Free flow. Nonduality with Jamie and Kat. 2 March 2025

I'm about to start. So we're starting from our names. Jos. Michael. T-Ball. Same. Same. Anthony. Anthony. Tony. And cut. And I asked Jamie to give us an introduction, so we are up for the treat. And then we will start the usual investigation after. If there are any issues with the sound, just please let us know.Hi. Hi, Jody. Well, I wasn't expecting to be sitting here, but now I am. I'll take advantage of it. I might just... Talk for a little while. On the concept of let life flow. Now I'm just going to speak from this, from the point of view of something that I do understand and I work in the field of Chinese medicine.

I'm an acupuncturist. And in the Chinese medicine ancient text there's a very simple concept thatGood health, the concept is wherever there's free flow, there is health. Wherever there is not free flow, there is disease, in what the Chinese would call stagnation. And they would use the idea of, let's say, you have a waterway. So you take your local creek, we all have a local creek, a local waterway, and there's certain times where the waterway may stop flowing and the water becomes stagnant. Stagnant water starts to accumulate rubbish. Maybe mosquitoes and other things start to accumulate and the water becomes say disease and then we get a good free flow of like a heavy downpour of water and that sort of washes all the rubbish away and the water becomes say healthy again so the Chinese applied this concept to the body that our blood vessels and meridians are kind of like like like rivers it's like a river system and and as they become accumulated and stop free-flowing that we start to develop disease.So my job as an acupuncturist is to help create free flow of those waterways in the body.

And when the free flow is there, everything is moving, then the natural intelligence and natural flow restores health to the body. You can also extend this concept further to our, say, our mental and spiritual life. That there is a natural state of being of health wholeness which is present. When life in general is able to flow freely and move through us becauseThe one thing, if we're observant, that we notice about life is that it's constantly changing. Minute to minute, day by day, month by month, there is no... Stability there in the thoughts, in our situations, in our emotions, in our feelings. It's a constant river of change.

Now, like the waterways, if there isthere is an ability for life to flow in a natural way. Then we don't experience the disease that we may call, maybe let's call it, say, resistance to that flow of life. So the resistance... Comes upin let's call it the idea of me, me which is a long lasting, imagine long lasting separate entity. That wants to hold on to life, wants to hold on to a vision of the way it thinks life should be, a kind of grasping and ownership of life. And that'swe could say a kind of dis-ease of the mind that we experience. So if we investigate and have a look and just notice when this occurs notice whenever there's a discomfort in the body or in the mind attention that there's a subtle energy that's maybe grasping onto a certain grasping or resisting possiblycertain energies that come up in the mind.

Now, When this is noticed, all that's required is the noticing. Not an actual doing as such. So I guess really I'm rambling a bit, but what I'm trying to bring it all back to is that there's a natural state, a free flow that we're all in. And can be noticed at any time. And I guess I just want to invite us all to notice this constant flow of thoughts, feelings and emotions that are not problematic, are not right or wrong or dysfunctional in any way. It's just a pure noticing of the change. And as those feelings flow through us, if they have the ability to flow through us unhindered without that grasping or resistance of the perceived me,then there's a kind of freedom in that of things to move on.

And for the next thing to flow through. And I guess that was what was understood here. Even it's a, well, I would say it's an understanding because it's a verb. It's something that is in the moment and seen. That it's going to keep changing. There's nothing there that could hold on or could actually resist. It's an energy, and it's a contracted energy that's only actually imagined. That perceivesmaybe a time in the future or in the past where things could have or may have been different, which is all imagined in this moment. But ultimately, what I took away from... My understandings of the time I spent with, say, Bob, is that nothing needs to be changed, altered, modified or corrected in any way for this understanding to be seen.

It's just a natural noticing that with the continual flowof what is moving through us that there is an unchanging background on all that that is never actually affected by the contents that are coming up and flying through. And as we rest, in that the flow will continue to move through us, It will constantly change. The thoughts will come and go. The feelings will come and go. All of this will come and go. This will be gone in no time at all. And I guess...Just my thoughts before I got here was this constant flow. Is noticed by something it's not taken ownership of it's not identified in any way it's just seen and it's just like the waterways you know sometimes they flow and sometimes There's a stagnation there and for whatever reason, it's all okay.Yeah, look, that was just all I wanted to talk on is just free flow and its relationship, how the Chinese saw it.

There's a saying in the... In the Tao Te Ching that a rainstorm never lasts all day whatever comes up the rain comes the wind blows it away the sun shines the next thing comes along and our ability to be more comfortable in life is to just notice and accept that free flow of life.Yeah, that's all I want to say. Anyway. That is beautiful. Let's see. I'm going to slide myself into the picture without disturbing the poor kitty. Yeah, cat paralysis, Julia would call it. Yes, thank you very much. It was beautiful. And I cannot tell you how Bob would love it because it really builds up on his metaphor of the river and a bucket of water taken out of the river.

But it is from your experience. It is lived experience. It is your work, your life, everything. I don't know if you guys remember that, you know, that little part of the spiel when he says that life is like a river. It flows through the sandy banks. It is moving. It is alive. Sometimes it may be flowing a little bit slower. Sometimes it is almost stagnant, but it's still alive, moving towards the ocean. And some of the water evaporates and falls through as the rain, and it goes through rapids, waterfalls, whirlpools. And that is life. That is a metaphor of life. That is what you are, essentially.

And the content, the flow may change. But what we do, we take the bucket of water out of the river, put it on the shore and relate to it. Ask me, ask the ego. This is who I am. This is I. And as he says, we are wondering why can't we keep up with life?The bucket of water is stagnant. It starts, yeah, it's dead. It starts stinking. That's what the ego is, a dead concept that cannot keep up with life. And it's nothing but the concept. It's a sweet metaphor. And I see here, there's a comment here Gilbert put up. And hi, everyone who's with us.

Me cannot think. Yeah, absolutely. Attributing qualities of doing to a fictitional character is just another belief. Me is a total fiction. Everything associated with me is also fiction. Yeah, and I like the way, Jamie, you said perceived me, because it isn't real. It's a perceived me. There is a perception of me or there is an appearance of me. You know, like everything else appears in the imagination. It has an appearance in a way. You can't say it is real when you imagine it or the dream that it is real. But you can't entirely say that it isn't because it appears. It appears to be. Just like everything that appears to be.

