Freedom is easier than talking about it. Nonduality group exploration. 9 March 2025

And Lisa. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.be really quiet, what we do is we enter into a silence.

And holy silence really is where we all end up in the final analysis anyway. After all the mind chatter just dies down. The body stops shaking for a moment, or whatever it does. So it's really wonderful to have all the faces back here again. Nita, welcome back from India and great trips abroad to great adventures on our behalf. It's all conducted within the presence of your mind now. Isn't that an amazing thing? We can go anywhere we like. We'll still just here now. I can have all kinds of bodily afflictions. Like, um, you can, you know, everybody's suffering from something right now, right? But yeah, beyond that, There is knowing that you're okay, knowing of the presence, which never leaves me, even in the greatest, fearful, ugly, terrible moments.

You really just breathe and go into that silence just for a minute.discover again that, well, I'm okay. Nothing going on, really, from one moment to the next. Except the story that I, as a separate entity, choose to perpetuate. Two. Things to be true. I can tell a story and live that story and be that time and time again, resurrecting my story of the body.Serial adventures in the world. Continually doing really nothing except expressing God, expressing through me that ability to see everything as it appears. It's an amazing thing. You have a feedback, Peter. You are very audible when your mic is close to your mouth and inaudible when it's not.

Yes, maybe. I'd better if I do it myself because I'll move around. Keep flowing. This is beautiful. Yeah, it's really great to be here again this morning, you know. What does the story tell you? The story tells you, it's saying, well, my body's not up to it. I'm not going to. Yeah, right. Did you catch that? No, maybe. I did not. Yeah. What an incredible thing it is.I look around and I see how much difference there is between people. They're all incredibly nuts. Incredibly and beautifully nuts. Amazing. The difference between me and Dean, whom I love dearly. Of course, we all love Dean. Why not?

But the difference between me and B is as much as the difference between me and It's maximal. It's maximized out. Because that's what this capacity is, is a storytelling capacity which enables us to be as different as we want to be from the next person. And what are we doing all the time? We separate, we make ourselves into this entity, which is... Somehow defined, somehow defined by the differences between us rather than the similarities. And yet we try to be normal. Everyone's in this aspiration to be normal. It's crazy, isn't it? Really, rather than do. What we're learning here is rather than having a better idea of yourself, but rather than buildingthis better notion of a self, we are just remembering a different way, which is to question the construction of that self.

And if you turn and look the other way, what do we discover? We discover that, well, I don't really exist outside of the thoughts that I have about me in this particular instance. What do I know for certain, absolute certain? It's a really good question to ask. I have to assume that you're all asking that. That's why you come here. Ask the question, who am I? Do I exist outside of the thoughts that I apparently have as a separate entity?about myself in relationship to others. And of course, you must come to the conclusion that you don't. There's no thought that can hold me, no thought that can hold you anywhere.

Can I hold you in anything? As the person with the sore back there, Verity? In the next instant, you are what you're going to be, whatever that will be, according to my... Personal way in which I tend to separate out rather than find joining. And so, What more can I say?Take a moment. We're always present. Every instant, the present. There's no, we don't go somewhere. We leave this, we don't become real people again. And then come here and experience being not real or something along those lines. I really don't have any ideas here. I'm just sort of flopping along. Nothing I can present will, can surpass the personal experience of presence now.No idea will work.

It's the problem we all face, isn't it? We come to this conceptual end. There we are. We're at the conceptual end. And everything's turning out brand new all the time anyway. So there's no need to know anything.There's no need to know anything at all. No, you think it's a problem. There's no provisos. There's no way of speaking about this ritual. Because in the end, they just end up back in that same place all the time. I'm going out, I've got this bright idea today, everyone's going to listen to me because I'm the expert in non-duality. Yeah, okay. Good idea. But then I go to the mouth, I find the mouth-mouthing ideas and things that come, these bright ideas that flash into the mind, you know.

Yeah, that's it. I got it. Now I've been blessed. It just evaporates, disappears on me. That's the nature of the world, is that it's ephemeral and empty. There's no promise in any idea, none.So what do I know for certain? The back of that question. What can I say? I do know that I'm capable of great hate and great love, it seems. So that was an idea that I just posited and found it important. I don't know, I can't really say that that holds any... Value in time at all. So all I can say is that my mind holds nothing that is true. Is that true?

That's an idea as well, isn't it? So what do I know? Nothing. I know nothing. Nothing, no thing I know. I don't even know what nothing means.However, I'm aware of being present prior to the construction or the expression of any idea. Is that true? That's another bloody idea, isn't it? Unless it isn't. And this is where we come into the... Into that place where we feelIt's non-communicable. I can't communicate anything to you which you will believe and take home with you. So.I remember a cool story. Everything I say is going to be a story, by the way. Which is okay, because we can use everything that is said for the purpose of just, you know, recognizing who we really are, which is God.

