit, you know. It's almost like you want to play a movie in the mind of something about it. I have a suggestion. Can I? I have a suggestion. Instead of saying, I have a thought, say, hey, there's a thought.

Not I have a thought, but a thought, there's a thought. There's a thought. Yeah, it's not personal. There's a thought. Not I have a thought. You don't have a thought. That thought just arises out of nowhere. And it goes right back into nowhere. It evaporates back into the no thing. It is always no thing. You could add in there appears to be a thought. There appears to be a thought. The ones that bring up fear, like what I've noticed, like if something brings up fear, if I say fear and acknowledge it, yours fear, then that part of me that acknowledges it is outside of it, it's not afraid.

It's just like, okay, this is interesting, I wonder. Okay, but if you don't label it as fear, what is it? I don't label it, it's emotional thought. It's emotional thought. Well, no, it's fundamentally, it's just a sensation, isn't it? It's a vibration that's appearing in consciousness that we label, that we've now labeled as fear. And we've turned it into something, right, by labeling it as... Yeah, so you're saying it would play out somewhere in the body and you don't go to the story, you just... That's it. Yeah. If you don't label it as fear or whatever, whatever comes up, it's just a fresh and new...

Bob often uses the expression, a fresh and new sensation. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, but I mean that, but fundamentally, you've got to keep coming back to the non-conceptual. That's really where all the answers lie. You can, otherwise you'll just be spinning in your head all the time. Just keep, keep coming back over and over again to the non-conceptual. Yeah, yeah. To the zero. Yesterday I had lunch with a friend of mine who's a friend of Bob's as well. The guy who'd been coming to Bob for years. And he'd gone away and now he's come back to Australia. And we were talking about this stuff, you know, and he seemed a little bit disillusioned with the whole thing.

And he said, oh, you know, Bob's stuff is too prescriptive. It's not for me. Da da da. And as I was listening to him, it, it's, it suddenly struck me that the, the reason why he was struggling so-called struggling was because he's, he was still trying to figure it out in his head. He had fundamentally hadn't come back to the non-conceptual, which is where the I am the answer's lie. And when I tried to bring him back to the non-conceptual, he still, he had that glazed look like he just couldn't really see it. And that's, unless you actually keep coming back to that over and over again, it'll just, it'll keep, it'll remain as like a head game, a mind game that you're playing.

The mind game of stories and concepts and trying to figuring trying to figure it out and so to come back to the non-conceptual over and over again is where the answers to all your questions fundamentally lie. It's like what's lacking right now if I don't think about it or whatever whatever pointer works for you just keep coming back to it over and over again. Timo, you're unmuted. Yeah, I wouldn't mind adding my bit. I'm in a nice place here and one of the ground rules I have for when I do philosophy and talk about Bob stuff is when anybody has an inquiry or any type of suggestion you mentally perform that And a lot of times you be surprised with the recognitions that come out So I was in a perfect place me chemo in the bathroom with this big jacuzzi, all this stuff, huge mirror where I'm looking at the body.

And that's when Ram was asking Joe, pause a thought and try to describe yourself. And really, you know, awareness, non-conceptual, isn't how I would put it when it first came up. It was more like there was a fullness. Everything was enlightened. There's just a full liveness and I couldn't find myself as a thing. And yet I wasn't limited either. And I think another couple things I'll say about the seeking situation. I think you got to keep going back to that instead of these contrived positions. So a seeker is normally miserable, right? So there's this person and then this miserable rock we call the earth or dissatisfaction with things that we think are matter or dead.

And the idea might be, I need to shut off this me. If I just shut off this me, if I contrive that, then everything is gonna, I'm gonna be enlightened. Or, you know, there's no one to be enlightened there. And I think the fear as far as there being no me is everything's gonna be dead. But it's just the opposite. Everything is completely alive. And I go... Hey, I'm still going, Joe. Could I keep going? So I kind of like to go back to this vignette that Bob had with Aready years ago. He doesn't pull it out of the magic bag very much, but it very much describes my experience as far as the fullness here.

That is being a table, that is being a chair, that is being a ready. There's just this participation and aliveness with all things. Another thing I'll say with Bob is he talks about how unmodified, leave everything unmodified, uncorrected, unaltered. That might sound like a prescription for the me, but the me already can't alter, modify, or anything. One way to get to this unaltered, unmodified, and uncorrected. The other way Bob is saying that is don't create this false reference point in the first place. Because just like Ram's experiment, when you pause a thought and you see what's here, what is this when I pause a thought?

There's this flowing, this aliveness, this fullness. It has no form, yet it has all forms and isn't limited at all. There's not a loss. When the reference point is not created, there's not a loss of aliveness. There's a seeing of this aliveness that's always here. It's really incredible. I would recommend every time there's an inquiry like that, try it. I do the same thing every time someone has a question. And that's why I come to these things, because there's something with a live sangha that you're just not going to get casually. And that's all I've got. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. He said thank you. He tried. I'm listening to, I've been listening or noticing a lot of people being caught in the head because at least in the last couple of days of wanting to have a nice little package and figure it all out and all that. There's no doer, of course. I'm a I am a person who is not aware of the reality of the world I Am That Ramana Maharshi I Nishat Veda Veda Veda I Am Tthat Yeah, good. And if you could just be okay with not knowing, if you can allow that, can you just be in this space that just is knowing?

