Nonduality group discussion. Bob is still here, hurrah!

One. Okay. Okay, so welcome everyone. Bob had a little bit of a sleep in today, so we are not including him. If he wakes up on time and wants to participate, regardless what the opinion of the internet trolls is, he will. His will will be respected. And there is five of us here today. Joe and Cliff came to say good morning to Bob, but he was asleep, so they're going to help us with the meeting. And Dean and Tanya helping. So let's get into it. Maybe I would start from answering a question. There were people who were accusing us of Bob is in denial of dying and stuff like that.

Nasty, heartless, pretty insensitive. But you know, there are people who have no names, no labels, they're just under sort of completely anonymous set of words with no face. Yes, so about Bob being in denial of having cancer for nearly two years. Ridiculous. In denial of the body passing, ridiculous. However, in non-duality, we do not go to the story about what is the individual or dream character doing in their dream life. We are mostlyprioritizing what is happening right now. So is his body dying right now? Well, is yours dying? Yours, yours, yours? Bob is saying in almost every spiel, every moment, tens of thousands of cells in your body is dying.

The moment the body is born, it's already dying. It's already on that level of the form. It's already disintegrating. Of course, the integration happens for the life, some of that life essence animating it. And then it slows down on the worst day. We've seen Bob years ago when he had hip operation, six years ago. Getting weaker, falling asleep even on a meeting and then the body peaked up, then the life essence animated it again. The reason why he's asleep right now is because he had a fabulous couple of days with his dear friends from Interstate, Rahm and Gilbert, who were here, and also Bill and Kasturi, who were here cheering him, making him laugh, taking him outside in the garden, feeding him ice cream, and basically just having time of their lives.

And he's catching up on sleep now. But is the form going to end? Of course, every form has an expiry date. But now, if we are considering time to be real,Yes, every dream ends. You slept at night and you dreamt a dream and where is it now? Where is the time when you had your first day at school now? Everything that has the beginning has an end. But again, this moment, this ever fresh present moment now, in this moment now, I can tell you, I can see him, he's breathing, he's alive, he's asleep. Comfortable. Comfortable. Blissful sleep, he calls it. Blissful sleep. But as much as the trolls are wishing to, he's not dead.

He's not dead. And then the life, living the message and experiencing the message, makes that time of being weak, being bedridden, still very, very valuable, very enjoyable, rich in love and light, because there's no fear. There is no concept of what is going to happen next. Am I going to go? Where am I going to go? None of that takes place. Neither in him and Tanya and I, we stay here permanently. We don't have those concerns either. And neither of you guys, I assume, would. So the future as such does not, the prediction or the projection does not spoil.of the moment where the aliveness is there, when the love is there, when the sharing is there.

So rather than focusing on what is not happening, funerals not happening, dying is not happening, we are completely with 100% moment to moment. The love and gratitude for what is happening. Him joking with friends or eating his favorite food or cuddling, that is happening. So this is really non-duality applied in life. It's not that, oh yeah, we are just nihilists in denial of the fact of dream life, of a dream character. No, we're not. Look, it's ridiculous to even have that projection. Like, what an arrogance to even have that projection. If you think we are incapable of having big picture image, you have no idea.

We have nurses coming here, doctors coming here every day, people constantly asking questions if we are ready for the next step. And yes, we are. I have injectables upstairs ready for when it is necessary, when it will be required. I have all sorts of medications and I have phone numbers and emergency phone numbers. Of course, we are not. We are not morons. We're not ignorant. We're not, no, we're not. However, again, prioritizing what is happening.in this vital, vibrant moment now that will never be the same again, that will not be here in 10 years when maybe that body is over, of course. So we are just highlighting and maybe, maybe those who have those trolling nasty projections could actually ask themselves a question.

Is the non-duality just a philosophical system to subscribe to and to believe in? Or can it really be applied in life? Can it really be experienced fully with answering the question, what's wrong with right now if I don't think about it? What's wrong with right now if there is no projection of what is going to happen in a year or in a month or in a minute? It can happen in a minute, absolutely. The body can pass in a minute. That we know for the last 18 months, really. And having that time and having that information, making the most of life, rather focusing on what is than on those projections, makes it rich, juicy, pain-free, devoid of psychological suffering.

And even if this thought, because I remember a conversation I had with my sister who was saying, you cannot tell me that those thoughts and fears do not arise. Well, even if they do, who is there to take it on board? Who is there to take even any notice of it?is there to prioritize the content of thinking over that aliveness of this moment, that radiant presence of this moment. And I did ask Bob several times how was his grieving period when his first wife of 42 years died. And he told it to me and to many, many others. There wasn't one. Because in the presence of this moment, there of course may be a little bit of a boredom or loneliness, but if there is no thought that things should be any different, there is just what's happening.

And if there is no labeling, that is just what's happening. And this is that simple. So now this is really just using non-duality as an illustration. I was going to say back to non-duality. This is non-duality. And when Bob was starting me on a conversation last week, I was trying to encourage him to say a few words because he does. He still does. doesn't do individual sessions anymore but I do individual sessions and if Bob is well enough and cheerful and happy I'll hop with the with the zoom meeting on individual session to Bob to bed with him and that happened last week That was an individual session with a bonus of Bob's presence.

It's not to be for granted. It's not going to happen every time, but it still happens. So Bob often starts the...Conversation. Okay, tell me, what's non-duality? And that, of course, gets misconstrued. Oh, he's so demented, he doesn't even know what non-duality is. No, this is a conversation started. So I will use the same conversation started. Trolls will say I'm demented. Anyone would like to say, what's non-duality? Grab the mic, Cliff, would you? Have a go. Kat asked me to speak. It's good to be here. Kat asked me to speak. I thought, I can't talk for very long about it. And I started to think what I would say, but those are all concepts, aren't they?

I wake up this morning and I thought about what I had to do today and thought about coming out here to see Bob and thought about a couple of friends of mine that are going through difficulties and then I just went, hang on, non-duality, what's wrong with right now if you're not thinking about it? And that's what it means to me because that phrase by itself was one of the first things I heard talking with Bob and that sums it up. If you're not thinking about it, what's wrong? What could possibly be described as being wrong or even right? It just is. This morning, it's just awareness, I realize.

