This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
And this, as usually, is a beginning of the... Yes, I think there are no new faces as far as I see now. Everyone was here before. So you know the drill. We would like to invite someone who... Feels like giving us an introduction. Anyone would like to try how this is going to express through you, how it is going to flow, what pointers, what ideas? Anyone?15, 20 minutes, just whatever you understand, really, really understand directly, which pointers really bring you home. Bob's pointers, we don't focus on any other styles of teachings just to avoid the confusion. Nope. Oh, me. I don't know. Maybe let... I feel quiet now.
Oh, good. Yeah. Okay, so, yeah. Oh, I don't know.Yeah, up to you. If not, fine. I'll do it. So, it's non-duality, roughly, meaning there is only one. There is only just that one essence. Pointing out that any sense or any appearance of duality is just the appearance. So, they point to it in many different ways. I'm just going to change Bob's name to Tanya here. In many different systems or religions or traditions because it is one life so it's one self-organizing life and through the christianity they are talking about omnipresence omnipotence omniscience they're talking about the holy spirit being acting power of god and the god and the sun which is the the essence the consciousness and the and the embodiment are all one the same we can find in in in a Taoism saying there is only an aspect static aspect and the dynamic aspect of the one in Hindu we have Shiva Shakti again slightly different feminine masculine are opposite in this in this presentation but generally thousands of thousands of years it has been pointed out in many many different ways that there is only one one without the other one without the second great perfection non-conceptual awareness or sat chitanandabeing, knowing, loving to be, are three aspects.
Again, we have two aspects in some of the presentations, three aspects in the other. I mean, static dynamic or knowing, being, loving, or omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. So generally, it all points out how many words has been used to point out to the fact that there is not two. Not two means non-duality, advaita, not two. It doesn't say there is one, although we often use that concept of oneness or absolute or totality. But it isn't really even one because one begs for the space in which the one appears. And one cannot be distinguished from anything that is apart or around because there isn't any. So it isn't even one.
It's a potentiality for everything. But not even one. It's not zero, it's not nothing, but it's the no thing. It's not a thing, because it's a potentiality for the infinite amount of things, of the expression of everything. So nothing with the potential of everything. And this is what you are, because if everything is that, then who or what could not be that? Who or what could be excluded away or apart? So everything is that.And Mahavakya is the great mantra, something that has been pointed out through centuries as well, that Mahavakya says it all and it says you are that, or it says that you are, really, that you are.
And that is the only fact. Everything else is a belief. That you are is an unquestionable fact upon which all the other stories, ideas and concepts have been laid and obscuring it and hiding it. Covering it up like clouds covering up sky, but that you are is the only known, is the only absolute. You know with the absolute confidence, you know with the 100% certainty that you are. Because even to see how well you know it, you have to be first. So being is the fact, being is primary, is prior to everything else. And that being we are pointing back to. And that being, again, in different languages, in different ways of presenting, is expressed in different words.
And we may like some words more than the others. But those words are only pointers, they're only to invite the resonation, only to bring about the reminder. Reminder back.point back to the fact of existence, the only real fact. So that we know, but it gets forgotten. Why? Because it gets obscured. By what? By thinking, ideas, concepts. You can see you wake up first thing in the morning and the attention flows to the ideas. It flows to the objects of perceptions. It names, labels objects of perceptions. It establishes relationship with the objects of perception with what? With you, with I, with me. And that I or me is also an idea.
And that idea has been implemented with language. That beautiful metaphor of losing the paradise is the metaphor of losing the sense of non-separation, the oneness with the whole environment, just being one. nature, one could say part of nature, but it's really a totality of nature. Whilst when the language has been learned, the knowledge of the tree of good and evil has been imparted to humans, the differentiation started. This is good, this is evil. This is black, this is white, this is me, this is not me. And if that is not me, if I am separate, if I am some,something that is vulnerable, away from the world.
World is dangerous. Now I have to protect myself somehow. I'm responsible for my own safety. Even though in nature, those survival mechanisms are provided without any need for narrating them or bringing them to the point of being just a nuisance commentary going on all the time. But with humans it happened this way. The reasoning capacity, which is not entirely wrong, is not the enemy, reasoning capacity which gave us a great advantage as a species, That is the language, that is the narrative, that is the commentary. Brought a great possibilities evolutionarily, brought the advancements in evolutions, but also brought the byproduct, the definition of oneself, which necessarily is limited to define anything out of the totality you have to draw the boundaries for that so the boundaries of me or i are usually the boundaries of the skin you know i'm here inside and outside is not i and obviously now that iAnd again, Bob presents it beautifully.
It's a different level of vulnerabilities in that eye. You know, if the little child is growing in a supportive environment, in a warm and loving family, it will have fairly healthy, limited view of itself, but it will be fairly functional self-representation or conceptual image. This is I, I have this talents and this limitations. And people who live out there without any... desire, born without any desire to inquire and learn the truth, can travel quite smoothly if there is not excessive amount of misprogramming of trauma and other malfunctions in that biocomputer, meaning excess amount of psychological suffering. Excess amount of self-centeredness. But for those who did have it a little bit tougher, usually not as warm and not as loving the family, trauma, abuse, neglect, whatever it may be, or it might have happened later, those body minds get the conditioning in.which there is usually a lot of existential angst, a lot of psychological suffering, inferiority, sense of unworthiness.
And that very quickly become the seed for the search because naturally every body every object in nature is conditioned to survive and to thrive so it will want to be it loves to be and it loves pleasure it prefers pleasure to pain so Now, search starts. If I am inferior, if I am poor, miserable little me that is not good enough, or there is not loved, or is not respected, or hate myself, or whatever is the story, then of course I would try and liberate myself from pain, maybe through drugs, maybe through alcohol, maybe through some self-hypnotism that I'm wonderful and psychopathy will develop or whatever, whatever the case.
Or the spiritual search may pause some promise for completion, for some greater state or some superiority achieved by the me in a special state called enlightenment. So that's how usually the search starts. Of course, that's not every case. Every case is uniquely different. But the common denominator is the sense of luck and looking for the sense of completion.And that completeness is to be found through achieving some state which was promised by religions or union, cosmic union with God or divine or... Finding my own true self or love or heart. There's tons of concepts. And those concepts perpetuate the search. And then as life unfolds, as the whole seeming adventure of the dream character moving through time continues, it might stumble upon the ideas which are completely pointing beyond the ideas, beyond the mind.