So... Thank you, Gilbert. And Catherine says, much love and eternal gratitude from James and Catherine in SA. And Dito, thank you. And Giotti says, where does resistance come from if there is no doer? Beautiful question.Just look out in nature where the resistance comes from. Everything comes from that same one source of life. There is an attraction, there is resistance, repulsion, craving. All of those energies, all of those movements, you know, when the resistance comes in the river, the dead tree falls in the river and the water are flowing around it. But there is part of it that... You know, just crash on this log or that rock and there is a resistance.

When you realize that nothing is of any of your doing, then you realize that also resistance is just what's happening. And you notice the resistance of the body, you know, just the same way you notice the resistance when it is hot or cold. Discomfort and then that discomfort causes the action or a thought a call for action resistance is part of life the resistance that causes hell is the resistance that comes from the unquestioned belief that there is a me a doer who, you know, through that resistance will negotiate itself a better condition. Maybe if I beat myself up hard enough, then God will have a mercy and he won't beat me up.

That sense of resistance, which comes from unquestioned acceptance that I have a power to do something. While yes, if there is no doer and resistance arises, it's just part of the arising.And you can see how that space-like awareness, that field of knowing, does not resist the resistance. It notices the resistance without resisting it. It doesn't even want to get rid of it. It is... It's not problematic. The resistance is just part of the natural flow. It's the secondary resistance that the so-called me places on top that it shouldn't be this way or I shouldn't be feeling this resistance. And that's the interpretation that this feeling of me has.

The flow should be other than what it is. Yeah. And it's like the Buddha said, you know, in life we get struck with two arrows. We get struck with the first arrow, which is just the natural flow, pain of life, circumstance, which... Nobody is immune from and then we get struck with the second arrow which is the resistance that it shouldn't be this way somehow I failed that the me did something wrong or didn't take hold of life in the right way, could have somehow avoided that. And so the first arrow is unavoidable. That's the natural resistance and flow.of life which comes and goes sometimes the flow is beautiful and sometimes you know the tree falls down and causes causes havoc but that that's that second arrow is avoidable if questioned that who could do anything about what and um That's the secondary suffering that can actually, it is possible if investigated, is avoidable, that secondary resistance.

But otherwise, life is the flow of... Pleasure and pain and that is and it's part of the joy of life you know i don't think anybody would want to go through life with just complete pleasure because you wouldn't you wouldn't understand what pleasure was you know it's only through the idea of pain that we we understand pleasure and the Tao Te Ching again says it's only through knowing ugliness that we know the concept of beauty. So none of that, that is all part of the richness of life. It's that secondary resistance to the natural pain in life. And that's what Bob calls the psychological suffering.

Yeah. Because it only happens within that sphere of the commentary, the overlay of interpretation. Yeah.So whatever happens, happens. The same thing happens to the animals, to birds, insects. All of them go through winter, summer, cold, hot, aging. If they're lucky enough, if they haven't been eaten before that. But there is no narrative in those brains, in those structures of the machine that will tell them it shouldn't be this way. It shouldn't, you know, like life does it against me or I didn't deserve that or they shouldn't have done it. All that overlay, the interpreting the reality that not that things are as they are, but things are as they shouldn't be.

This is psychological suffering because this is relating to that bucket of water on the river or the sense of I am the doer separate existence. I am something or the other here. And I have the opinion that the God is a bloody idiot. He did it all wrong. I know better. It shouldn't be this way. It shouldn't be rainy today. It should be sunny. And the idea of being a long-lasting independent self is that there's a me that we have this idea of this me that is long-lasting. And because it's constantly changing, You know, one day the behavior of the me seems good and it's getting on with and everyone loves you.

And the next day, you know, you shoot yourself in the foot.and something life has its way and things turn and there's a feeling that it shouldn't be this way. But if you really investigate this personality structure that we call me, is that it's changing. Every minute the me that we call ourselves when we go to bed and we're going to wake up at six o'clock and do yoga and go for a run is a different me that wakes up at six o'clock in the morning and stuff that i'm gonna lay in bed and if you really like notice it just it changes by by the minute And it's just the idea that that structure should be constantly not changing is just ridiculous.

And that's what we're calling into question here.That's a really good point. See how that me, how that voice changes with the weather. It changes all the time. You come back from work and you're exhausted and, oh, you know, you deserve that ice cream. Come on, get yourself that glass of wine. Smoke that cigarette. And then the very seemingly same voice, half an hour later, say, you bloody bastard, you give in. You should promise yourself you shouldn't have. How is that even remotely the same self? It isn't at all. It is just a wave of commentary that arises in the consciousness. What does it have in common?

From the morning to the night, or from having that glass of wine or the cigarette to the moment of criticizing that, oh, you're weak, you're worthless, you're this, you're that. It has one thing in common. It is both known in that presence. That is the only thing, the presence, that all-pervading presence in which those voices, different voices arise. The knowing of it is the only common denominator. And the assumption that this was me, this was my voice, I said it. It's just a wrong assumption. Who could say anything? How does saying happen? How do you, you know, if...If you are speaking in that commentary, how do you do that?

And why would you stop? Well, yeah, if you're creating the thoughts, just stop creating them. It's the easy solution. But we can see that the thoughts... Are just happening. I guess that's another feeling of this me. It creates itself as a subject. It's the thinker of the thoughts, the feeler of the feelings, the doer of reactions. So therefore, if you feel you're the thinker of the thoughts, if you feel you have an ownership over the thoughts, then the thoughts have the ability to own you. So there's a belief in whatever the mind is throwing up. And you can say just about all of what the mind throws up.

Is bullshit. Pretty much all of it. There's no truth in any concept anyway. And there's an entertaining of that bullshit. And we've all been entertained and caught up in it. But in the seeing of what we're pointing out here, there's a less and less getting caught up in it and an ability to let it just move on.And we notice that any thoughts that arise, left as they are, unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected, can move on freely and then replaced by the next thought and the next thought and it's just that constant free flow of life and feelings and whatever else comes along with it. And if that free flow begins to happen more and more, then there's the concept of health, not only physically, but mentally, spiritually, health or wholeness.

And I guess

That's what we're all trying to come back to. Well, we're not trying to come back to because we actually never left it. The idea of ever having left that wholeness is just a concept at all. So I just want to... Question those concepts that come up and tell us that we're anything other than that. Anyone got any comments or want to talk about anything? Resonant. Question. Question excuse me question that comes up isJust reflecting back. At what we see, our perception, There's a sort of recognition that what you're... Apparently looking at is your own reflection or you're creating what you're looking at.