Just being aware of the sight.the sounds, thoughts flying through, but then realising there's no thinker, no thinker of those thoughts. And in that, realising that if any thoughts about thinking come up, there's no one thinking them, they don't apply to this idea of a self. It's just one. It's oneness. It's being. And if thoughts come up, let them go too. They fly through just like all the other experiences that come through in the moment. And I think about coming out to say hi to Bob. Or by to Bob, whatever it be, it doesn't really matter. I mean, and I'm sure Bob feels the same way that, you know, in being and in non-duality, it's all togetherness anyway.

There's no past or future. I don't know what others think about dying, but what can die? It's the body dies, the awareness, the beingness goes on with all included. You know, all of us, Bob, all included in that beingness, whenever, wherever it is. Well, it can't be anywhere else but here and now. That the being, knowing, loving to be, sat-chit-ananda, is universal, except when we start to think about this isolated idea of a me that'sgot to do this or that and concerned about what they're going to say when the microphone gets handed to them or whatever. All those things are conceptual traps for the beingness to sort of identify with.

But that identification can flip past too. Be gone again and back to just being in the present moment, no particular concerns, knowing that, you know, Bob's always there and so are all of us when the thought comes up about that form. Alive or dead or whatever you might call it. And you know, I love the one that death is just a concept to life. You can think death's this or death is that. Death, this is going to happen when I die or I'm going to sit on the right hand or I'm going to, you know, be in Nirvana or... Right across all this land that I'll claim as mine and have the 27 virgins or whatever.

They're all ideas in the mind, you know. And they can't be there without some sort of previous conditioning or whatever. What's all that to a baby? It's nothing. Or to a cat. I mean, it's just being and it's always being. So I might leave it there and let someone else have a go. Beautiful. That was spot on. And yesterday I was having a conversation with Bob. And I said, oh, but Bob...You know, Satya Nanda, I can't tell a lie. There's a preference for life, right? There's a preference for life here. And he said, he looked at me, he said, well, you'd better drop that. Okay, done.

But, you know, when the doctors and nurses come, he's... Usually very lucid, conversational, and he's exceeded all expectations and continues to. I think there's so much love and compassion too. Still here, constantly, always, Bob, for everything that's going on around him. I raced in the other day late from somewhere, wet, and he looked at me and he asked me, are you okay? You know? It's just so beautiful. And to people who see situations like this, which is just a natural part of... This duality, Dine, is totally natural. And if you're looking at this scene and having thoughts of this is wrong or whatever, then remember that you're looking at this scene through your own lens.

And take a look. Correct, correct. Take a look at the lens which you're...perceiving this through and you might learn something because non-duality doesn't have, doesn't judge, right? The answer is not in the mind and it might feel good in the moment to be passing judgment or to make, you know, make a stand on something. But it's just getting caught up in Maya, isn't it? And there is nothing but love comes into this house, right? And it's so self-evident. And it's just a real pleasure and an absolute honour to be here. And thank you. So wonderful to have you. Anyone else? Yeah, anyone? Yeah, you just brought it up a few things for me, and one of them is I have a preference that I don't want Bob to go.

But that's just a preference. And the other thing is what it brought up for me, which is I love, you talked about love and compassion, and I never forget when I was first introduced to Bob, thanks to Cliffy, 20 years ago? A long time ago. Many moons have passed. But one of, yeah, there's no time. But one of the things that happened for me was I remember ringing Bob one day and I wasin distress because I was in the story, I was believing the story. And I rang Bob and he said, come on down. And I was like 45 minutes away, jumped in the car, drove down here, walked in the door, sat down with Bob, and Bob just looked at me and said, where's God in all this?

And the brain just, I spent two minutes with him, 45 minute drive down here, two minutes for him to say, well, where's God, whatever perception of God that you've got, just the universe. Where was my presence that day? Where was I? I was in the past and I was in the future. And he said, where is God in all this? And I went, I gave him a big hug and kissed him, said goodbye, go back to work now. And I was fine. I was fine. He just, he's always done that with me. You know, I have struggles. I come here and I talk to Bob or I talk to Katerina and I have struggles.

And my struggles are the stories. I haven't done stories. This week I've had stories in my head and, you know, I've talked to Kat because Bob's been asleep or the doctors have been here and it's just, we just drop it so quickly. She just drops it with just a few words, those stories. And I find it's habitual. The story I've got in my head, I saw it the other day. It was a really, you know, real drama. I said, oh, my God, you're enjoying the drama, aren't you? Could you go watch a movie or something? Get out of your own drama. Get out of your own self.

Get out of me. And Kat and Bob have given me that gift. And many other things, but on top of that, the icing on the cake was Kat and Bob getting me out of... I know how to get out of...I can say in the pain for a little bit, but, you know, I remember. Beautiful. God bless you. Thank you. Who's next? Then we'll just have to wait. No, not really. No, later? Later. Okay, I'll include our online community. Catherine says, I got one. Catherine says, love from James and Catherine. And Bill, you and Bob are so incredibly beautiful and inspiring to me. The eternal radiance of our one being shines through you, us, you, so magnificently.

That's beautiful. And Giotti says, Deborah sends hearts and thanks and good morning from Giotti and Julia. American Julia says, the expectation is always a big part of the problem. It implies a future time. Thank you, Kat and Bob. And good morning from Anika and more good mornings. It kind of reminded me the situation with all the expectations that are coming up. When Bob, I think around his hip replacement, probably six years ago or maybe after, he had the keratosis treatment and his face was gone. He had big scabs. I offered him to put some little makeup to hide it up. And he says, why? You know, if anyone cannot put up with that.honesty and raw facts of life, they don't belong here.

And the same applies to the situation right now when he was included in the meeting. Again, the same. And I remember having, again, friends of his who are very image-oriented and who expect to have a particular image of Bob being projected out there. Not the true image of Bob, not the true multi-dimensional thousand aspects of the aliveness that he is, but just the particular well socially accepted fact that he is strong, tall and this and that and the other. What's wrong with being bedridden? I have friends back in Poland who were born and spent all their lives on wheelchair and I have a very very dear friend here who was born with full strength and he ended up on wheelchair because of post polio.