And if that so happened, we find ourselves here in this room, whichever room you are in, in a Zoom room. This is the point where we are looking beyond the ideas, when we use the ideas to point beyond words, beyond mind. When there is no promise of any achievement, there is no promise of superior state which will complete you. There is no promise of ending incompleteness or sense of insecurity or finding the higher self or cosmic union we've got. None of it. There is absolutely nothing on offer here. The only thing that is on offer is the freedom from misconceptions. So we are looking at the wrong concepts.
Starting, we can question the whole world. We can question every concept in the world.But we can also start from much, much, much simpler end of a stick and question the I that everything else relates to. So if we question, is there a self that is incomplete? Is there a self that suffers? Is there a self that thinks, that has free will, that makes choices or decisions, that gets it wrong, that makes mistakes, that is guilty, that is remorseful or shameful? Is there a self at all? Is there anyone there, anyone home? Is there anyone who is doing the seeing? And then we look and the way Bob is pointing at it, he says, you are being lived.
Look if that is truth or not. Look if you are doing any of the things that you claim you are doing. If you have any powers that you claim that you may have, that you were conditioned to believe that you have. See if you have the power to think. See if you can think only positive thoughts for 24 hours. Or see if you can stop thinking for 24 hours. If you have any power over thinking at all. And you will find out that, whoops, nope, there is no power. I don't even know what I'm going to think in one hour or tomorrow. Or what's my next thought going to be.
So you realize that the thinking just happens, the thoughts just arising, no one does the thinking. In the same way as no one does the breathing, no one does the heartbeat, no one moves the blood through the veins.and heart. No one expands and contracts the heart or the lungs or grow the hair, digest the food, sweat the skin. There is no one doing anything. It's life self-organizing. No one creates the cyclones. No one erupts volcanoes. There is no big daddy in the sky who is responsible for all that power. There is omnipotence. Not omnipotent daddy, but the omnipotence, the only, the one power that is unlocated, that is right here, and that is everywhere, because everywhere is just here.
Everything that happens, happens within that here, within that consciousness of here now. That imagined self also happens within that scope of here now. And we can see how that imagined self, how that imagination even happened. You can see again, losing the paradise, learning words, defining things, defining this is the world, this is mama, this is papa, this is I, this is me. Bob brings an example of a little Johnny. I am a little boy. Everybody calls me little Johnny, so that's who I am. But that's not good enough. That doesn't really describe accurately the marvel of existence. If I say I am cut, I'm a woman, I'm from Poland, it feels fake.
It doesn't feel right. This is not who I am. I'm so much more than that.And what I am, I can keep describing and I can speak for hours about whatever happened, whichever schools, teachers, lessons I could, you know, but none of it will even come close to the mystery that aliveness is in itself. But this is as close as the mind can get to the sense of presence. It translated through the thought as I, I am. So I am, and now goes the descriptions. I am this, I am tall or short or fat or slim or stupid or ugly or whatever the concept is. But again, if we look within and see if there is any I who has all those descriptions, to who those descriptions apply, we may find out that there isn't one.
We may find out that whatever I think I am is just a thought. And who is thinking that thought? We just look into it and we see there is no one thinking. If there is no one thinking, there is no one describing. So descriptions just appear as every other thought appear. There is a space of here now. There is that one life which is beating the heart, growing the hair. seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling through that body-mind organism which dreams for itself or whichgrew in time for itself whichever whichever pointer is more accurate in the moment so that one life experiencing and expressing as the body as the programming of the body which is the mind which is the thinking and as the content of the thinking as every single thought whether energetically charged whether believed in or not is still the same essence is still the same energy just the same way as one energy can fuel the tesla car and can fuel the rocket to the moon and it can fuel the computer and the and the lamp and anything and everything So that one energy, we can call it sun.
That's another way of using it. If not for the sun, no energy, no light would be available. But at the same time, if not for earth, it wouldn't be available either. If not for I am, none of that would be experienced as well. So that energy, rather than isolating it, separating it and calling it something in particular, that energy is the totality. That's the pure potentiality expressing us things, as movement, as sounds, as light, as physical objects or imagined objects or mental images, dreams, waking dreams. It is just that one life.And there is many, many ways of looking at it to actually see it. But the first and the most important question, is there anyone that does the looking?
Who is looking? Who wants to know? What is it that is really desired? And then if there is a desire for freedom or if there is desire for end of the suffering, if there is desire for pleasure or constant ecstasy or God, who is there that has the desire? Is there anyone there? Does there have to be anyone there? If the seeing is happening, does there have to be a seer that does it? And then Bob has this beautiful, simple way of inquiring. Close your eyes and see if the thought eye can actually see. And you will realize that no. You say, I am seeing.
This is I. I'm looking. I'm seeing. I can choose what I'm looking at. And then you close the eyes and you see that that eye can't do anything. It's just a translation. There's no one there. Seeing is happening through the eyes, obviously. The content of seeing, the movement of attention is happening according to the one field. Your attention will naturally move if there is an explosion next to you.That's where attention will automatically go. Attention may be going to the words being spoken or it may go to objects that are interpreted as threatening or interpreted as pleasurable. Attention will be moving according to the requirement of environment and the conditioning of the body because those are not two either.
There is just the movement of energy. There is no one who moves the energy. There is no one who witness the movement of energy. There is just a witness ink, see ink, hear ink. And we can see taking it even on the just believing, even just experimenting, believing, could that possibly be true? That nobody does anything and yet the earth is moving around the sun. Well, could that possibly be true that nobody is thinking and yet there are words being spoken?And then you can just keep looking and prove it to yourself with open mind. Prove it to yourself. Initially, it feels like there is an eye who does investigate.