And who is the you? Yeah, well, the you is the... The universe. Awareness. It's appearing in awareness. The universe. Yeah, the universe. It's not appearing in awareness. There is only awareness. There's only two things. Yeah.Yes, so the questions were not properly formulated. Maybe someone has a better way of forming it. So in reference to what Ross was just saying, it's– It's an appearance in the conceptual intellect.It does seem that because, like, as an example, Bob had told me that I haven't read anywhere in these spiritual books to, uh, Disconnect. Well, Yeah, disconnect and relax. Detach. Detach. Detach. And relax. Through practicing, you can see the conversations that take place.

And in some of them, there's discovery. Things are revealed to us. And living from this space, we kind of want to share it with people in our lives. And often, not always, but it can be met with like that oversimplification reaction. And then you go back to things that I've heard before. In fact, Matthew, I believe it's 7, 6 or something where Jesus says, Cast not that which is holy to the dogs, neither cast ye pearls before swine.for they will curse and render you. So the interpretation of that is don't have intellectual pursuits with people who don't appreciate them. What I found is that I have more experiences of just letting it be because I can see myself in their reactions.

I can see the characters'dialogue within the expression of reacting to what I shared. As simple as the energy that permeates the trees.And yeah, just having more experiences like that. So. Coming to these meetings. Is very helpful to be around everyone. That are in the conversation. So anyway, thank you. Thank you. I have a couple of comments here from our online community. Yes, that's exactly what they're for, really, just to kind of remind each other and keep it fresh and new and clear that there isn't an adoer anywhere. And sometimes, I love the way you described it, sometimes, you know, that energy goes enslaved to the concept and sometimes is mildly entertaining and sometimes is completely ignored.

And that presence of awareness is always the field in which it all appears, whether they're carrying away or they're mildly entertained but detached, or whether completely unaffected. And life doesn't mind either way. And you are that life. We have a couple of... Comments here Jyoti says thank you both so a resistance to a circumstance is also part of flow of life secondary resistance is judgment of that resistance yeah you could totally tell that this way you know it's like there may be a sense ofof wave of sadness or something arising but if you are sad that you are sad that's unnecessary that sadness is impersonal it doesn't happen to anyone it's just a wave you don't even have to call it this it is just the energy moving through space but the moment there is a reaction to that and relating to that bucket of water on the shore.

This is me, this is happening to me, this is personal, I don't like it, I don't want it. The judgment, that's the psychological suffering that can be avoided if questioned. And Peter says, yes, the bucket of water analogy is so good and we can find ourselves doing time and time again instead of constantly allowing and being so helpful. Yes, and even that, you know, that relating is just an automatic program that has been rehearsed and learned through imitating adults when we were children. So there is no guilt. There is no sense of, oh, gosh, I'm doing it wrong. I'm relating again. Oh, poor me. No, it's also a piece of completely automatic functioning for the human pattern because animals, as far as we know, don't have these neural networks that let them simulate and imagine using symbolic language and pictures and images.

You can notice with a dog or a cat as well, you can stand on a dog's foot.accidentally and he'll yelp and jump away and and then a second later he's back he's he's panting and he's he's happy again he's not why did you do that you know he's not adding that that secondary because that secondary resistance is is the doership the feeling of doership that that, you know, why am I feeling this resistance? I'm a failure. Maybe I don't understand non-duality because I feel sad or whatever. It's who doesn't understand? Exactly. The eye trap again. Yeah, and the dogs, it's a great example, but again, they also learn, you know, if someone consistently kicked them in the gut, they'll run away and not come back.

Yeah, I think just with what you're saying before too, it just reminded me of listening to Alan Watts a long time ago and And he used to talk about, you know, because all the worlds are stage and so play and we're all God acting out each of these characters. And us gathered here today, we're kind of like the failures of the game because we've sort of seen through the game and we're not playing it very well and we're not being the actors. But our friends and that that are really... Deep into the idea of being an individual and and a you know don't believe in God and think all this is bullshit that's God really playing the game really well he's really likeAnd that's the idea.

He's in the game fully. We're the ones who stuffed it up because we're starting to see through it. We're not identifying with the character like we should, you know. So I... Thank you. I love it. And it's, of course, still the same life essence of God that actually created those failures. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, gosh, how wonderful to be a failure, huh, honey? Go back to the onion analogy because I think sometimes it's not all kept as the same thing. So psychological, the next layer on top of the physical pain, the first layer, they're still just the same thing. So there may be a move for the...

Physical pain to be removed, a process, a physical process that you do. Or here, there's just processes take place with no ownership anywhere. So there's processes of things arising and notions pop up, visuals. There might be someone in a toga being stabbed. There might be alien crap, whatever. There's just visuals happening and it's just a happening process and it just leads to more flow. And then there's less hang-ups and less reactions and resistances taking place in life. But it's still made of the same stuff. So the physical or the intellectual...patterns and hang-ups and pocket knots of resistance, whether in the body or in the... Just in the package that arises.

So the package of, there's a package of like, and we can't say which bits come first. That's just like not even possible. When you talk about the experiment where it was noticed that action took place before the thought, even though the subject thought otherwise. So, you know, thoughts, words, phrases come up, emotions come up. Yeah, a bunch right now that I'm blanking, so it's not coming back. But yeah, there's a bunch of stuff comes up in the package. And sometimes there may be, yeah, yeah, it's great to get rid of the other layer of the resistance to what life's throwing at this here, whatever's here.

But it's more pure not to go deeper than that and get rid of the first layer, you know. But it's, you know, if that's happening, there must be ownership happening too. But no, no, it's just also a process taking place, a process of clearing away patterns that are here. That takes place or a process of acupuncture or whatever that flows physically, energy physically. I suppose I like the kind of triad of some people are geared to noticing the physical and the energy.and the clearing energies and, you know, sitting there and watching everything. You know, we're not even watching things, but, you know, things will evaporate that way.

Others, there's like a noticing of situations that might pop up, you know, apparently from the past, from aliens, from whatever. And noticing just... Words starting to pop up and then stopping, you know, just all sorts of things going on. And that's most of us here are probably more geared to the observation side of it, part of the triage, you know. And Enneagram, you know, that's the four, five and sixes, you know, the head types. And then you've got the emotional types and they just, they were drawn to the whole love, you know, just completely opening up until just love pours in and then they feel oneness that way.