The quality of their life is supreme. There is nothing wrong with the limitation if you can accept them, embrace them and live with them and go past them and focus on the presence which is not affected. Presence is not bedridden. Presence is not weakened by the medications or by cancer, by nothing. The presence is radiant. It still shines out of the eyes, even when there is a little bit of less energy to jump and dance. That life is shining as bright until it doesn't, but for now it does. And David says,Yes, Bob told me, if you got out of your way, you'd have no problems.

Bob also says, and I loved it because I actually really took it to heart and applied it, the quote of dying daily or dying momentarily. I remember having that experience of staying awake while falling asleep. Just staying in that sense of presence, completely devoid of mental images. And just feeling that falling asleep as death. I died many deaths in those moments. And they were all glorious. All wonderful. It's just really joining to that limitless, not even joining, it's really just dissolving the boundaries of perception. When the seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling is fading and dissolving, but the presence is still there. Presence never goes anywhere.

And then the memory shuts down and the presence is not being recorded anymore. So then the next thing you know, oh, I had a blissful sleep.And one of the Zoom meetings during the week, last week, Tassie said it really clearly, you know, don't forget that presence awareness is the same for everyone. The same presence, awareness, sense of being involved is the same in Kat and Dean and everybody. It's just that lens that, I guess, what you'd call the personality or something, you know, projector, which... Alters the experience in a way. Yes. Yeah. But, you know, warts and all, accept it all. All of it. Don't have, it's the best, it's a lot easier without strong preferences.

That's the natural being. Whatever comes and deal with it at the moment. I love that old saying, you know, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Right? Brilliant. Yep. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it doesn't. That's it before you, because you might not ever get to that bridge. It might not even exist. Probably doesn't. Yeah, but it's, you know, what will...Be will be is the short form of, you know, saying what's going to happen will happen. What's never going to happen will never happen. So just be silent. Yeah. Anyone? Anyone? Yeah, just that thing about sleep or dreaming, you know, it's so strange, isn't it?

We go to sleep, we look forward to sleeping in a way or it sounds... We switch off this dream when we go, or this dream gets switched off when we go to sleep. So suddenly, whatever you think the troubles of the day are, seem not to be there in sleep. And we're in a completely different reality in the sleep. There's all sorts of other things going on. People from the daydream life seem to turn up in the night dream. But we're, you know, it's fascinating that quote, I die daily, because we can die daily or we can die at any time to the mind and just let go of the story and what the consequences are and all the judgments that are being made and mind evaluating ways in and out of things.

It all switches off in sleep. I think Hamlet says it, doesn't it? Sleep perchance to dream. In that dream, sleep, he's thinking about suiciding or something. He says, sleep perchance to dream. Aye, there's the rub. For in the dream of death, who... No, for in the sleep of death who knows what dreams may come when we shovel off this mortal coil. Meaning that the life goes on in the dream world and he doesn't really want to go there and experience it at that stage is what he's deciding. It's like we forget the one life and we're in another life in that dream world. And that's the sleep of death too.

It's the same, I think, in a way. The dream continues in another way. He shapes, forms and all the rest. It's like there's some imaginary division there, but there really is no division. It's still the same, but different stories emerging. That's what I think, anyway. I'm imagining all that. And that's that, the life's perspective, you know, from the life's perspective. Yeah. Everything is as it is, there is nothing wrong. And as life, it experiences itself as the birth ofform and as the dissolution of the form. Also as trolls who have judgments of it, or also of those who, and I would like to acknowledge there was a lot of beautiful, beautiful, loving comments and comments of appreciation for the vulnerability and honesty that Bob's presence brought to the hearts and also like a common destiny of every form that is being just you can fearlessly embrace it or you can have judgments and this is up to life because there is no one there the trolls are not the doers either people who are conditioned by the environment to reject or to just project particular image rather than embrace all facets of life.

They know the doers either. This is just all pure perfection. But as life, what could you ever resist or reject? What could you ever be in denial of? As life, would you ever have this moment any different than it is? Can you be anything else but life? I mean, it is just life. And, you know, we're not the forms. The forms arise and fall in life. But life goes, life is life. You know, forms arise and depart. And I think something else that saved my life was that beautiful poem by Emerson. Every morn is fresh and new.wake up, I would wake up every day, Bob gave me this beautiful poem which I've got hanging up at the wall, I should know it off by heart by now, but the only line that's important to me when I wake up in the morning is every morn is new and fresh, I can't bring yesterday into it and I can't bring tomorrow, what's going to happen tomorrow and It really worked, especially, you know, I have a relationship, and in relationship with people I can find that really difficult.

And I would wake up and I'd think, oh, my husband did this yesterday, you know, and I'd think of the poem, Every Day is Fresh and New. Forget about yesterday. Forget about what he did. Look at him with love and compassion. And I did, and we'd have the most beautiful day. And this is amazing. What an amazing journey. Otherwise, I'd carry it, and then I'd carry the next, and carry the next, and carry the next by the end of the week. I've got a list of what you've done to me. And who has he done it to? And he's just being. He's just being who he is.

You know, again, it's this, it's taught me how, the non-duality and Bob and yourself have taught me how to love unconditionally and compassionately. Not perfectly. Oh, not perfectly. Oh, no, I'll still smash a dish, but every day is fresh and new. I can let the dish go. What a blessing. What a blessing. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you.And Catherine says from James, where the me isn't, love is always. Oh, that's so brilliant. Yeah. The me is kind of an obstacle to recognizing love because if there is a me, oh, they did it to me, you know, or I did it to them. I feel guilt, remorse, all the psychological suffering that Bob is always relating to.

But if there is no me here, there is no me there as well. So as you say, Joe, I loved it. You know, he is also life. Whatever he did is also life has conditioned this body to behave in this way. And I also loved when you said, you know, there is a strong preference for Bob not to go. And that's love too. And oh my goodness, trust me, as a dream character, which is part of the human experience, is part of the life's experiencing itself through the body as a character. So the dream character, which is the costume of life, experienced as cut, the preference for him not to go is over the moon and back, is completely there and it is recognized as love and it's completely detached from.