That's the only conclusion you can come to. Something's going on, but I know... But I know I'm present in a direct sense right now. I've always known this. It's never left me. There's never been a change that has occurred in the knowledge, this direct sense of self, which is also, you can call that awareness, you can call it whatever you like. No, but... The knowledge of the, in a direct sense, prior to any formulation of an idea, is what?we somehow are. Not the idea of that, and I'm not asking anybody to take home any notion of what's going on. If you do that, then clearly it will dissolve on you.

Nothing's going to be here to support you as a separate entity. Is that all right? That's the question.Well, I'm just going to stop from there. I was going to stop it. Stand up. Maybe we could try something different today than we normally do. This is not really a spiel, I'm sorry. I'm just talking. But if someone wanted to be here on a hot seat, it could be an interesting thing to do.Anyone know? What I'm suggesting is someone just come and tell me. And make them so available. To something, a change of some kind. We don't have any type of that part. That precious Jordan. Jordan, man.All right, well.

It's a big ask. It's a big ask. We also have online people who can include. All right. Have a sign if you like. Yeah, so we have good morning messages. We have hello to everyone and hello from... And same awareness says Anthony all the same awareness but the differences are why we are here hmm beautiful and I know nothing too says Inge Laura says morning and Anthony also says digest the idea let it pass through the system and Catherine there is no we to differentiate in awareness there is no my awareness and Jenny says big love to all will catch up when night has turned into a day again And I'd like to say thank you.

That was beautiful. That was beautiful. That was a really nice, strong, energetic delivery of the certainty of presence, which is really all, you know, we find ourselves here. And just before the meeting started, Paula was saying that people whisper in the room, where else would you be? You know, here. Well, the truth is, it is always here, isn't it? The content of here is changing, but the experience is always here.And it is kind of funny how it appears. And I love the way, Peter, you said it, you know, in the conceptual idea of what a notion of what is going on in the notion of what is going on.

It appears like, you know, you came from downstairs or you from upstairs or you came by tram or you arrived by car and you walked in here and this is where you are sitting. That's the conceptual notion of what is going on. And it kind of feels. You know, within that construct of a dream, it feels accurate, a good description, good for communication. But that's not a direct experience. That is not. In the direct experience, there is no past. Past is only an image. Hi, Brent. No worries. So this is taken, you can grab the seats there, yes.Yeah, so the direct experience is always the experience of right here, right now.

And the content of this experience may be a notion of the past half an hour ago. How did I get here? Or how did I wake up in the morning? Or what did I have for breakfast if I had any or any of that? But that is only a fleeting memory appearing in that space here, in this moment right now. And there is never, ever, ever any other moment. So what we do here, actually, we just point back to the here. To the here-ness of here. And we recognize that that here, that capacity for knowing, that cognizing emptiness that is here, and a here is undefinable either.

It's just here. That's the only thing that could be said about it without creating false sense of boundaries, locations, which are only existing in the thought. Our cat Pesto doesn't know anything about deep in suburb Australia or this living room, nothing. And yet the experience is of here. And in that experience of here, there is idea of yesterday or 10 years ago or idea, all possible ideas. But what are they? They're just mental constructs. Experience is here. Ideas, of course, they are experienced in a way, but they are experienced here. They're experienced presently.They are not being lived. We can't live yesterday. We can't live 10 years ago.

So really putting the heart and prioritizing present awareness. Again, I like Peter when you said you can use whatever word you want. Cognizing emptiness is as good as of a word because I like when Tony argues with the awareness that that's already too much to say. I can't say there is a me having an awareness or I having others aware. None of it. But the content is cognized. The emptiness have the capacity to notice or cognize. And that is the direct experience. There is a cognizing capacity here. I can't say it is mine, I can't say I'm big, small, whatever, but there is a capacity for knowing, for cognizing.

So the presumption is that there is an existence and that existence has this capacity. But again, this is wording. What we can and we cannot stop. Experience is just this here here now and whatever it contains is secondary the fact of the here and now is primary The content of it is secondary. And the content, again, I like, Peter, how you highlighted, you know, the differentiation. You know, suddenly that here, which is limitless, which is timeless, boundless, spaceless, is just a here that is. Suddenly a...appears as the 10,000 things, as all that beautiful uniqueness, every pattern, shape and form, as different as it can possibly be.

You can focus on the differences and you will see the magnificence of that creative power of the universe, which you can call God, God the creator. It creates every movement of attention and you look anywhere, you look and the universe unfolds like a fractal. You look at the clump of grass or the dog shit or into an eyes of anyone, enemy. And the more attention goes there, the more of the reflection of that creative power of the universe shows up the infinity, the absolute. Because that's the only way the absolute, the infinity, experiences itself as a pattern, shape and form. It has a glimpse of itself in the, as a reflection of the pattern, shape and form.