So just saying it's just one thing. And I think sometimes it can be seen as like separate levels or one's a good thing to...One type of disappearance is a good thing and the other type of disappearance has to be a self in there thinking it's doing that. Got to leave that alone, you know, don't touch that, you know, don't touch that first layer of onion sort of thing. But, you know, it's just happening. Anyway. Yeah, beautiful. I have a couple of... Yeah, so many ways in which every single body-mind organism is processing the information. And they always boil up to the same, you know, like, whichever is the filter, the same recognition of the stuff showing up in that screen of awareness, whatever this stuff is.

And we have, yeah, I like because that's your language. It's really, really, yeah, stuff pops in. I love it. I love when you share it. And we have, James says, thinking is happening, but there is no thinker. Absolutely. And Gilbert says, non-duality means one without a second. There is no one anywhere that is actually caught in anything. Absolutely. It's just an appearance. Yeah, everything's just an appearance. Yeah, beautiful. And Mitra says so much love to you, Kat, and everyone there. And Dito Mitra. And Julia says, no self, no problem. And Gilbert, cramming yourself with more and more experiences just adds more confusion.We don't need any new experiences.

The uninterrupted experiencing is ceaseless. There is no me in the naked experiencing. That's beautiful. I can't wait till you come here, Gilbert, and give us a spiel. Because, yes, it is such a potent pointer. Rather than chasing experiences, chasing moments of elation, a moment of insight, a moment of bliss. Oh, I saw it. I got it. I lost it. I, I, I. It's the obsession about the I wanting more pleasure while the uninterrupted, ceaseless experiencing is going on. And whatever is the content of experiencing is absolutely secondary. Maybe like, you know, Bob had after Barbara passed away, he was mildly bored, which everybody else interpreted as him being pretty miserable.

But in the experiencing, there was nothing wrong. There was nothing wrong in being a widower. But the content was less exciting than sharing love reflected from each other. So when he wasn't a widower, he was married again. That joy was the content, but that's the experiences. While the ceaseless experiencing, whether there is a mild boredom appearing in it or is the elation of love and pleasure appearing in it, is absolutely secondary. If not for the capacity for that ceaseless experiencing, the contentwouldn't be there, wouldn't appear anyway. So being preoccupied with the content, where am I going to get more pleasure? And the ultimate pleasure is the cosmic union with the whole universe.

That's the wrong way. That's again, the moment I create the object of desire, I create the subject that wants it. And of course, there is no I creating it. It is again, automatic piece of software that translate the experiencing through the language, symbolic language that uses, objectifies. There is no me doing any of it. There is no me full stop. But it appears this way. It appears that if I chase that, then of course there is that I that chases that. Even though all that is ever happening is just innocent chasing, the energy moving, like the river flowing, sandy banks, cliffs, waterfalls. Whatever is happening is just a ceaseless experiencing.

And the narrative, the commentary, oh, this is good, this is bad, I like that, I don't like that. Well, that's entertainment. That's part of the landscape. That is also a river. Unless, again, the bucket of water is taken out and said, no, this is not, this is me, I'm trapped, I'm here, I'm stuck, I don't know, help me, what am I going to do? Well, who is that I? Because again, relaxing out, relaxing the attention and realizing that that bloodblah blah is just another algorithm running through the system and narrating just like the city in your phone or chat gpt da da da da da da da no one there no one there and you back to that baseline of pure recognize ing be ing hear ing experiencing and i think we have uh no we don't have any more comments anyone then did you michael oh yeah umI kind of get where Ross was coming from with the question that kicked it all off.

Oh, yeah. Because there is a sense here that the universe is kind of teaching me. You know, almost like it's, and it's not just thoughts that come in, like there's experiences that happen. And some experience are absolutely horrific, you know, 10 years ago and didn't think I could get through it and then turns out to be the best thing. It took 10 years to even recognise it was anything near good. But eventually it turns out to be the best thing that ever happened. So there's kind of still a sense here that it's been... Because if there is only one thing, then it's being projected out.

And maybe that's just a process of working through the acting to get to the point where you're remembering that you're not the actor. Jim Carrey played a role, and I think the comedian, I didn't know the comedian, but he played a role of a comedian. I think his last name was Kaufman. Did anyone see Jim Carrey's speech about that? Because he was a method actor, so he would get into the role of Kaufman so much so that he would insist on everyone calling him. Whatever it was, Kaufman, and responded. Yeah, method acting. So intensely that everyone thought he was going crazy, but he'd scream at them if they called him Jim.

When he came back from that role, when he finished that role, he couldn't find himself again. So I thought, if I can be that convincing,Lee Kaufman, or how can I be Jim Carrey? I can be anything. And so I just wonder whether that idea, like, you know, that idea of like projecting out, like here I am projecting out this world, or if I am, there is only one thing, then yes, it's one thing. But if it wasn't projecting anything, then it'd be nothing. The whole idea of the play must be this one thing projecting out something that's many things. And the whole game of recognising and coming back to the one thing would mean there's nothing again.I guess the saying is that ultimately it's empty.

Because we have so many different roles that come and go in this life. And I can say from a personal point of view, I'm in a kind of transition from one major role to another. And you can see that that happens all of a sudden. It's like Paul Hederman talks about like seat assignments, that, you know, like we're playing musical chairs. And every so often that, you know, the music starts playing, we get up and then the music stops and we sit down and we find ourselves in another chair. And we're playing another role. And if we all notice, that happens to most of these body-minds at different points, that we all take a different seat and we play a different role.

And the ability to go with that and see that ultimately all roles are emptyleads to, I guess, what Paul talks to a travelling lighter, that we're able to move through those roles in a lighter way. And it's like, back to Alan Watts again, he's like, you know, is it serious? Is life ultimately, is it serious or is it just... Is it just, you know, you notice these roles and you notice the circumstances come and go and we find ourselves in dire circumstances and everything gets shaken up, the deck gets reshuffled. As there's a more settling into ourselves, like our true selves and whatever that is, that sense of peace, that there's a lightness and a kind of humour in the predicaments that we find ourselves.

Sometimes you find yourself having a giggle like, this is... Can you believe what the fuck is going on here? This is crazy. And there's a lightness rather than an ownership of it that my life is falling apart. And this, why is it happening to me? Why me? You know, what about me? And there's... Yeah, there's a lightness and look at the characters doing that, look what's, you know, and a humour because ultimately God, what we are, has an amazing sense of humour.seen from that point of view, we can let it all move through and flow and it's not such a big deal. I like Paul Hederman's concept of travelling lighter because there is no ultimate enlightenment or point that we reach.