I love that preference to be there. And I love to just witness it as arising, as the energy arising in the field of consciousness that I am. Because, you know, what we got, oh my goodness, is just so incredibly unthinkable compatibility, which I know that I've never...I've never seen a couple with this incredible compatibility and the joining and the friendships and lightness. I haven't seen anything like that. I haven't experienced anything like that either. So of course it's the best part of the dream. And naturally the love for the dreaming is for it to last. But naturally there is also a realization that this is just an energy form moving.

It arises and it fades. And still the space-like awareness, the pure emptiness that I am, would not have it any other way. I mean, look, nine years ago I was told that he's got a year or two so I can put my shipping career on, I was ship's officer for 17 years, put it on hold because I'll easily get back to it when he's gone. He was in such poor condition that it wasn't really... You know, it wasn't really plausible that he will last more than... I was hoping for three. But it's going to be our ninth anniversary soon, just around the corner. So I wouldn't have it any other way.

Although, of course, love arising as the gratitude for every eye contact and every cuddle and every kiss that is still there in him. And the joy of being, because this is also not impossible, that, you know, when you readNisar Gadatta who died of cancer or Rahman Maharshi who died of cancer. There was a time when medication wasn't that great. The pain was so excruciating that there was longing for death. No loving to be. Longing for death. Just because the pain, the body, the costume is naturally wired for pleasure, not for pain. So I do everything in my power to never put Bob behind that threshold.

So the loving to be is there because the pain is controlled as best as it can be. So if there is no pain, what's dancing away?And life, life is shining bright. We have recorded, I think I'm going to upload it on Bob's channel. Few people would be unhappy about it because he's in bed. The commentary to Sins in Ming that Aram has recorded 12 years ago and he transcribed it and he read it back to Bob. Beautiful, beautiful. So, because when Bob is not in the meeting, I'm not putting it on his channel because I want his channel clean. We did have the instances and that was probably a good six, seven years ago when people were recording him to get themselves promoted and they wouldn't put it on his channel, they would put it elsewhere.

I do have strong, strong, strong preference to preserve that message in a way that it has been transmitted and to not cloud it with ideas and concepts and keep it clean and simple, as simple, as clean as it is. Actually, what a joy yesterday to listen to Ram reading out Bob's translation in clear, unambiguous, plain language.Those lovely old sort of complicated but beautiful words that invite you almost to create a sort of a... Image in your head, don't they? They're lovely, but they do invite you to do that. But Bob then comes in and cuts it all out. And, you know, just this is the clear meaning of that paragraph, that statement.

And you could puzzle over some of them for years, right? But Bob comes in and just clears it all up. And so... So openly, it's just, wow. I'm not aware of anyone in the world who has that capacity. It's really, really something very, very, I want to say special. Bob will say drop that. It's beautiful. It's really beautiful. And he doesn't mind hearing that from time to time either. He likes hearing how great it is. I think he knows. He does. I think he knows. He doesn't take any credit for it. No. He knows that it's just life expressing itself. And yes, through being very blokey.

sailor, a shearer, a dumb builder, not sophisticated, attached to the intellect.Although I don't know that many people who would be that smart and who read that many books, but he just doesn't really go there. He doesn't really... Sedate himself with the big elaborated descriptions that people would have to contemplate for hours to unpack what this meant. No, just down to earth. And from experience. Absolutely. Actually, sorry, you make me laugh because As I travel a lot around Australia, I get to, you know, I've had times where I've been able to talk to Bob about it, and you just made me think, I wonder how Bob was talking to the sheep when he was shearing them, giving them lectures in non-duality.

Don't worry, you'll survive this, you know. It's not all really happening. It's not true. He would have been beautiful out there. The guys would have loved him. It would have, however, non-duality came much, much, much later. When he was shooting sheep, he was actually witnessing, and that was the darkest time of his life, the zoo nights and seeing people dying of alcoholism or dehydration. Literally, there were people dying in the shearing sheds. Not making it till the morning. So he was in his 20s and he was not to meet Nisargadatta for another 20 plus years. His life was absolute, absolute darkness.If they had a minute to, we would have been great.

Good to see you. So we have David also says there is always a lot of talk of love, but it has to be distinguished from the romantic or sentimental love that is limited and personal. That's not the love we speak of in my understanding. Spot on, David, absolutely. And I love that aspect of non-duality, which often is referred to as love. A lot of people who suffered a lot and who are looking for just peace, silence and relief from love would get worked out. I was even attacked once on the meeting when I mentioned it because there was a lady who was... So tormented that love was an offensive word for her.

But the way it is presented here is love is life and life is love. This is the essence, this is the animated life essence that expresses us everything. Violence is love. The offending someone or getting offended, ego, all of that is an expression of that love of life, love of being. The love to be expressing, experiencing itself as those vibrations of all of the different energies. And again, I think I've quoted...that Nisargadatta quote a few times when he says, I'm not going to be looking and doing it again, but when he says that, you know, what is the wisdom but love of the truth? What is the seeking for wisdom but not love of the truth?

What is the stealing and robbing but not love of the self, the self that wants to be safe, that wants to possess the friendship, the money, the safety, the security, all of it is love. It's just that love can be, the boundary can be put over that love that this is only about me, so I have to snatch from you, so it is me. This love is misguided, is limited, is kind of trapped in the conceptual boundary of I am separate self. But if that boundary is let go of, love is all there is, because there is no boundary, because there is only that one life experiencing itself as everything.

And try to really find the boundary. Bob often hammers it how the boundary cannot be found. Try to separate the body from the environment. Separate yourself from the air you're breathing. That's impossible. The moment the air is gone, the body drops dead. They're interdependent, interrelated. Try to stop replenishing water in the body. How quickly, how long it's going to last. Or, you know, drain it out right now. You're going to have a handful of ash. The body is 60.plus percent water or the earth or the space in it in in which everything appears there is no separation whatsoever separation is only conceptual overlay the boundaries are only imagined just like in the dream at night You may be running from the villain or you may be flying in the dream, but there is a point in consciousness that is running or flying.