There is an eye that is checking or the eye that is looking only to see that there is nothing to be found. But there is no eye looking. There is no I looking for I. There is no self anywhere at all. If the looking happens, that's again the looking, the seeing. There is no one doing this. If the breathing happens, there is no one doing the breathing. If a raining happens, there is no one raining. There is nothing raining. It's just happening. And that is also direct experience. Indirect experience, direct meaning uncontrived, meaning unaltered by the thought, unmodified by the thought, untranslated, non-interpreted. The direct experience prior to any concepts that we put on them is always singular ink happening, unfolding.
The being is singular. There is no one there who does it. There is no one on the receiving end or on the giving end. Seeing, hearing, tasting, thinking, speaking, listening, hearing, movement of attention, all of it is just a happening, simple functioning.Seeing that this is so, now whatever appears in the content will get the attention according to the conditioning. And the witnessing will be just amazed by learning about this particular piece of instrument. How does that behave within that field of knowing? What is that going to say next? What is that going to think? How is that going to respond? And this is a completely different mode of living.
This is a mode of living where nothing is personal. When life is a discovery, when it isn't even learning because there is no one who learns anything, but it is a discovery. It is an amazement in finding out what's the next thing that's going to unfold. How is it going to resolve itself? How is it going to change? Because obviously nothing stays the same. If anything would stay the same, there would be nothing. The whole manifested world, the whole dualistic manifestation is a vibration, and vibration is a change. So realizing that you are the changeless space-like awareness, you are the field in which all the expression happens.
And even that is just a pointer because the content of space isn't separated, cannot be separated from the space. So you are the content as well.Space is like a light going through the projector. It creates the movie. the moving picture but you are that light and that light does not exclude the movie it is it is everything's included in that light of aliveness everything is included the part the particular dream character is included the story the past, the future, the thinking, the imagination, the dreams, all of it is included. So that you are the totality, the emptiness in its primer, unmodified or uncontrived way, and also that same emptiness vibrating into the forms, but not just one particular form.
But just the capacity to vibrate. So every thought, every image, every perception, every sound, every vibration, everything that happens within that field is part of that field. It is that field, really. It's like you can't remove reflections from the mirror. You can, you know, without the reflections, you wouldn't know there is a mirror. They are interdependent. Same the emptiness and the expression, the form are interdependent. None of that would be, could be known without the other. So they really... interdependent, interrelated andinseparable they really are one they really are yin and yang static and and dynamic or consciousness and the content shiva and shakti and that you are that you are without the thought You wouldn't know you are Shiva or Shakti because those are thought.
You wouldn't know you are form or emptiness because those are thought. But you could not deny the fact that you are. Without the concept, singular, non-conceptual, ever-fresh presence awareness, just this and nothing else, this is the direct experience prior to the translation into a story, into descriptions. And that you are, that presence awareness, and that you can't deny. Of course, again, words you can't deny. But not the fact of being. The being is undeniable. And that's where we start. You are undeniably already that being, that presence, that awareness. And see how you lose sight of it. Why you lose sight of it, how the attention gets diverted from that miracle of existence, from that clear, radiant, luminous aliveness.
How it gets trapped in the appearance, in the illusion.in the maya in the phenomena and that's nothing wrong with that the phenomena is there to for for expression for appreciation it's nothing wrong with that but if all of the attention is trapped then of course there is no Well, there is psychological suffering. If all of the attention is trapped in the phenomena, particularly in the illusion of being separate, then there is a psychological suffering. If some of the attention is free, is released from that thinking, from that belief in self-center, from that sense of self-obsession, that attention will marvel. That amount of that free attention is that free attention which which is there to actually is the is the one um how they say it one open eye of a shiva looking and just seeing reflection of itself in the form the emptiness seeing itself in the form So it is about relaxing the attention.
It is about returning or releasing some of that capacity for knowing from the trap of belief in the reality of thought. In the reality of conceptual image.that I am limited, I am this or that, I am unlovable, I have to achieve something in future, I have to become someone later, right now I'm not good enough. Oh yes, I get it intellectually, but I'm not really experiencing it. Of course you are, you're experiencing the existence. You may think that there is something more or something better. Than this, but there isn't. It doesn't ever get any better than fully confidently knowing that you are. It gets obscured.
It gets neglected. It gets ignored. And that's the only problem. So we bring the attention back to the radiance of existence and relax the attention out of the story, of the concepts, of the problems, of the importance. Of how real the problems are, the survival of the body, the promotion, the career, the absence of health or absence of money or any other problems that feel urgent and pressing to me, for me. Seeing if there is enemy because if there isn't all those problems they are bound to resolve one one way or the other and ultimately they will all end when the dream ends they will all end every night when you go to sleep and they will all end when the body drops dead sonot that important.
It's much, much more important to realize that aliveness that you are, that essence, that energy, the energy field cannot be destroyed. So whether the body will get the money or promotion or partner or health or not is secondary. To the fact that you are already this radiant, luminous life, the essence of existence. And that realization is present already, it's just obscured. So relax the obscuration.What's hiding it? What's standing in the way? What idea is there to object to it? I would like to invite everyone to contribute. To say how it works for you, what is clear about it and what is hiding it, what is standing in the way, what does need dispelling or shedding a light, what perhaps even just knowing that machine, body-mind machine, through which the energy is experiencing and expressing itself, knowing what dysregulates that machine, what sets this off, and desensitizing, because automatically it creates Any sense of threat creates trauma because this is me.
I'm in danger. I'm going to die. I'm going to get harmed. That who you are can never get harmed. Even if the body gets humiliated, that I can never, that sense of presence can never be touched. I see there's one comment on the screen here. Jenny says, wow, so enjoy listening to you, Spilo. Thank you, Jenny. Spill ink. Cut. And Jace's post.somehow to get access to the recording of this intro. Gosh, I always like to invite people to record on their own devices. Technically, we can upload it. Yes, I agree, Jenny says. Technically, we can upload it. Okay, okay, I'll do that. Okay. But yeah.
Anyone would like to contribute, ask questions? Yes, I would. First of all, I just thank you if you would upload this. This was like being showered. Being showered in nectar or something very beautiful, very precious. It was so really profound. And you are on a roll. Because on Sunday, I listened on your Sunday meeting. Spiel 2 and that too was so, so beautiful, so Yes, so...Wow. You know, when you sometimes, I don't know, this is such a weird thing that came to mind, but you know, when you sometimes eat these types of bread where there are a lot of grains in them and nuts and seeds, and they are so dense.