And all of a sudden we're just in eternal bliss. I think they're just stories, you know. I think we all have had experiences of that and tastes of that, but I don't think there's– that's back to the permanent taking the bucket of water out of the river again, that this experience I have of oneness or whatever, It's got to be permanent because whatever comes is going to go and it's that feeling and we strive towards this thing in the future. I'm going to have this perfect understanding. No, it's just an okayness with what is and a kind of humour and, you know. Is it serious?

I don't think any of it is serious, you know. And, yeah. And a good aspect of it I actually like because, Michael, the way, you know, the divine game or Lila is presented as the experiencing and expression, the one essence that experiences and expresses itself. And it expresses through each vehicle uniquely, differently and beautifully, you know. It sings or it heals or itdances or it writes books or it does robs banks robs banks absolutely or it rapes or it creates the tsunamis and volcanoes and and thunderstorms and and collapses galaxies and all that but through that human pattern it loves its stories So it gives meanings to everything.

And the idea that, oh, life is just such a wonderful tool that it teaches me, you know, that all the bad things that happen to me, I can understand differently and they will be translated as the good things that are happening to me. But it's still everything around that me. The universe does everything for me because I am the center of the universe. And that I is the personal self. When that I collapses, meaning collapses. Those little interpretations may still just play on the surface, just like ripples, you know, like a sun playing with the droplets of rain and reflect itself and create rainbows. But there is no inherent meaning in anything that happens.

Everything is just whatever it is. Without interpretation, it's even more kind of... Juicy in a way because the attention doesn't go to the story it stays with the presence of the happening and and we still love the stories that's just that's just what this this body mind machine do it will always love the stories and share a good stories and thank to sharing the good stories will create a group of friends and group of peers and group of non-duality lovers all of it but none of it is actually anyone doing and we can enjoy the meanings the meaning making again tony often says that this is meaning making is happening or interpreting is happening or encoding life lessons is happening but there is no doer of thereof and there is no actor to which it is related.

And I think we have another comment here. Gilbert says, Belief in process is a time-bound idea. Great point. Yeah, great point. What you...sick you already are as bob often pointed out start from the fact that you are that then see what comes up trying to take you away from that yeah that's that's that's the way thank you gilbert and james says a quote from maharaj adding to your comment And there is a comment that I am cramming yourself with more and more experiences. Yes, from Gilbert's comment. The quote from Maharaj is, pure consciousness has never had an experience. Yeah, cool. Yeah, it's an experiencing. That's the juice of life.

I think where it might get confusing is we hear all the stories of people having their awakening where all of a sudden they had a shift. I know Paul Hederman says it's just ordinary dog shit awareness. So there's nothing special about it. It's just recognizing what's already there. I think that's where, and that's an eye coming in again, isn't it? Yeah. All we're saying is it's just completely random. This is just completely random, zero meaning. It's an accident. And it's just... Glitch in the system. It wasn't meant to happen. I was kidding. Yeah. But yeah, thank you. I was sitting in the car the other day and watching people with dogs walk past.Little dogs, little ones.

They're so happy. They jump. At times, their feet don't touch the ground. They're just so happy. They're bouncing up and down and looking everywhere and taking it all in. Just full of the happiness of walking and experiencing all this other stuff. Just a moment and you recognise, yeah, that dog is really happy. The owners love the dogs and the dogs love the owners. It's just a little blissful moment. It's like a child. I was watching a child at the airport recently. And it was a busy airport and everyone's running around. They've got stern looks on their faces going, catching their flights and whatever. And it was just this little boy and he had a little truck and he's just on the ground and he's just just oblivious, just in pure bliss, pure spontaneous playing in the moment.I guess that's why in a lot of the texts they say, you know, to enter the kingdom of heaven be as a child in that way of regaining that spontaneity because this idea of the long-lasting independent self, the me, is something that's inculcated into us from childhood, that we're born into the natural state of that spontaneity, like the dogs and the small children.

And then we're taught to be a me, and then we've got to take life by the neck. And if you want to be anything in life, you've got to go and make it happen for yourself. We're indoctrinated into this belief. That we are you're you and you know this is who you are and you're this type of person and it's indoctrinated into us from a very young age i guess what i've discovered that these non-dual teachings are kind of like a a reprogram and unprogramming of that it's like a you know we've been fed this poison our whole life of the you're the doer you're going to make life happen it's your fault and you've got to blame others if they hurt you that these teachings and it's like a thorn to remove a thorn it's a these teachings are a because then the teachings themselves are only concepts they're not true as as well but they're a kind of antidoteto this indoctrination that we've had for most of our lives that have led us to it to this feeling of discomfort that we've all reached that has made us look for other answers and there's we have an innate sense that there's a better way to live.

We all have tastes of it in our life. And the awakening that you're talking about, this experience, is just a flash seeing through with this programming in an instant that actually... What is inculcated into us creates this dream life that we're all living a dream the dream of me because the me is in essentially dreaming what am i going to do in the future what's going to happen to me and what if this person doesn't like me and what should i do with This is like dreaming and it happens all day. And the awakening is in a flash of that seeing, of that dreaming and waking up from the dreaming and coming back to the natural state.

And in a way, that waking up can either happen spontaneously, out of time, in a flash, or it can be seen. Over a period of time and you come out of the dream slowly. But this idea of having thethese amazing awakenings with these feelings of bliss, I would, I sort of compare it to, Like I remember watching a video of these cows have been locked in a barn, right, for years. They've been in this dark, oh no, I think they're locked all winter. Anyway, they're locked in there for six months in this dark barn and then they have this video, they release them into the sunshine and the long grass and they're released out of the barn.

And these cows, they come out and they're released out of this dark, horrible place and they're out in the paddocks and they're just so elated. They're bouncing and jumping and kicking up their heels and go, wow, this is amazing. And then within an hour or so, they're kind of like, okay, just get on and eat the grass. In a way, awakening from the dream is probably similar to that, that there's a feeling like for your whole life you've been in this dark little theatre of your mind listening to this story of me and these thoughts and in the awakening and realising it's just a dream, that it's actually not happening.

There is a sense of like expansion and elation, like the cows running around and go, wow, this is amazing. And you want to go around and you want to tell everybody, you're going to see you're not, there's no me and you've, you know, and there's this feeling, but within, A short amount of time, it's just natural state is just normal. And you go back like the cow and you just...eat your grass and you get on with life. But I think with those awakenings, many of us do have a spontaneous awakening where it's seen in a flash. But I think for a lot of us, it's just coming to the understanding over time and that dreaming just wanes and loses its power.