It has seeming dream body there. It is not the same body that is lying on bed and have the eyes closed because in the dream there is a vision. That dream body can see. But we don't because the nature of the dream is such that this vehicle of experiencing isn't questioned as much as it has to be questioned in that so-called waking dream. So it doesn't have to be questioned because the boundaries are not that set. They're kind of fluid. Like, do you know the shape of your body when you are flying or running from a villain? No, you don't think about it. Do you even know your name, your label, or your past experiences?

Or do you know how you got there? No, this is all kind of fluid, same as a daydream, you know, when you're dreaming about lying in a beach or something. That capacity of setting the boundary, that identification with conceptual image isn't that strong. But in this so-called waking...dream, which Bob says the only difference between it and any other dream, a daydream or nightdream, is that every night you go to sleep and you wake up in seeming same environment. So you pick up where you left before. It's almost like you're watching a TV show. You watch a movie, you forget the movie, five years later you don't know.

But if you watch the TV show, you pick up every time where you left over. It kind of gets under your skin. It gets deeper. So that identification with the dream character becomes like a second skin. It becomes the first skin, really. It becomes the true reality for those who believe it. It isn't so, but it feels like it. It appears like it. So it has to be questioned. The boundaries have to be questioned. The boundaries of the body fairly easily, because everybody had a small body when they were born, and now they have a bigger body, and when they lose weight, the body gets smaller, and they gain weight, the body is changing constantly.

So there is something that can notice the changes, something aware of the changes, which obviously is changeless in relation to the body. Fairly easy to see that boundary to be false. But the boundary of conceptual image created in the mind, that is taken for granted and hardly questioned. But when it is questioned, okay, who do I think I am? I am a woman. No, that's abody identification. Yeah, but I'm Polish or Australian. Well, that's a concept. Okay, but is that true? Have a look at every identification, every label you put on yourself and see if that's true. Because it's super easy to see if you don't think that thought.

Are you still existing? If you don't think you are Australian or Greek or whatever, are you? You can see how the whole past, the whole costume of identification come in with thinking, with mental images. It doesn't exist when you don't think about it. But you exist, there is existence. Existence, presence is there. Even though the image, the imagination, the imagined boundary isn't. So that's again when Bob says, what's wrong with right now if I don't think about it? Pause the thought and see what's wrong. Nothing is wrong, but have you fallen apart? Did you disappear? Did hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, smelling stop? No, it hasn't.

So the existence, the being is still there, the cognizing emptiness or that pure singularity, pure existence is there without the image of me being limited, poor, miserable, human victim or whatever. Where is conditioning when you don't think about it? That's another question, Bob.often asks, where is your past when you don't think about it? That brings up the revelation that the past has been constructed right in this moment. Not really even remembered because as far as we know, we can go under a state of hypnosis. In a good day, we have the memory interpreted as positive. On a bad day, it is dreadful. So it's totally unreliable.

We can compare the memories with other people who participated in the same event and that again will reveal that memories are unreliable and most likely constructed, just improvised right in this moment. And this moment contains all the past and the future and the imagination. So this moment is so rich and the capacity for experiencing this moment on the mental level, physical level, on experiential sensory level is so rich. Then knowing it, there really is much, much less of a temptation of trading that unborn Buddha mind for a thought. Of choosing the story over what is happening. Choosing the, oh, the body is passing over the fact that no, the body is breathing.

So, and we have here, Joe says, your problem isn't that you love some part, but not others. Either love all of it or none of it. Bob said it to me. So true. And working on it. Thank you, Bob and Kat. Yes, Joe.That was another quote from Nisargadatta talking about dream is not your problem. It isn't. It isn't. It's no problem that the dreaming is happening. Life is experiencing itself through dreaming, through dreaming of boundaries and separation. And what an exquisite dream. It's not a problem at all. But yes, the problem is that you love some part of it, but not others. You love pleasure and you hate pain.

And that constructs the identity who is attached to pleasure and pain. And that is usually associated with the body-mind. Because life doesn't have preferences, the body-mind does. The body-mind of the animal has preferences. But the witnessing consciousness is aware of those preferences, but is not identified as eternally free from them. And Maggie says, oh, David says first, I love that as Bob's life was leaning, there is so much joy around the occasion. Yeah, life is still there. There is so much joy and gratitude that that life is there. What's going to happen when the life isn't animating that body anymore? We don't know. Maybe we fall apart.

Or maybe, like Bob, he says he hasn't been grieving Barbara. I don't know. And who cares? So Maggie says, Sailor Cat and Sailor Bob, the love that passes all understanding, yet is available to all who sail into your...presence thank you thank you thank you sending an amanda armada of love and deep gratitude to your way thank you maggie that is so beautiful i love it and david says yeah bob is very down to earth nevertheless his understanding is so incisive Incisive, incisive, that you can hear the genius of intelligence energy that could sound like intellect. Yeah. And I wanted to just mention, you know, Hsin Hsin Ming is a third, well, it is actually ascribed to third Zen patriarch of sixth century, because there are other sources ascribing it to Oxhead school and whoever wrote Hsin Hsin Ming, this is not a name, Hsin Hsin Ming is just the title, Fate of Mind or whatever.

It's beautifully clear, it's gorgeous. I came across when I was still sitting with different Zen sanghas because it's a Zen text, 6th century, at least, or maybe further, if there was a time in the dream, that's what it says. It's very inspiring and very clear. However, I have seen it, I have done it myself, sitting with the verses and contemplating, waiting for them to speak to me and to open up, looking for some mysterious meaning behind, looking for some koans there.not really being able to take it literally. And then, as you will hear, because I'm going to upload it on Bob's channel, as you will hear the verse of the text and Bob's down-to-earth interpretation, hey, don't assign any meaning here.

It was literal. It is just boom like this. It's just brilliant. It opens it up completely. There's no need for contemplation, none whatsoever. And Catherine says, James says, since Bob realized his true nature, he has dedicated the rest

of his life to help those who wanted to wake up to their true nature from the unnecessary psychological pain and suffering that we all experience while we are still sleepwalking. And because he knew that psychological suffering. And in my observation, you know, the people who come here are very, very often in the darkest night of the soul. And that's when liberation from the psychological suffering brings a lot of elation.