And when you take a little taste of it, you have so many sensations in your mouth and you can sense all of it. And just a few bites, you're so full. And that is how I feel now after listening to your spiel. And the way you came full circle, beginning and ending with the only thing that we actually do know is that we are right here, right now. That to me is always the point where I fall back to is that that I do know. And also this profound question, am I really doing anything of anything that is happening in my life?And when you spoke about the different reasons of starting on this journey, on this path, on this, what I sometimes call striptease, stripping away concepts and false beliefs, which it kind of is, you know.
And it's actually not a stupid analogy or way of describing it because we are born naked. You know, we are born naked. So we and then we start to put on clothes, layers of concepts and beliefs and ideas and. And those clothes vary depending on where we live, which culture we grow up in. Some are more colorful than others. Others are more rigid and more softer. And we have different relationships to all our concepts and all our beliefs.But one thing that we do know is that we, underneath all of those concepts, underneath all of this clothing, all the makeup, all the whatevers, I mean, we are all the same.
And if we strip it down another layer, you know, we are naked. And then if we strip away the skin. Then we see that we don't have color anymore. Where there's nobody black or white or green or yellow or whatever. And if we strip away the fact, the superficial fact under the body, then we see that the muscles come out and then, you know, the bones. And if we go in on the... Even stripped down even more, we get in on a cellular level and we see that we all are those little cells, we all are skin cells, muscle cells or whatever cells, you know, and then if we go into the cells, we see that we are all the particles in the cells and then when we come to the nucleus and then we come blah blah blah, go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and then eventually we see that we're nothing.
You know, so. I guess that's what's coming out of my mouth. And as little as I had to do with the buildup of all of this, I guess as littlelittle there is any eye that has to do with anything that's going on. So, yeah, I don't know where that came from, but that just came out now, the striptease. That was so much fun. It was really cool. That was really good. And, you know, it took me back to the biblical description of Adam and Eve. Naked. Naked, living in paradise. In the Garden of Eden naked, but then they ate of the tree of knowledge. And what is that?
That's the word. That's language that underlines all the thoughts, all the concepts. And then, you know, They clothed themselves in shame and, you know, were thrown out of the Garden of Eden, but they had their knowledge, right, with their words and their concepts. And Bob talks about that, you know, it's fundamentally important to recognise that, you know, in the beginning was the word, started all of it. And, you know, preconceptually, infants are perfectly naturally functioning intrinsically and instinctively. Then the word and we have all our concepts and you're absolutely right it's a beautiful striptease yeah it's a beautiful striptease yeah yeahHow great. Yeah, it's a brilliant metaphor because it really is.
And often we often point out in the meetings that it isn't really about gaining anything. It is about losing the misconceptions. It's about throwing away, just, yes, discarding the lies. Just like that metaphor of the doll made of salt, I think, in Hindu scriptures. Every time it gets in contact with the truth, it's like dipping in the ocean. And a little layer of that melts away until it melts away completely into the ocean. That it has never, ever been separated. It only appeared or it seemed to be so. Striptease, I love it. We're going to title the talk Striptease. Yeah, no, because, you know, I think one of the concepts with the striptease just came because that's also, if we look upon it as a striptease, then it is a little bit easier to grasp that we already are what we are looking for.
You know, that concept that, you know, that we are looking for something outside of ourselves or to gain something through something outside of ourselves. But in essence, it's about, you know, taking away layer and layer and layer and layer. I'm not going to make it in the house, girls. You know, my place.I must still be obeying because I'm walking around the house naked all the time. I've never grown up, have I? I thought that's my thing. Yes, I am. We're having a heat wave here, so I just kind of felt that I'm maybe a little bit too naked myself. But it's really hot. We have air conditioning running and it's still really, really hot here in Australia.
But yes, it is discarding. It is removing. Yes, Jenny. Oh, I was just going to say, you're absolutely, you have plenty clothes. I think I remember I sat once in my bikini, I think, but it was summer here. So, I mean, I don't think anybody minds. And if then it's there is nobody that can buy. And again, of course, this is, yes, everybody was born naked and we did not have concept that there is anything wrong with that. All right. It's just the ideas that were added. Yeah. One of the ideas, you know, the tree of good and evil, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Being covered is good, being naked is evil, but then depends on the culture, you know, in some culture.you gotta cover your face in another culture you gotta follow your hide your ankles in yet another culture hide your breasts and they are just socialization they are just social conventions but yes we are conditioned to avoid rejection so to some level we may stretch the system depends on the rebelliousness in particular conditioning in particular body-mind machine But generally, majority would not stretch it too high. I mean, Jesus probably didn't enjoy being hung on the cross and not necessarily any of us would want to. But part of showing up in public space means that inevitably is going to be a case.
And so be it. And we have Stephen has the hand up. Would you like to unmute Stephen? Yeah, thanks for your talk, Kat. That was great. And what I really, really liked was the talk about it being we're not part of nature, but we are nature. It's all the thing. And there's no big daddy in the sky who's going to... Beat us up because that would be like a separation or something.So I've got something come up on my screen. I'll just cancel that. And yeah, because I got caught up in something the other day and masses of thinking about me, you know, absolutely really. And it was like drunk on thought.
It's just because it just happened. Let's say and noticing how isolating that is, because it's like all the people I'm around who I've been with for 14 or 15 years, it's like they've just been met, you know, and this me is actually focused on itself, totally isolated. Got to fix it. Well, how am I going to do it? I'm going to have to just go up and do other things. Then nothing's really happened. Nothing's really gone wrong. All that's happened is it's just matters of thinking. So then there's this idea, oh, this is me. And yet this has been seen hundreds of times. So I love the bit about the dipping the salt statue in the water.
Because years ago, this problem would have been addressed by, I feel awful. I feel absolutely awful, wretched and all, you know. And how am I going to fix it? Oh, I have to think my way out of it. Absolutely the wrong thing to do. But there was no understanding at all that that was... What was going on, that the only problem was the thinking and taking the thinking seriously.So it's helped a bit because after a bit of time, I could see what was going on, seen it loads of times. So sit down quietly and just watch. And then like Bob's thing, unmodified, uncorrected. And what was it?