And even... Even in the spontaneous awakening, it's often not the end of it because the programming that's been put into us is so pervasive that it's not going to go in one flash of seeing. It's going to reassert itself. I was thinking today, I had this... One of these massive awakenings like that where in a flash I saw the dreaming nature of this me and there was an expanse and I felt like I was on LSD for like a month, you know, just walking around tripping, this is amazing. And I thought, wow, this is it, I finally made it. Like, I, but anyway, there's that feeling like, yeah, this is it.

And then I remember I drove my car into floodwaters and burned out my engine. And that was like the quickest way to like come back into the me, me reasserted self. What were you doing, dickhead? What were you driving around in floodwaters for? You know, and that pattern can come back so quick, reassert itself. And in a flash that elation was gone. I'm going to say, oh, my God, I'm back in the mind suffering.again and then it was seen again but a little less radical and then the mind reasserts itself and then there's a process that just keeps is ongoing that you start to unravel this this programming over time and i really like Ramesh Balsika has this really great analogy.

It's like, you know, waking is always sudden, but it's like, you know, when you first awaken to our true nature, it's like getting your driver's license. But at first, you're not going to go straight into peak hour traffic in Mumbai. You know, you might just stay around the back streets. Things are all right and you learn to drive, but you're not going to, you know, if you go out in the, you know, peak hour traffic in Mumbai, you're probably going to come unstuck. And in a way, you know, the understanding is like that. It grows and we, life will keep throwing shit at us and, Sometimes it'll cause us to contract and go back into that feeling of being a me.

But over time, we learn to drive better and we can face the peak hour of Mumbai. And it's a process that there's no point because just when you think you've reached that point, bang, life will throw something else at you and it'll come from the side and you go, oh my, you know, like, you know, and it'll really hit your heart. And, but with the understanding, it's that shit doesn't stick.It starts to just kind of move because ultimately you are empty and ultimately the hope is it just kind of moves through you and that's the free flow where it is actually can just keep moving.

The ship will come, the ship will go, the great things will come and great things will go. And so whether you have an ultimate awakening experience or not, ultimately it doesn't matter. And if anything, sometimes it can be a hindrance because you feel like I had it, I lost it. God, what did I do to stuff it up? Then there's an expectation that eventually somewhere down the road in this imaginary future time, I'm going to get and make that state permanent. And that's just a fanciful wish. Really, it is Paul's idea of just travelling lighter is just right on the money. That's all it is.

I have a couple of comments here on the screen. And thank you. That was a beautiful description. And of course, apart from that, every single situation in a way, the life reveals itself is uniquely different. But the metaphor of the cows and their conditioning subsiding is pretty universal. And whether that, you know, I was asked the question several times by people that, oh, you know, you had this massive awakening and so did Bob in a point of devastation. Then everything was just dark and really, really heavy. And then suddenly it got really light.darkness disappeared in an instant and all the heaviness disappeared in an instant and the heaviness the most heavy thing is to just hold that page of concept that that baggage of of ideas of what you are how small you are how unlovable you are how anxious you are how uh unrespected and all that nonsense about the non-existent self when that drops away the sense of elation like yeah myself and few people that i knew wouldn't need more than three or four hours of sleep at night for another few months because so much energy was just blown into that nonsensical illusion of self held together and that energy suddenly was available for seeing hearing tasting touching smelling so not much of it was left but the concepts the persistent ideas the ideas that were defining that that dream character even though they weren't fueled, you know, the ideas that might be religious ideas, that might be a dietary ideas, there might be another type of preferences, that they were, even though they weren't fueled with attention and energy of belief, they were solid enough structures.

To stay until they crumble of their own. Where I could see, look back, oh gosh, you know, even five years ago that idea was quite persistent and now there's nothing backing it. So the behavior over time does alter. And then every,Everything changes, whether it would have changed without the collapse of the belief in a self or it would probably in some way or another. But then again, I have that question being asked. If I don't have that darkness, that persistent depression, that absolute misery, that means that I will never see through it? Well, yes, I will never see through it. No matter whether the eye is depressed or the eye is elated or the eye is neutral, the eye can never ever see through it because the eye is imagined.

It doesn't have eyes. It doesn't have capacity to think. It can't see through anything. Is the life itself relaxed out of the idea of I that can see that the I is a phantom? Is the life itself, does the life need the predicament of heaviness, depression and pain? Life doesn't need absolutely anything. Life is free already. It doesn't need conditions. So there is no need to catch yourself and put salt in the wounds so that you suffer enough so that it reveals itself. No. Life is free already and the way it act out, whether it is a slow shedding of the peeling the onion, of beliefs dropping away and the sense of that ordinary awareness shining through more and more, whether it is a blast in which the sense of self is unthinkable.

It's unthinkable. It is unthinkable that there is someone there running the show.And when there is a threatening situation and that particular body mind starts scratching and screaming and it feels for everyone else, oh, she got caught up in a sense of self. Well, or Bob was depressed after Barbara died. That's the interpretation. He wasn't depressed and I wasn't caught up. The body is exercising its conditioning still. And there is no idea that there is a self doing it. There is an idea like, wow, this is cool. This is juicy. Just like the cats, you know, they smack each other in the face. And there is no idea that I did it.

I got caught up and I now did the smacking. But sometimes there might be that idea. It might arise in consciousness. I got caught up. I heard from many people who claim that they have absolute clarity for decades, but they say they get caught up on a daily basis. So the idea of self is still there. I am free or I am not free. I am caught up or I am not caught up. I guess the difference when you talk about being caught up is for now the getting caught up might be just a minute or a morning at the most, whereas before this was even questioned at all, getting caught up could last for weeks, like weeks and months.You know, a feeling of depression had come on and, you know, I failed or whatever.

And just it was left unquestioned because I didn't realise there was a question to be asked that it could go on for months and months. You know, now armed with this knowledge to have a look, as Bob would say, you know, and realise that if there is any getting caught up, who is it that's caught up? Yes. Just have a look. Who's caught up? Who's caught up with what? And that seeing through it is almost immediate. And so there's no resistance to being caught up. It's not, you know, before this knowledge was there, there would be, I'd get depressed about getting depressed because, oh, my God, I can feel another depression coming on.

That sucks because I know it's going to be like this for weeks. And because there was just no question, there was just a pure acceptance that there was a me getting depressed and that seeing the seeing through the me, but armed, armed even with the knowledge to have a look. Who is it that's caught up? Who is it that's, you know, because it can only be the me because what we are. That reality is not caught up just as that mirror is not caught up in the reflection at all. It's just, it just expresses, you know,It just accepts whatever's there. And that's the difference. And once that's fully really taken a heart, then you can even have a bit of fun with getting caught up every now and then.