Do you know what I'm saying? Can you just be and know of your being anyway? You know that you are. Can you stay with that? And if a thought comes up and you're going, yeah, but yeah, there's wanting to figure out, oh, can I just, I don't know. And then just know that you are and stay with that. Can you play with that? It's almost like, to me it's almost like centering on the here and now. It's a what? It's like centering on the here and now. Yeah. You can be in a group and you can just stop and get real still. It's almost like, it's just, it's kind of like awareness expands to the whole thing.

And then you don't know what's going to happen. After that, you walk somewhere and that's it. You don't know. So can you just allow yourself to not know without even narrating not knowing? Just be in that space of I don't know and then just allow yourself to just be like, you know, a little baby doesn't know and they don't have to talk about how they don't know. Just be. Yeah, it's being, yeah. Yeah. And then just be. Yeah. And then if your thoughts coming up? It's almost like a, it's the radar for beingness or isn'tness. It's just, it's just, it's not, it could be spacious, it could be just, I don't know.

So I don't know. Can you be okay with that? Yeah. Good. It's okay. We can be okay with it until we come up with the next impulse to label it. As soon as I get the next impulse to label it, then I go off spinning off again. Okay, now I got it. Okay, it's like this. It's like this. It's like this. It's not like any of that because it's no thing. It's not like anything. It's no thing. So you can't describe it. And you can't wrap your head around it. You can't explain it. You can't compare it to something. You can't compare it to something from your experience.

Because it's, you are in it. You are it. You can't explain it. Because you're setting up that duality by trying to explain it and give it a name and a label. It's coming back. You can't explain it. All you can do is be. You are. You can't even you can't even try to be it. You said a while ago it was hard. It's not hard because hard setting it's hard implies that there's a doer that has to do something to get somewhere. So there's none of that. It's just no thing. Yeah, it's always here now. I was going to say how we talked about the Gita, how the sword can't cut it, fire can't burn it, water can't drown it.

You also can't aggrandize it. So if I go back conceptually to when there was confusion or lack of clarity, and I compare it to now conceptually, there's absolutely no difference. That aliveness is completely the same, ever-changing, that life essence. The only thing I will say is what makes it have kind of a little bit of an emotional difference is there used to be the idea, I'm confused. I'm not clear. I'm not getting it. And, you know, the person is never getting it. And it's perfectly okay for a pointer to fall flat or there to be Confusion about a math problem, confusion about philosophy, confusion about Advaita.

It's one that's taken on board as a reference point. All that needs to be seen is that reference point, seen through. That person who's taken it on board does not exist. But without that reference point, there's absolutely no problem with not being very clear about this when you share it, Or there being some sort of confusion in the actual words being used. As long as that presence is recognized and things aren't brought back to a reference point, there's absolutely no problem in any of this and no change that can take place to that true nature in the conceptual world of pre post whatever Yeah it the not taking it personally It like you could say there is walking there's thinking or thought or you could say it's not, there's part of it.

It's a presence. It's just here now. There's nothing you can say about it. I'm reading one of Bob's books now. It's like just some things resonate and sometimes the mind's active and there's not as much I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to answer that. I think it's a great question. I think it resonates. Sometimes it's less active and it resonates. They just resonate and just stop. They resonate. Either does or doesn't. But it does sometimes. Is it right to say I just drop into awareness and I can actually be sort of experienced or I think I'm experiencing it? Am I feeling myself?

What? Did you hear that Julia? I heard is it all right and then something about into awareness. So Walter, you can't drop into awareness because you already are the awareness. There's no body that can drop into the awareness. You are the awareness. You can't get out of the awareness. There's no entity that can drop into it. Okay, well actually then I'm experiencing, I think, was it Jo, was it? Yeah. Oh okay, because I often have this experience that I am awareness often, just sort of without me doing anything, that's there. Is that, I'll leave it at that. I don't know if it's of interest to anyone else at all.

Yeah, okay. Does that experience, I am awareness, come with the labels I am awareness or is it just experiencing being aware? It's experiencing being. It's like I'm telling you, there's no doubt, there's no nothing, there's no trouble, it's just there. But then it sort of drifts away or something. I don't know. I'll just contemplate it more. I just thought I'd throw that in for everyone and anyone, including Joe, who's a scared Joe. Okay. Yeah, so I want to offer an analogy. I think we're almost out of time, but if the car is in park mode, it's not moving. But the cars in any other gear, it's moving.

So if you can just park the car anywhere, You are always there. That's beautiful. Thank you. That is beautiful. The door is here now. Mark your car in the awareness garage. Sometimes it's better. We're running out of time. I'm going to just throw in one thing before I let somebody else have the last word. But you change your clocks next week if you're in the United States. That's right. Make sure you take a peek at the website if you're coming back next week to, you know, notice if there's a different time. I think we're not changing our clocks. We already did that. So it'll be just a little bit different.

I think your time in the meeting time will be different. Does anybody else want to have the last word? Nope. What, the last word? No. I've enjoyed, I appreciate all of y'all and I appreciate all the input, really a lot. Thank you much. Thanks Bob, thank you everybody. Thank you Bob. Thanks for coming, thank you for your questions. Love you everybody. Thanks Bob, thanks Julia, thanks everyone. Love you. Love you. Bye bye. Bye.