All it was was thinking. That's all. And after a couple of hours, it took a while. It sort of eased off and I think, why do I, and still there's a sense of me, why am I getting caught up in all this stuff? You know, why do I do that to myself? Because there's nobody there. It just happens because of habit and conditioning and all the rest of it. But it can be eased off and it eased off exactly what you're saying. And also the other thing is, when I'm into this, it's like then I'm an awful person and the big daddy's going to get me.
You know, big daddy from childhood. Not that it was that terrible, but you know how these things go, conditioning and whatever.So I really, coming back to it, I'm trying to really, is it okay to just say it's just nature? You know, just nature, you know. And I think you're muted there, Kat, at the moment. Yes, yes, I'm just nodding my head, yeah. But no, I think that's really, really helpful. The idea that, you know, we're just the whole thing is just a powerful, the whole powerful oneness of whatever is running all of this. There's nobody going to beat anybody up. You know, it's you're not going to be terribly punished for just acting out your conditioning and the sufferings caused by the misunderstanding of what's going on.
And part of it is just learning how the process works and then standing back from it and observing. And that seems to help quite a bit. And one of the really things happens is I noticed I don't fall into this thinking if I can see the thought arise. So if there's a sort of just, OK, going through the day and a thought will arise about a me. It just doesn't get dived into. So it's no problem. It's only when that isn't seen that there seems to be an issue. And there's nothing wrong with a life. It's not bad life. It's all right. Yeah. Anyway, there we go.Focusing on me, that's the problem.
Focusing on me. Yeah, that's right. The self-obsession, they say, the self-obsession, self-centeredness, self-will run riots. Everything is about me. Yeah, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. There's a sense of shrinking, isn't there, Stephen? You're small, you're tight, you're restricted or something. Yes, wretchedness. Yeah. I cramped. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that's the way. If you see how it functions, if you see how the narrative arises, but it doesn't really need to be attended to, but habitually it does. But you see the magic trick. You see how the illusion is being created. Now you relax and you laugh because it can never be believed in the same way again.
And I see Isabel is unmuted. Hey, Isabel. Hey, hi. I don't know. I could not find a hand up. It's such a small screen, but it doesn't matter. We recognize it. Yes, it's also what's coming up now with Steve, that Bob. Tells a story in a book and then he say a man came there he wanted to show ushow the mind is working. We have no mind, but that was the story. A man coming up in, climbing up on a mountain and he come by a tree and it was a wishing tree. And the tree said, what do you want to wish? And the man said,
like a cold beer and choop he has a cold beer what do you want to wish more maybe a nice bath and choop he has a bath what do you want to wish oh a nice meal i am a little bit hungry okay he got the meal what are you going to wish oh i want some umbrella, the sun is too hot.
And then he was thinking, wow, that is very strange. Maybe it's the devil and the devil comes and arise. And then he was saying, oh, maybe the devil eat me up. And then the devil catch him and eat him up. And that is such a nice story what the mind is doing when we believe it. And yeah, the believing is such a strong habit because we have so long many years, every one of us. But that was a very lovely story for to explain when you believe the mind. That it's a really, yeah, that you catch it and you filter it on. And yeah, that's the strange thing.
But I want to share something from the awareness, because that is very... As always, it's kind of not aware. And then I like when you wake up in the morning andthe world is seeing appears. And like you also mentioned, like a camera, the camera shows everything and nothing in the room said, oh, I don't want to be here or, oh, that glass is not good enough. Just the seeing is such a great pointer from Bob and the hearing that's such a opening and you can sink in the nothingness and then everything is revealing. Even when you mention in your spiel, when you say Shiva's eye, and that's such a big resonating when you spoke it out, I feel really, I sunk really deepening, and then you say, and then you can see There is no, I cannot find the English word.
There is no pointing, you cannot point, there is something you can grab. There is no pointing to even, yeah. Nothing I like when Bob I hear for the first time, always I hear by a lot of teachers.You are nothing, you are nothing, you are nothing. And then I hear Bob say, you are not a thing. And that's such a great opening because it is not a thing, but it is not nothing. And then it's an opening to reveal the... What is now. Like you always say, it's not there, it's here. And it's so easy. What's here in this sound now? You cannot say, oh, I don't hear it, because it is here, here, here, here.
And like you mentioned Sunday, the song from Rumi, and the people say and reading, I meet you there, but it is here. There is too far away. Here. Here is the dance. And my life is singing. Saying, and that's the beauty. And he sings all. And that is also with awareness. If you have an insight, the awareness is there. When you are sad. The awareness is there. When you are happy, the awareness is there. When you don't like nothing, the awareness is there. When you say,to yourself, oh, I lose it. The awareness is there. And you say to yourself, oh, I have it. I know it for now.
Really. The awareness is there. That's a such, yeah. But now I'm stopping because I go strong now. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Isabel. That was gorgeous. Yeah, gorgeous. Don't stop. Yeah, that's it. That really is it, you know, like awareness is prior to whatever. And Jay says, wonderful, Isabel. No, don't stop. And Marlies gives it an extra heart. And Jens also says, yes, here we dance and a heart and a couple of hearts from Marlies and Jenny as well. And Yvonne says, the born and the unborn, two ends of the one stick. Beautiful. And keep stripping Jenny, says Yvonne. That's the earlier one. And truly profound intro cut.
I think this we have already read. Yes, this we did. Yeah, no, that was beautiful. That is just such a wonderful reminder that no thing, not nothing, not a vacuum, not a void. Yeah. That's such a gift that Papa's giving us. Yes. And then he say also,stop and for here it's also sometimes a problem really that I catch and then oh no no no no the light is such stronger after a while because in the beginning you think you see it once and wow bing pong pong pong and everything is okay but Like Bob said, you have so many years in confusion. You believe that you are the Isabel character.