And then later on it just kind of goes down to the natural state. Natural state without arguing with life, wrestling with reality. That, oh, I have frozen shoulder, or I have toothache, or I shouldn't have, why me? No, that's just unnecessary. Why not me? Or my husband is dying. Why me? Why somebody else's husband isn't dying and mine is alive? It's just unthinkable. It's too ridiculous to entertain. Then you have the stick. Come on, give us a word. No? Oh, there we go. Then just a quick comment on what Kat was saying. Don't go anywhere, Dean. No. I was just thinking about love and, you know, what we were saying about love and romance.romantic love and all that.

You are love as much as you are the being. The loving is part of it. We can get confused about it, but all love, as you said, Kat, comes from that ananda, loving to be. And without that, there is no real love. That is what it's about. It's that love that shines out of you and everybody else eternally, whether they realize it or not. It is the being. And, you know, romantic love is that love too. It is that. It's just that... It gets applied to the personal, you know, and I think that's sometimes where it runs off the track is I want this relationship to go this way.

This would, you know, suit me better if they were more like this or I don't like them talking to other people or I'm jealous or I need more. That's all that. We're talking about loving life and loving everything in it. Loving of food is love too, but when it becomes gluttony, it's love of more and more. I've got to have more of this. I've got to have the food the way I want it, or sex the same. Beautiful sex is wonderful, but then it's about me. I want more. It's got to be more this than that. We start putting all sorts of...demands of the mind into the loving equation.

It's simple. And the thing about dreaming too that you were saying, Kat, you know, where is the body in a dream? We're not thinking about it or when we think about it, it seems to have an ethereal sort of quality in the dream. And yet in the waking life, it's the same. The body's not there unless you're thinking about it, really, or there's pain or sensation coming from it. You know, I'm sitting here talking and I don't think about the body much. And I say, oh, I've got to move my legs or something like that thought comes up. But all that, you know, conditioning, the mind, all that goes unless concentration is being put into it.I think in just being aware, you're sort of aware of the body, but it doesn't really take shape or form until the mind really starts imagining, where's my toe now, where's my hand, locating it in space.

Anything else from anyone? That is such a great point. It really is, because in direct experience, do you have the body unless you think about it? Where is your body unless you think about it? It's hard for people with pain, though, isn't it? Because pain seems to be there, but then again, it's concentrating on the pain, too, that makes it... And also, is there an experience of pain or is there an experience of the body being in pain? Because if it's just pain appearing in the sphere of awareness, rather than having that conceptual story, oh my God, it's my toe, I stabbed my toe, this is what's hurting, you actually kind of overlook the pain itself.

That may be just a really intense calling for the attention, for protection, which is a perfect part of functioning without which the life doesn't last. It needs it. But then the mind also says, oh, Don't think about the pain or something, isn't it? When you stub your toe, you go, oh, that's terrible. No, don't think about it. Don't think of something else. And then it's not so big, but it's interesting, isn't it?The conceptualization plays a part. And it may help too. It may help too. Intelligence of life actually regulates it. Sometimes distraction is perfect strategy. If you're looking at therapy, it's perfect. It just does the job.

And life self-organizes. It provides whatever is necessary. I'm a big movie fan. When I was going through a lot of darkness in the mind and trapped in stories that I didn't like, I'd find a perfect way out for me was to go to the movies and watch someone else's dream. Ross, as you were speaking, in Cat, a scene from Lawrence of Arabia popped up. Now there's a scene there where Lawrence is standing with a group of other soldiers and he's doing a trick. I think he lights a match and lets the match burn down or something and it burns the finger, but he shows no response.

And one of the guys watching tries it. And he goes, oh, he does it. Oh, that hurts, that hurts. And this guy's name is, I think it's William Potter or something like that. And he said, oh, that hurts. What's the trick? And Lawrence goes, the trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And the minding is the paying attention to the thoughts and going, oh, me, and then there's the me and I'm suffering. Yeah.It reminds me of Bob when we started doing a little bit of like just extra alkalizing of the body doing cold showers inspired by Wim Hof, the guy.

And Bob was saying, and again with his beautiful, simple Aussie bloke language, he says, you just watch the mind as it kicks the stink, ignore it and it will stop. As simple as that. He says for the first couple of showers, mind would kick the stink, he would ignore it and it would stop. It's just ignorance, ignore the mind instead of ignoring the reality. Every time I have a cold shower now, I smile because of the idea of mind kicking a stick. I'm not Aussie by birth, so even that slogan is funny. It's kind of visual, isn't it? Kicking a stick. What does it kick up a stick?

Yeah. And David says, yes, being loves being. And Bradley says the phenomena called Bob Adamson is evidence that sugar is not necessarily in order for the medicine to go down. Thank you, Bradley. That's beautiful. But it does help. Right? Because a good example is people going to...the gym and pushing weights or whatever. But because there's a sense of something, sugar, again, you push through the discomfort of the pain of the working of the muscle. But I don't know that that's... Yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's true. Self-organizing universe, you know. If the motivation is required, motivation arises. If the goal setting is required, the goal is going to be set.

If particular body is responding to, let's say, a vision of a future achievement, it will be provided. There is nothing right or wrong in the way that life functions. Some people will be motivated by very, very visual projection. You know, the law of attraction takes so much of a toll. There's so many people super attracted to that. And that's life too. There's no one there doing anything. It's just the moment you actually give credit where credit is due and see how the goal arises, how the choices arise, how decision arise. And there is no me to take credit for it. And it's just life following its urges.

The urge arises and the action happens. Different visions arrive for different patterns. Yes. I often think of people that are great pianists or composers spend hours at the piano or something like that. And there's something that...drives them to do that because you or I just wouldn't do it. Even though you think, oh, I could be a great composer or a great musician. If the drive and the ability weren't there, it wouldn't happen that way. That makes me think of when you talk about the gym and everything is that we exercise the body, which I did for a long time, but we don't learn how to exercise the mind.

You know, I do when I, you know, different sayings like, you know, every morning is fresh and new. I have a new, you know, when I train my mind in new thoughts. I mean, who's doing the training? Yeah, for sure. But I do love the thing of, you know, we learnt how to exercise our muscles and everything, but there was the biggest one up here that needed just so much. You know, in learning, in retraining, in retraining, if you want. But that's what's worked for me. That's what's worked for me. Coming here to Sailor, listening to Sailor Bob when I first came, it was rewiring.