And those patterns and shapes and form are nothing, but not a nothing. So this is where the conundrum lies. Looking with your heart, resonating, going back to the experience of knowing, to the directness of knowing. And yes, aliveness, cognizing emptiness, luminous, radiant, alive, here, miraculous, wow. And then going to the mind, interpretation, yeah, but this is not quite it, you know, there is a me and I didn't get it and I'll have to get it later and I'm stuck.suffering and and they got it they know better i don't i have to practice i have to do something there is a future in that future i'll get there a lot of presumptions but this is the interpreting services this is the machinery that interprets that vibrancy of life and makes the pattern shapes and forms out of it you can have a thought about the beach and their sensations will be reflected in the body, the commentary will be reflected in the body.

Another thought may arise about potential tragedy or drama or loss. And again, reflection in the body of that thought will have the full experience, full body experience of whatever it contains, the mental image. And that is what Bob used to call the energy of belief. And this is really what's standing in the way of direct realization that what is right here, right here, always here, is not obscured. It's already to be recognized. It is already foretaken. It's already undeniably what you are.what you are is again the wrong word because it really is a realization that you are not what you are but that you are and you are you can't stop being that cognizing emptiness or that isness is is here on that on that basic screen of isness the whole world appears in all those beautiful pattern shapes and forms in all its glory and uniqueness to be appreciated as the reflection of that which you are.

And the world is projected and it is interpreted and it is made into a story, which is habitually related to a me, which is also a story. So there is the miraculousness of existence and now there is an interpreting of it happening. We are here, we arrived here, and we are here because we share the love of truth. And as someone was pointing out, Anthony, I think, there is no we. We is a thought. Yesterday is a thought. Arriving here from somewhere else is a thought even here is a thought but it is as close to the experience as it could be just like Nisargadatta was pointing out that I am is as close to the experience of that pure existence as it can be using the words translating the experience into the into the conceptbecause that's how we communicate in the dream.

And again, the we communicate in the dream. The dream is to be appreciated without the dream body. without the dream characters, without the dream setting of those shapes and forms. There is no expression. There is no experiencing. So from the individual perspective, it may be daunting. Oh my God, how am I going to stop being a character? Well, the question, it can't happen. It is absolutely impossible. It can't. The dream character cannot wake up. It cannot stop being what it is. Realization is that you are not the dream character and you never were dream character. You are the emptiness, the field of cognizing, in which that interface of a dream character is showing up to experience and express, to see the reflection of the absolute in every pattern, form and shape.

And that recognition is available moment to moment through the direct experience by relaxing the notions. I like that word, Peter. All the notions, relaxing all the notions, all the ideas, all the interpretations. It kind of sounds mysterious. How am I going to relax the thinking? But there is no I relaxing thinking. It's just thinking going on in an easy way to realize that this is just part of the manifestation.and it is habitually prioritized and habitually given that attention which is the energy of belief by opening it up include because Bob was talking always about the unfixated awareness unfixated awareness is that relaxed attention is the attention that is not drawn into the thinking exclusively fueling and believing the interpretation the narration that is completely automatic by inclusion you know there is an air conditioner running just include that sound include the traffic includes the sensation of the back on the chair and hold it somehow five senses wide open just including other sensory experiences how little of the processing power is left for imagination for the future for the past when the attention is relaxed and the relaxation sometimes is easy when you press it harder harder harder and just stop so holding on to something harder and then withdraw or picking up few things and dispersing that attention nicely, dispersing between three or four different sounds in a space,And it's just even locating them in a space.

That's another piece of processing, which relaxes the attention. And now in that relaxed attention, the constructing of the notions or ideas doesn't have enough fuel to run. So that here stands alone, fresh and new and obvious. And it is fulfilling. There is nothing wrong. When there is no thought, when there is no imagination, which is interpretation, all the overlay of making sense of the world, where are we, who are we, what are we doing, where are we going, all of that is the realm of imagination. All of that is the realm of what is not happening. And it only happens because of the completely automated habit of narrating, interpreting the urges of the body, which nobody does.

It feels that there is an I that says, yes, but. But there isn't any I that says it. It's a piece of software that says, yes, but I'm not there yet. I didn't get it. Like the Siri in your phone. It says, I'll tell you. I'll tell you a joke. But there is no I. It's a software. It doesn't. There is no one there saying anything. The narrative function, which is interpreting urges into the language of symbols, is no different to the function of digestion.is also automatic function or sweating or growing hair all of that is just the part of the setting of that body mind costume or machinery so that that life essence has the utilities has the holes for the eyes to see and the ears and the mouth and taste and all that is just a brilliant arrangement for the life to get the glimpse of itself.