And then it takes also time to remind yourself and come back and be sweet for yourself and lovely and say to yourself, okay, I see it again. And again and again like the drop on a stone with the water the water's going on the stone and you make after and so it is remind yourself and be lovely and and yeah that's that's such a For me then, I was really strong. Oh, I don't see it. I lose it. I lose it. And now I'm laughing when I hear this. Then I said, okay. Like you always say, be curious. Oh, sorry. Be curious. And then when you find your home, so to speak, you remind, you remind, and then you are really cool.curious, not strong to yourself, and you see, I don't get it.
Okay, that was the seeing again. The lights, lights everything up. And then, yeah, yeah, happy place to be here with you and like Jenny, as scripties and yeah. Thank you all. Really, really, really lovely. Can you mention, so out of the blue, for the Shiva eye, that it's also the, yeah, you say the Shiva eye, but it is also this voice, this warmth, this breathing. This openness, this spaciousness, this auction, what we get from the five elements, the heart is beating. You can never pinpoint any to get it because it is all inclusive. And the all-inclusive is such a beauty gift. It's such a wonderful...difference than when you catch in the Isabella story and character and that is such a freedom all inclusive all inclusive and reminding and knowing and the knowing is so empty the knowing celebrates everything, so to speak.
The knowing is such an open, free modus that you are. And that's the beauty what Bob gives. Thank you.Isabel, it's lovely, lovely to hear the words. That you're saying and the word remember when we say oh we have to remember or we must remember There is no one remembering. There's no one to remember. There's apparent remembering. That too is just happening. That too. Everything. Absolutely everything. All the doubts, all the affirmations, all the joy that I've got, it's all just happening. There is all the books that have ever been written. I'm going to go out on a limb here. All the scriptures, you know, you could say it in, in fact, it does a disservice to say any more than you are that.
In a way because it encourages all this because you can can you deny this knowingness that's it that's it everything else everything else is bullshit Fun. It is. Everything else is a concept. Everything. There's nowhere to, there's everywhere to be and nowhere to move in a way of saying.There's... nothing, nothing that can be done by anyone at any time, by anything. It's just happening. And but, but, and this is the wonderful word, but the only thing is that you cannot deny that you are. When I say you, that there is knowing, that's it. You cannot deny that there is knowing, is knowing, is knowing, and it's happening every, you know, right now.
I'm pretty sure Kat could say it better. No. I had this chat with Bob last night. About what you were saying about remembering, you know, and we said, but, you know, we need to remind ourselves when we go back into the real world, we've left the ashram or whatever, to about this. And then we go, oh, hang on a minute, but who's... Who's there to remember? Who's reminding? Oh, my gosh, here we go again.Just be, just be, just chill, just relax into that nothingness. That's it. And that's it. And that is the striptease of a lifetime, if it's such a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, it's also mentioned that Kat mentioned, It is not two.
You're speaking to yourself and I'm speaking to myself and there is only one self that's hearing now this voice and this conversation. And it's a plunge in the open ocean. And that's such a magic, magical. Appearing seemingly and that's yeah what's the treasure title the the basic space of phenomena basic space of phenomena yeah and you know often bob reads the title of a book he'll say well that's all you need to know It's all in the title. It's all in the title. You don't need the rest of the book. Yeah, that's true. We have a Dutch man, he's disappeared, and he writes the title, Awakening in the Dream.
Yeah. A reckoning in the dream or through?I'm not sure. Through the dream. Through the dream. It's been translated. And Bob actually knew him. He called Bob on the phone. And I don't know if they met him physically or on the phone. But Leo Hartung, Awakening to the Dream. Yeah. Really nice. We actually have a book signed by him, I think, at home. Yeah. And I see Yvonne also says Naked Awareness. That's another book that Bob really likes. Yeah. Full stop, end of stripping. That's also Yvonne says. And we have Jenny has the hand up. Would you like to unmute Jenny?There was just two reflections. One on the book title thing, which was so funny when I heard Bob say that on the Sunday meeting spiel.
I felt such a relief. I was laughing because I have so many books in my bookshops that I have not read. Because I just, I read the title and then I read the first page and then I put it back in and I kind of feel that I know what's in it. But that wasn't actually what I was going to share. But it's also, again, back to the Sunday meeting. You know, when you hear words that you've heard a thousand times in your life, And then suddenly the hearing is different. The ears are like on another level open. And at some point, Bob, you were saying, relax, let it be.
And those let it be, even though I heard that song, you know, from the Beatles a zillion times, Bob, when you said just let it be, there was something so special about that let it be and the be and the being and that it was like, Let creation create.life live like the ears here like it was like not just relax but it was like just allow life to allow life to unfold you know just it was there was a whole universe Just end those two words, relax, let it be. And I had to replay the Sunday call and I made a screen recording on my telephone of the bits.
When you were sharing because I still just wanted to have that with me available always. Because, yeah, words can cause a lot of trouble and a lot of shit when we think, but words when used in the right way. Are really like being given diamonds, treasured in balance, diamonds. And I just wanted to point out this one. That was such a diamond for me. He says, thank you, Bob. It was like, oh, that's a gift. A big kiss to you.It's beautiful too. Be prepared to lose those diamonds with the striptease. They come off as well. As beautiful as they are. Yeah, they're, like you say, the right words expressed the right way can point and be supremely helpful pointer.
But, you know, you don't need to carry that with you either. You can't. You probably won't. You know, you don't know what's going to happen. We don't know. Nobody is. We're not. No one's controlling this. It's just happening. But, yeah, it's just that simple. Just relax. And, yeah, the Beatles song. Hey, who knew? Let it be. And also that, you know, like recognizing life, that even those diamonds and those pointers and those reminders that, oh, you got to remember, oh, I got to remember, oh, I forgot. This is not I doing it. This is not I saying it. It is also life, self-organizing life, providing the discipline of, you know, when there is a thirst, the thought may occur, I want a cup of tea or I want a water.
Or maybe just action occur of going and getting something. And same when there is a need for a reminder, it may just pop out or it may just show up in one way or another. Or it may be brought back from the memory.And it's so beautiful to be able to just completely relax and trust life that whatever is required, whatever life wants to experience in the moment will show up. Whether it is a reminder or whether it is a completely complete forgetfulness in the dream as the character, as a costume and a wave of suffering. Even that is absolutely included. It's not that now suddenly, because there was a clarity and Bob has nearly 50 years now, 48 years over of a clarity.