For me, it was a rewire, and it still is today. It's a constant. But the mind is so tricky. That I've got to constantly do it. Whereas your muscles, you can do it, get a muscle, you can't stop. You've got to, well, it's the same thing. You've got to keep going. You've got to keep going. The mind is tricky. You'll wake up the next day and it'll have a new story. And what I love to do with a story, when I'm having the drama, I forgot to do it last week, but most weeks when I'm having that story, I pick some famous actors. You know, I get Meryl Streep and Al Pacino and, you know, and I see, I close my eyes and I see them.acting it out and I go, oh God, gee, that's a drama, let's drop it.

It looks really ugly in a set. It's like, oh no, I don't want to be a part of that. I don't want to be a part of that. But it makes me laugh. And I always remember Kat when I rang, when I had the voices in my head. Somebody said to me the other day, I said I had these voices and they said, oh, you're schizophrenic. I don't know. I don't know, but I've got plenty of voices. But I always remember Kat when he said to me, just turn it into Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse. So, you know, the voice is going, he shouldn't, you know, he shouldn't have done this, he shouldn't have said that.

And I've got Donald Duck going, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. Gone. It just dies because you start laughing. You laugh at it. And somebody else said, and it might have been you, Kat, you said, you know, put it in Chinese. If it's in Chinese, you're not going to understand what that voice is. You don't know what it's telling you. How brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I love it. I just love it. Thank you. Tanya? It's literally just, in other words, it's just sound. Yeah, just like music coming in and going out. It's not sound, not words. Yeah, yeah. It's because we attribute a meaning to it, right?

We do, we do. And we think it is my voice. It is me saying. This is I instruct myself. I judge myself. But it is arising. It's just arising the same way as the traffic sound is arising, as anybody else's conversation is arising. You can hear that inner voice just the same way you can hear any other sound. How is it yours? And if it's not yours, how does it matter?But you're right, the mind is, you know, it's a thought to say the mind is tricky, but like one of Bob's pointers is, you know, the only thing the mind needs to know is that the answer's not in the mind.

Yes. Right? Yes. And drop it. And then full stop. Don't get caught up in those concepts of explaining this, explaining that, because, yeah, it can go on and on and on. The mind's a thief is another one I've heard. The mind's a thief. It will take you away from just the awareness. Well, it can't really take you away from awareness, but it takes all the concentration into the mind. It takes attention. It takes the attention into the mind, and the story evolves into multifacets and takes you down all these paths, and you go wandering around in it for ages, and you forget about all the other senses, you know.

Yes. Of painting, drawing, dancing. Oh no, I'll just sit here and think this through. I will sit here and think, oh, I did it again the other day. I'll think my way out of it. And I'm missing out on the here and now, you know, on the seeing, touching, hearing, playfulness. All of a sudden you're daydreaming. Again. Yeah. And by all means, you know, you say about the mind training, if the life is inspiring anyone to train the mind, you know, jogging trains the mind. Learning.Foreign language trains the mind. Meta-meditation or compassion trains the mind. As long as the trap of falling into this is, I, I'm doing it, I'm better than you, you should be doing it too.

No, there is no I. There is just life creating the urge. Like, oh, I'm going to learn how to do French cooking or learn how to drive the jet plane. Whatever, this is all mind training. Or I'll learn mindfulness. This is also mind training. Training the machinery, training, like programming the computer to work more efficiently. Absolutely no one would ever dare to discourage in non-duality circle anyone from following the urge. It's just to recognize that that urge is given by life. It's life in itself that makes you attracted to particular discipline or maybe even, you know, like a focus training. It's wonderful. Life is more pleasant when you have skills, when you have life skills, you know, when you know how to drive the car.

Follow those urges because that is life itself. Absolutely. It's taking you on that journey through all these experiences and what you need to learn for them and what you don't. Unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. Yeah, leave everything as it is, including responses to situations. You know, like let's say the situation, the life.push the button and the body is, you know, like the bull responding to the red blanket. You know, a bull doesn't have sense of self, and yet the response arises. The same way in this body there may be something that triggers it, and the response will arise. There is, you know, the misconception that once you grasp that there is no self, you automatically overnight become a saint, and you're never angry.

That's just completely, completely impossible. It's a false advertising. So the responses arise, but again, if you are able to just be that witnessing presence, step back and witness the body responding to the trigger and see and learn and be amazed how the body is responding to the trigger. Because is it me? Let's say someone pushed my button and I swear at them or offended them. Is it really me doing it? This body has been created by the environment right from or even before it was even out of the womb. It was conditioned by the environment to respond in a particular way. So now, in this moment, if the response happens, it's the whole universe responding.

Because all the forces that created that pattern of response are the whole universe. So I haven't done it. I doesn't exist. I is a mental image that is a function of taking credit for the whole universe.But if that function is switched off and no one takes credit, it's still just life itself. Even if response may be judged by some internet trolls as not perfect or maybe... That's life too. That's life too, absolutely. And now we have a couple of more comments. Marty says, the only thing that can ever trouble you is your own imagination. Absolutely. That's one of Bob's favorite squats from Nisargadatta. And that's such a beautiful depiction of the reality.

Absolutely. Thank you, Marty. It's just imagination, isn't it? Totally. And you don't even own it. It's just imagination happening and you respond to it and fall into the... Fall into the story about it. Past and future is imagination. Conceptualizing, contextualizing is imagination. This is all that cognitive capacity of human could be summarized as imagination because their mental image is constructed around whatever is happening. Observation and then the commentary starts on the observation. That's it. And no one's doing it. And David says, regarding William Potter's story, J. Krishnamurti said, I don't mind what happens. Yeah, and Julia, American Julia says, the stories can happen. The problem happens when they are believed.Yeah, because straight away the common idea of me that is believing a story.