Oh, it's entertaining to be caught up a little bit. Sometimes you'll even let yourself get caught up because it's just fun to entertain bullshit thoughts sometimes, you know. But there's no seriousness. Back to is it serious? It's not because you know that you've questioned, you've had a look, there is no me, this me that believes it's caught up or has been snagged by a situation. And if situations do come up and you get snagged, they're just the perfect life teaching you. We still call it, you know, where those patterns still have the ability to, you know, look, I've just come through a relationship breakup. And you can see that, you know, like with that, that's where you get caught the most.

There's a feeling like, well, there is no me. Who is it that feels sad that this relationship? Well, you know, that's just a natural part of life. But they all come up and they show us that it's okay, that it's actually the richness of life. If you lost Bob and you could say, well, there's no me to feel any grief.But the grief in that is there and it's a natural, it's a beautiful, we wouldn't want to lose that. My cat is feeling good. Yeah. He's just coming to his senses now. Yeah. He's been really, he's been taking it badly. Yeah. And that's always a sobering realization that, you know, they don't have sense of self.

Look out in nature and you will see that absolutely everything that is happening is part of nature. You separate a calf from the mother cow, you know, like they do. The cow's going to cry for days for its calf. That's a natural energetic pattern and I think that's different to what we're talking about. And there was a sense here for a long time that all of that would go away and there'd just be a feeling of being okay with everything. You know, I just accept it and there's just this feeling of happiness. The understanding is now that no, that you're still going to get thrown around by life.

And be okay with it. Yeah, and I wouldn't want to change that for anything because that's part of the richness of life and that's... You know, we know when we're feeling joy, when things are going good and sadness is there, it's only that's the duality of the expression of the play. You know, like when you're dead, you feel nothing, you know. And I guess this concept of... Ultimate enlightenment.where you don't see the world anymore and all you see is just you're just resting in a blissful self. Stuff that. Like we're all going to be dead and we're all going to rest and know that. Like while we're here, while this is appearing, get into it.

Suck the life out of it. Have fun. Feel the sadness. Feel the joy. And just let it flow because none of those feelings and emotions will last long. They'll all move through. It's only the ownership, the sense of ownership of the self, that taking ownership of life that causes the depression to hang around for weeks and the anxiety to be there for weeks. Unnaturally and that that is disease in itself where the energy is actually blocked and it can't flow and it creates that heat that's that second arrow of the buddha and that is what can be avoided that that's when life gets dark when we take ownership of life and we want to take that bucket of water out of the and hold on to it and that's where it turns into a nightmare and that's not necessary.

I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm kind of grateful when people speak more accurately about actually what's going on for them because I've always been quite mystified about what people are meaning because I'm kind of more like...but different. I'm like an inner piece of the onion that is always uncomfortable because of the patterns are so the things that are governing that are there that are constantly experienced. So I never believed in free will. I always thought this universe was unraveling. And then later on kind of realized that's, you know, no concept ever going to pop up here about how the universe works. Is it kind of random? Is it quantum?

Is it, you know, aliens will have better theories than pop up here, you know, put it that way. The theories that will pop up that don't even exist right now anyway in the whole universe. So sidetracked. Okay, what? So here, like, yeah, free will has never meant anything. I was always very uncomfortable with goal setting. Like people, you know, I've said this a number of times, but like people would say, oh, but if you didn't have free will, you wouldn't do anything. So, you know, you wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. So, okay, okay, next time I wake up, I'm going to, you know, you wouldn't put your feet on the ground.

So I'm like, okay, I'm going to put my feet on the ground. But where's this free will? And then it was just like, you know, nothing would show or I'd just give up on it, you know, couldn't get anywhere with that. But, and then when, you know, I came in to check out non-duality from the horse's mouth, so to speak, not from the books, you know, the retreat, the retreat in here was just, yeah, look in there. Is there a lot of Tony running around? No, never seen. I even got raised for a few years. There was still an automatic checking just in case, you know, never discount anything.

Yeah, never a little Tony anywhere. The whole self thing that people talk about, so that was easy to see that was nothing there. I might as well not be as be and either could be the case, you know, either could be true. There's always been like this sort of very open mind here to the point of not being able to do things, you know, because the research never stops. So, but what is here is like all the time is spent, a lot of the time is spent in discomfort and not in complete, you know, no thoughts arising, just stuff happening, being kind, I wouldn't even say, but it's just there, it's popping up.

And I thought that everybody's big experience of enlightenment was no thoughts arising at all. Just like, well, the freaky ride and nothing else. Because I know some people that that's been like for them, you know, for a while and then it drops off. So to hear it's more like, what were you saying, getting hung up in it or getting that phrase? Caught up. Yeah, so caught up. You know, I've seen people who like, you know, have a lot of clarity around the whole thing, but get caught up. Like they're sitting there and have an argument about which party should win the election. And I'm realizing that they're actually believing more in a me.

Than I would be while having that same debate. I never think there's a me ever.However, there's a, oh, damn, this bag's so heavy. How am I going to get home? You know, but it's more an eye that's coming up in a phrase. There's a caught up in this no, you know, open-minded, complete, you know, no thoughts arising clarity. But if someone says, oh, do you think there's a you doing it? You know, never, you know. So. See, a lot of this in my experience and observation is just the discrepancy of the language. And I'm completely with you on that language. I have a friend who says, you know, I often get caught up in gossip.

So when I gossip, obviously there is an I that does the gossiping. I say, well, that's your experience. That's not my experience. Because it was bluntly clear in that moment over nine years ago that I is never there. So there's no I to ever get caught up. And I understand that people might experience and express it differently. They might experience the same but express it differently. Who knows? Everything is unique here in the form. But in my experience, even if I... Catch up with that girlfriend and we are gossiping for half an hour she got caught up with the gossip i did not there is a gossiping pattern being expressed through this body and there is no i behind it at all never there couldn't be because it it doesn't exist so it doesn't re-establish itselfI don't really do politics much, but if I would witness this body-mind arguing about the politics, there still wouldn't be an idea that there is I that got caught up in the discussion.