49, I think soon is going to be. That means that there never will be a forgetting. First of all, who is there to remember or to forget? So this is, I was actually explaining to someone, I was on an individual call that it doesn't mean that it never happened that Bob loses temper or that he screams or... But the realization is that this is not Bob doing it. It's the body-mind machine and it's the life essence expressing through it, you know, like the life essence or the intelligence energy in the form of electricity expressing through the light. It doesn't mean there is someone there and that light is too dim or too high or too strong or they should or they shouldn't.
So when there is an outburst of pain, whatever, appearing or irritability appearing through that body-mind of a saint, one could say,Or if there is, and this was really interesting when we were reading a book of Bob's friend, Joan, her teacher was dying of dementia and there was a complete scrambledness of the brain, of whatever was expressed through that machine. You know, that one moment there would be paranoia, accusations of people stealing or lying or whatever. Anything may appear. And now if there is a concept, okay, so he lost it now. Well hello there is no one there there is no one there who had anything that could have been lost there is no one there at all whether they had it or whether they didn't have it no there is no one there it's just life and if life is expressing through this particular machine it expresses with this particular accent and this particular voice and this particular style of speaking through another machine it expresses as the light or as a heat or as the whatever x-rays any any energy expresses through the means available and if the brain is scrambled if there is parkinson's disease or if there is a lot of morphine in the system or bob luckily doesn't have any any any dementia alzheimer's or anything like that but even if heThat wouldn't mean that there is someone who lost it or there is no clarity.
Clarity is awareness of presence. Clarity is always there. Even though it may not show in a plain light, it may be completely obscured. But the space, the light of life, it is always clear. It is always luminous like the sky. No matter what amount of clouds is hiding it, space is untouched. Is never contaminated. So if there is remembering required, trust life, remembering will happen. If there is forgetting required, trust life, it will happen. Whatever is required in the moment, whichever way life expresses and experiences through this particular costume, with this particular set of qualities or conditions or habits. It's just like the example that I like because my mom spent so many years there resisting it.
The bullfights in Spain. There is no one there inside the bull. There is no sense of separate self. And yet you show them red blanket and it will charge and step on the tail of a dog. There is no separate self. There is no imagination of having the conceptual self imagining its existence through time that, you know, there is.frankly there is no one there and we don't really even well there is there is a tendency to project to anthropomorphize everything even machines but we know that the capacity of hallucinating that sense of of self that mental image is only human capacity the reasoning capacity the symbolic thinking the creating the equivalent representation mental representation of think or no thing it's only human capacity as far as we can tell and the truth is we don't know really we don't know this is this is uh also just a pointer because we don't even know if there is anything apart from that one present happening we don't even know if there is anyone anyone at all If there is, you know, like even the mad idea of solipsism cannot be proved or disproved.
Nothing in the conceptual realm of thinking has any absolute validity. Nothing. Even the idea that there is me and there is Tanya and there is Bob and there are cats at home. They're all concepts. They're all dreams. I'll go to sleep at night and there may be other concept of consciousness. Right now there is 25 people on the screen of the computer. But I go to sleep and there may be completely different concept and which one is right none of that is known so even the idea that human brain has this capacityand the birds have that capacity or zebra has stripes. Those are all overlay.
Those are all concept of the dream. And those are there because of that particular costume, which is part of the dream. It is also a... a part of the appearance. And as we say, the reality is such Chitananda. And Nama Rupa, name and form, all the form, all the names, all the labels are Maya, their illusion, their appearance. And we can see appearance in this waking dream. And we can see the appearance in the imagination. We can imagine what we're going to have for breakfast tomorrow. That's not happening now. It's a waking dream. It's imagination. You can imagine Donald Trump. Where is he now? I can't see him around now.
It's in a waking dream, in imagination. And the dream at night or the memory or something or someone that only exists as a thought right now. Only always right now. Only always here.So it is amazing to just see how little do we really know. And is there even a we? Is there even a we? Can we even know that there is anyone apart from that present happening, that present awareness, awareness of presence or presence of awareness? Can we even know, can we even objectify anything that appears in it as something factual? It's so beautiful because not knowing and not being capable of really objectively knowing it, and even science confirms that, you know, there is an observer effect.
And even science is another belief system that is just collectively imagined into existence and accepted as a fact, accepted as the common religion, really, because that's what it is. So trusting life and being comfortable with that absolute certainty of knowing only that you are and nothing else, nothing else we know for sure. Everything else is just what appears to be. It appears to be, there appears to be a room, there appears to be Australia or Holland or Poland or whatever. There appears to be a planet rolling around the sun. There appears to be...heat wave or day or night. But those are just labels in that one field of experiencing.
Those are labels, the content that are basically just names and forms. And life is a mystery, unknowable. And just delighting in the fact not only that I don't know anything ever for sure, that I don't even need to know. I don't even need to know what's good for my body. I don't even need to know what's good for Bob. Nothing is ever needed because that I... doesn't even exist.So just absolute comfort, because for the mind, if that standpoint of the mind is the central sort of a central character in the dream, not knowing is terrifying. Not knowing is anxiety. Not knowing is uncertainty. That's not for life.
In that non-conceptual space of awareness, which we could say the heart or the essence or the source, in that non-conceptual awareness, everything that ever needs to be known is known in the moment. And there is one no-ing, no-ing. That is always here and not even knowing that i am that's already too much said because that i am what is that but just just being completely completely relaxed with the fact that there is an existence there is the knowing being knowing loving to be And nothing else is required. And whatever in the moment is required, seeing how that shows up, how that is going to be provided, how when the cold comes, the jumper will produce itself or the shivers will produce themselves or the death in the snow of hypothermia will produce itself.
Equally fine because from life's perspective all of those scenarios are beinglived through or experienced or even imagined and experienced through the imagination. Life has it all. And nothing is inherently good or bad. It's only the preference that arises because of the conditioning of the vehicle of experiencing, of that dream character. And even that is perfectly fine. Preferences. We say don't hold no preferences or don't hold onto your preferences. But there isn't even anyone to hold. If the preference is held on the deepest level, on the deepest layer of just life experiencing itself as held on to preference, even that is not wrong. There is nothing wrong, as Nisargadatta says, nothing wrong.