If the energy just somehow perpetuate the story, but there isn't a conceptualized me who has a problem with that, then the story is not a problem in itself. Only when the belief and then the believer, the subject and object division happens. The thinker is a thought. Yeah. When you realize that I'm thinking this is just another thought. That's right. Which can be let go of too. It's... Yeah. It's... And we have, Marty also says, non-duality is really an ending of all understanding. You are not left with a philosophy, but no thing. Brilliant, absolutely. Non-duality, you know, like Bob put a starter. What is non-duality? That's how we start the meeting.

What is the non-duality? It's a concept, it's a thought, it's an idea. But what is that idea pointing to? It is pointing to the fact that, of course, there is nothing, absolutely nothing required. Not even, although Nisargadatta used that concept, an understanding or a right understanding is all, that this is everything. But understanding for who? It is the I-N-G, the oneness of being, loving, understanding, whatever is the I-N-G on it, contains everything. It's the emptiness appearing, expressing.experiencing itself as the form, as the pattern, as a vibration, as a sound, as a thought, as an image, as a body, as a story. Non-duality means not two, means one, means not even one.

Not even one. It's not a philosophy, definitely. So that's that for the online comments.Empty space representing Dean. You can see the top of his head over there. I think Dean's meditating. Is he? He's preparing something. Cooking something. No, Dean is a fantastic cook. He's cooking ham hocks for Bob. And he's got a lot of amazing skills. And this is life itself, expressing and experiencing itself as Dean. Empty chair or the Dean watching Bob sleep.And we have another 20 minutes, but we do not necessarily have to use up all the time. If we run out of topics, there is no set format. If we have a group of people, we could get into a big discussion.

But if we are happy, we could just wrap it up. No need to waste words. No, no. What's wrong with writing? Yeah, that's all I was going to say in the first place. We've fleshed it out a bit. I think, yeah, beautiful. Yeah, we could just leave the empty chair speak and then just wrap it up. And thank you everyone who contributed online. And David says here, artists use imagination. Imagination as a tool to be used is fine. Being used by imagination is not fine. That's perfect. That's perfect. Yes, Bob often says also, mind is a fantastic tool to be used. It's a brilliant instrument to be used by being used by it, like putting it in charge.

You know, as they say, the ancient text is a wonderful servant, but horrible master. It really is a wonderful servant, including narrative, including the little blah, blah, blah commentary, which is super entertaining if you don't believe it. Especially when it complains. It's super fun. We always laugh. I needed that reminder. Yeah. You've made me laugh. You can hear me. Thank you. The chair can hear me.This is really that part of Bob and our life together, which I cherish probably the most, although there would be a lot more to say about it. We laugh a lot. And one of the biggest sources of a heartfelt laughter is sometimes amplifying that commentary that is complaining.

Because we don't believe the complaint. And a complaint will be, oh, it's windy. Yeah, yeah, oh my God, it shouldn't be. And it's just too funny to actually hear how this instrument, always looking for problems, always trying to predict what is going to go wrong. Did you hear me this morning? I had the car, the wind. I hate wind. And then I let it go, it dropped, and I didn't notice it anymore. You know, the commentary came in. And the thing is, you know this is all love, obviously. I mean, who would be there complaining that the situation is less than perfect if there wasn't a loving care for that experiencing vehicle, for that life experiencing itself as the pattern, which of course it loves and cares, it loves to be, so it only wants pleasure, abundance, love and everything.

So the complaint that, oh, I would do with a little bit more of whatever, sugar or a little bit more of appreciation or a little bit more of, that's love. But it sounds like a complaint. And once you see it for...You just can't help but have time of your life just enjoying, laughing at it. The complaint is, who's that famous poet, Kabir, maybe? Kabir, no, me. Yeah, one of those guys says something like, you know, I don't want to be sugar. I want to eat sugar. Right? Love it. Yeah, but you have no choice but just be what you are. Even if you are imagining you are not, well, that's just life.

It's just life pretending. Seeing the reflection of itself. That is how life assumes form so it can reflect each other and reflect itself of the 10,000 things, which is also. Life itself. I think, I was just going to say, I think when I came here to Bob's many, many moons ago, I think the beauty that I always loved was the laughter. I would tell him stories, you know, the stories that were going on in my head and he would be laughing, a big smile would come and it would help me. The story would drop because I'd have this beautiful man smiling at me and I'd start to smile and go, and I'd forget, I'd go, what's the problem?

You know, it's just this yakety yakety. I had the same experience. I used to ring Bob with my problems and I'd be going on about something and I'd hear him start laughing and then it would immediately start falling away and I'd think, yeah, what are we talking about? Yeah, that's it. We take it so seriously. We take it so personally. And I loved what I just heard when you were talking about love and compassion, and it's all about love and compassion, because we were talking the other day about, for me anyway, patience and tolerance. Patience and tolerance, that's love and compassion. Love and compassion. Stop looking at the word patience and tolerance.

Maybe love and compassion is so much more simpler. I can't do them all. I can't do all four or five. I can do one.You know, love. Love. If I do that, it all works. It's good, isn't it? Humour reminds us it's all a joke. It's all a joke. And luckily you don't have to do any of it. You just recognize it's already here. Yeah, who has to be patient? Who has to be tolerant? You recognize that the patience, the tolerance, the love, everything's already here. Once you relax out of the story, it is already here. Everything is already present. You are being, you are conscious of being, you are happy to be.

There is love and patience. Everything's already present. Whatever you're looking for is already here and that you are. It's just recognition. That is the beauty of the message. There is nothing to be achieved in future. Of course, the mind will be training, learning. That's just a part of the form going through seeming time in the dream. But everything that is ever needed is already provided is to be recognized only. Yeah. Bob is still sleeping. I was actually hoping that he will wake up and he will say hi, but yes, he had such a beautiful, big, fantastic few days with friends. We just got it. And the night wasn't that great.

We woke up a few times through the night, so yeah, we'll just let him sleep. Yeah. A beauty sleep. Mm-hmm. Perfect. Yeah, so I'll see if there is anyone else and leave it.And I think that's a good hint to just wrap it up. Leaving group now. Thanks for another beautiful meeting. And that was David. And Maggie says, thank you for another wonderful online chat. That's from Maggie. Yes, so thank you. That's probably a perfect time to just wrap it up. And thank you for contributing. Thank you for being with us. And lots of love to everyone.