There is just discussion happening the same way as the heartbeat is happening. The same way as running is happening or singing is happening or taking shower is happening. And there's a bit of a... It's just ownership. Yeah. When the pattern happens, there's an ownership of the pattern that I'm gossiping or I'm whatever the behavior is. And then that feeling of self is just the feeling of ownership. Yes, I don't get that one. Rather than the witnessing. The witnessing happens and the witnessing of gossiping or whatever the behaviour is can happen and there's a witnessing, but there's no ownership. There's just an understanding, this is what's happening.

And therefore, if there's no ownership, then when the gossiping stops and you go to do the dishes, you're not thinking about the gossiping anymore. You're not going, should I have said that? Yeah, yeah. You know, there's no ownership of it. And if there's no ownership of it, there's no problem. It's only in that sense of I'm doing it. It's me. That's what the me is. The personality structure is always going to be, because we all have a personality structure. We all have our... Propensity to gossip or to play guitar or whatever it is,Yeah, I go around telling people to stop smoking in the street. And so like, I just, I'm not taking it, like you say, not serious, not serious, you know, it's not serious.

So it's like, you know, it's like, and then, oh yeah, that just happened. That was fun. But yeah, they probably really shitty that this person who thought was so wrapped up in who they were, you know, was, you know, wanting to change the world for whatever reason. You know, I got bullied on the back of a bus recently because, and yeah, yeah, I could see exactly which. Idea concept they had about you know what was going on where I was and it was not run but the continued you know continue to do whatever and also there is there is an idea that you know is absolutely unexperiencible from the individual body to another individual body where where you actually are is only energetically glimpsed and this guy i think few of you might know him jeffrey martin who did the research on it he even started you know separation and distinguishing of different levels and locations or whatever and the truth is the more you think about it the more you you kind of establish the belief in it well actually for me it's the opposite it was actually more clarifying because it actually gave more of this sort of like description oh okay that's you know was it a description of direct experience or was it just a theory i think it did a pretty good job of of getting everybody's descriptionand seeing how they're similar or different or whatever and laying it out.

Oh, that's so wonderful. Like people do in the room. And I think people can like, yeah, dismiss that, be too dismissive. And actually it was more about, oh, okay, so. I'll keep seeking. I'll keep seeking. No, no, no. I've never felt like a seeker ever. So it was, it was. I actually don't have any problem with him laying it out. Then he made some massive assumptions like there is free will and these people are wrong and da-da-da. And I go, I could just, that just, yeah, from here that was his big assumption. But the actual laying out of just writing what people did and said and felt, what people said about what they did and said and felt and, That's just basic descriptions.

That was useful because then it was like, okay, so, yeah, like you say, the language is being misconnecting a lot. And when it does, sometimes that's a release, not getting too heavily into it, if you know what I mean. It just depends what happens in the pattern. Exactly, not getting too heavy into any systems, any models, any descriptions. It doesn't have to be. A leveling doesn't have to be a rigid, oh, no, now it's, you know, making it solid for them. Maybe for some, maybe for the seeker category, but not for everyone. Only if you want them to keep seeking and paying. You are on the level 45.

There is 50 levels more to go, so you just keep on the path so you can get to the next one. Yeah, but it's sweet.I think it's revelation and letting go. Others, like... Substance shows up and then aha let go happens you know and that happens all through life you know and no one doing like and what gets spoken about here a lot is that um oh connection oh that's something solid you know i have to believe in it They're two different things that take place also in the universe. Yeah. And we have another comment here from, just a quick comment here from Jim. Woke up this a.m.

In total joy, love and happiness for no reason. Then the mind started tossing in thoughts and attitudes and soon spoiled that good mood. Thanks to Bob, I invited the love and... okayness to come back and shut down the noisy negative mind thanks bob and cats that's beautiful and gilbert says the natural state has not gone away pause a thought and recognize that the me has nothing to offer except unnecessary distractions Yep, and Julia says, be like a little child is a beautiful pointer, toddler, not age five when the story is an apparent meaning making. Specificity can be helpful. Your cow metaphor is beautiful, Julia says.I once told Bob that I had never had an awakening experience.

He said, good, you won't be trying to get it back. And Gilbert says the dream of progress and process is all about the me. Brilliant. Yes, the me is a fiction. Question everything. There is no authority outside your own being and there is no authority other than that. Also known as intelligence energy. And Faith says, thank you for the encouragement. And James, does the me have an evolution over the body's natural functioning? Exactly. And Jyoti, generally, ownership comes up with what is believed to be negative pattern mostly. And Bill... If there is no I, then there is no anxiety or fear due to the sense of separation.

Well, the energies can still arise and the labeling of energies can still arise. But yes, there is no ownership. And Bren, would you like? Yeah, I just got a question. So I've heard the cognizing emptiness. Can you just like expand on like in a simple way? Is that like a way of pointing out something? Because I heard Bob say that for a few times. Pure knowing. Pure knowing. Like, you know, not I know this or that or the other, but the capacity for knowing. Capacity is like the field. Emptiness is also like a field.field and cognizing cognition the cognizing is basically knowing is the capacity to know so the the whole field of cognitive capacity the knowing being knowing loving to be there is an awareness of being awareness is another word for that Okay.

Yeah. It's like if you, like a camera, if you just pause a thought and then just look around the room, everything is taken in. It's known. You don't need to label it. There's a, in that just awareness, there's a pure intelligence. There that is cognizing everything without having it's the mind that comes in go there's a lamp there's a air conditioner and labels things pure cognizing emptiness it's almost like a camera you can just everything is taken in you know you couldn't possibly label everything you see because there's so many things yet none of that is left out of that cognizing emptiness and in a way that cognizing emptiness also just as it can take in all the objects in this room It also takes in the thoughts.

It's what's seeing the thoughts as well too. And that cognizing emptiness is an intelligence. It's intelligence energy. Once that becomes...comes established, we recognise, recognise that, that's how the conditioning can start to be undone because it can start, it cognises, it knows the mind that when the thoughts come up and the conditioning comes up and the thought, I'm not good enough, whatever, it can witness that. And it just sees it as rubbish. It doesn't need to say, oh, that's rubbish. It's not the mind talking to itself. That's why it's a higher level intelligence than the mind. And that's like that old saying of Einstein's, you cannot...

Solve a problem with the same level of intelligence that created the problem. So it's that higher level, that cognizing emptiness that also witnesses the mind and notices when those unhelpful patterns start to come up. And it can just witness it and cut it off. And it's a natural. There's no one doing it. It's just happening. It's a pure life intelligence. It's what you are. It's who you are. Thank you. Yes, and thank you, everyone. We're getting over time now, so thank you for hanging out and doing the group investigation. And let's go to Sofia's.