The probably most elegant description of the natural state. Nothing wrong. Description through denial, not through assertion. I am. That's the certain. And there is nothing wrong. Nothing right either. But nobody asks about that. The mind is generally biased to find out whatever to complain. Because that is the survival strategy, finding what's wrong, fixing it, finding what's wrong, avoiding it, finding what's wrong and medicating or sedating or whatever it is. That's its function. And seeing that it is its function.and appreciating it as the function rather than buying into the complaints and feeling miserable. Is it? Is it that? Oh, no, it's all good. Yeah, Bob is just taking a water.
Yeah, I thought the phone collapsed. No, it's just as you were talking, Kat, nothing really else needs to be said. We've said that already. It's so good. But, you know, you often hear mind is time. Time is mind because it's mind. It takes you, doesn't take you anywhere, but seemingly creates or brings this appearance of past or future. And it's time. You're worrying about or building on something that's happened in the past or worrying about the future or whatever. But what is your actual experience? What is your actual experience? You've never, ever been to the future. Yeah. So true. And it never comes. It doesn't exist.
It never comes. It doesn't exist. How can it ever come? It's only right now. That's it. You might say, oh, yeah, but tomorrow, I know tomorrow it's going to come. No, when it gets there, so to speak, it will be now. It will always be now, right now. Never anywhere else. That's it.Yeah, anyway. Yeah, and what a brilliant, what a brilliant game, what a brilliant play, The Illusion of Time. How gorgeous. Suddenly there is a possibility, oh, I think Bob's hidden himself with the cup. From the life's perspective, again, that idea of time, that idea of mind, suddenly gives it so many more channels of expression.
Suddenly, it can pupil the whole future. We can have more billions of creatures. We can have more of the extinctions of the species in the future that doesn't exist. It only exists as an idea. But what a fantastic channel of expression for the life essence. And the idea of self, this is me. Now everything suddenly, one simple unfolding, become the 10,000 stories. Every day of my life is a story of me and my. Everything that happens is related. From life's perspective, this is not a trap to torture poor miserable little creatures. To create psychological suffering. No, life doesn't have a concept that the pleasure is better than pain.
Life itself, the space, doesn't evaluate. It only evaluates through the machine of body-mind.And if there is that installed seeming virus, the imposter of self imagined that doesn't even exist, but believed to the point that it appears real, just like Santa Claus for children or just like a flat earth for those who believe it or Jehovah or whatever is the case. What a wonderful, from life's perspective, what a wonderful opportunity for expanding the expression, for proliferating that thought formations which create the whole new universes, every moment with every thought, every new universe. And now that thought related to the imagined self, more universes, more of the creation.
From human perspective, there is no way to understand, comprehend and even chew through the evilness of installing the poor, miserable little ego of sense of unworthiness and unlovability. But there is no human perspective. That perspective also belongs to life. That is just one of the 10,000 stories, infinite amount of stories. And I see there is a comment here on the screen. Just a sec. Let it be, Jenny says, includes all. Absolutely. And Yvonne says, don't get blinded by the diamonds. Yes. And even getting blind.But yes, it happens that... The unborn Buddha mind is exchanged for the thought. It happens. It happens all the time. And that's also part of the play.
Just like unborn Buddha mind is exchanged for the thought when the body is dreaming. Who objects to that? There is no one there.Amazing. Amazing. It's amazing. Amazing. And then just seeing it this way as an amazing play, as amazing display. Now, which is not personal, it's not about me. Nothing has happened to me. No one has done anything to me. Let's face it, every single body is going to die. So isn't it wonderful? So how big, how proportionally important is any tiniest little thing, what anybody else think or say about you or what you think about anybody else or yourself?But yeah. And who's there again?
Who cares? And yet the reality of that illusion, the stunning, stunning reality of that illusion. I remember myself 10 or 15 years ago believing in that being inferior little miserable poor me who was incomplete and who was searching for so many years and not getting it, not finding it. And searching in the mind, of course, and understanding intellectually, of course, which is impossible. And it felt so real. And the suffering was so profound, was so strong, was so intense. Now, of course, you know, why not? From life's perspective, yummy. Even that.And his preferences, Jenny said, it was to, oh yeah, nothing right or wrong. Don't get blinded by diamonds, nothing right or wrong.
And his preferences. Yep. Yeah, yeah. What is? Loving what is. Just being at the same page as life is. If life presents a situation of scarcity or incompleteness, and believe me, you know, ask your mind to produce on spot 10 or 100 or 10,000 complaints and it will stand up to the task. And even though it may feel that, oh, hey, you know, we all have computer, so we are not really starving. We are not people in India living under the blue presence, so it's easy to say that. But yes, we are. As the totality, we are.And what's wrong with that? Who's there to object to whatever the life is experiencing and expressing itself?
And if there is a compassion arising, and if there is sadness arising, well, beautiful, beautiful. Amazing. And they all come to the center, like, they all talk. I know that we are on the town at the overtime, but I just wanted to add that it's so lovely to be here because that's what I meant with has preferences. Even though watching Sometimes it just, life, it requires a lot of life to be around situations where awareness, where like life is expressing itself differently. Where life is expressing itself, believing in concepts, where life is expressing itself, believing in the separate self, in division, in black and white, in all these different ways.That part I find is the most challenging part in a sense of life.
Being in when life presents, when preferences are other than what life presents, let's put it that way, you know. And that that's all right too. That's okay too. But that's why it's such a treasure to be able to step into this circle of life things. We're communicating. Is so enjoyable.Yes, so true. And we could actually start from that on Thursday. We're going to be here in a couple of days. And start of those really, really challenging moments where we're actually being grounded in that message can just, you know, bring you to the peaceful bottom of the ocean rather than being torn away by the storms of that surface.
Yeah, that arising preference is a lovely, lovely topic to start from. And thank you, everyone. Thank you for hanging out with us. And I'll post that meeting then. Beautiful. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye. Thank you, everyone. Bye, Bob.