But the software that shows up in the middle mediating that direct experience of here, of here-nowness, of beingness, translating it into an imagined entity that runs the show. That controls the thinking and doing such a bad job with it, that controls the feelings and failing, constantly failing, because who would want to feel miserable? Who would want to feel or think doubts? Obviously, nobody does it because, well, if there was anyone, that would be nuts. And if there was anyone that could have been stopped, but it can't, just like digestion runs of its own, unless the machine is broken. So thinking runs of its own, unless the machine is broken.

If you get the brain damage, stroke, Alzheimer's, the thinking may stop. On that point. Yeah, go for it. I just wanted to add a few things.One is that no matter what's occurring, you still have the capability to It's not even you having a capability. It's just self-expressing. It's continually self-expressing this thing called life. The essence of life is always going on. In my case, I had a brain operation, which is probably the worst. Sort of thing you might consider to be for a spiritual aspirant. You know, to have your discerning capability completely taken away from a moment. Well, that's what they did. This is a nice story.

Everyone loves a bit of a story. So here we go. Put the electrodes into my head. But afterwards, the whole brain needed time to readjust to what was going on. I couldn't speak, I couldn't do anything, I couldn't walk. I had a seriously difficult time. As you might attest. But yeah, through all of that though, there was this consistency that I saw. And the consistency was a direct experience of just being here, direct experience of being, of being alive, part of the thing called life in its purity.in blazing glory because nothing else can truly be in the same kind of context at least as we think we behave and operate in a world you know how important are the intellectual concepts to this world You've got to get it right.

Always got to get it right. You can never be wrong. You know. Well, that was a great motivating force for me to, rather than to be a force for good, it was a force to keep the separation at bay. To keep it going. The more I know, the better off and more different I can define myself as. And so thereby, the separate self comes into being all the time. That's the way it works. And that's okay, though. Man, Ron, it doesn't matter. There's no negatives here. They're not positives either. They just are as they are. Only this, as I'm aware of.In that time I remember Bob and Kat came to visit me, which is after the operation.

And I was sitting there, I was totally non-complacent, I couldn't do anything. And yet I was aware and I could connect with Bob really easily, actually. Not for any reason other than I knew that he had experienced similar things, you know, with his body going into decline. But he already knew. Of course he knew. And I could use him, put it that way. Use him as an example of someone who was on the same wavelength. To speak. Being on the same wavelength means that one is merely resonating with that other person, resonating with the life in that person.It doesn't matter who it is. It doesn't matter what it is.

We still find what we would define as being God. In that place, in that place of what we call resonance. I hate these words, they've become so hackneyed, they've become part of the lexicon of being, you know, a non-dual, I'm a non-dual specialist, something like that. It's crazy, isn't it?And so you don't come here to find any good idea. Throw that away, I reckon. A good place to start. And become wholly open hands and mind. Every Sunday, this Sunday, now, every moment, every moment of the day is an opportunity to go home. Find that you aren't, but everything is.It is everything expressing as the individual.

And that way, all your brothers are always right. Line in the Course in Miracles somewhere there that says that your brother is always correct, always right. And in the sense that no matter what your brother, being anyone at all, says to you, it has to be correct in the sense that anything is correct because really nothing. Is correct in sexual terms, but you share with them the certainty of the purity of life that you are.We can have a look and see that that's true. Beyond the concepts. A really good idea is to ask oneself, do I really know that this is true that I'm saying?

Do I really know that it's true beyond the non-conceptual? Yeah.Peter's, when Peter was speaking, it reminded me of something I remembered again earlier this week during a Zoom meeting that Bob said to me in this room. About maybe two weeks before he passed and I was pottering around in the kitchen. He called me over and he said, what are you doing? And then he said, what do you know? The answer to both questions is nothing and no thing.The only thing you can ever be certain of is that There is an is-ness. The moment you put a word on it, you screw it up. You try to label it.

You can't. There's a kind of a need to say something to communicate it, but it's not possible. You limit it. As soon as you put a label on it, use a word. But we all know intrinsically what it is.Rely on that. That's it. It's obvious as all hell, really. So we have, Anthony says, the limitation of words, aye. And Catherine says, what words were you born with? And that's really great reminder. The non-conceptual awareness, as Tanya just said, we all know it intrinsically. There is a knowing, intrinsic knowing, without the words. It's non-conceptual, so no words needed to express it. But who can try and not exist for a moment, for five minutes, for a minute?

So it's known. And Anthony also says stories are great ways of transmitting this truth ironically. Yes, that's how we communicate, ironically, because it is non-conceptual. But like in the music, it is...beautiful because of the gaps between the notes that create the flow. When the words are transmitted, there is still a transmission, energetic transmission of that certainty which lies underneath the expression. And if there is a self that is out of the way, that expression is the pure life, unobscured and unadulterated by any idea of me doing something, saying something. There is no translation or credit-taking agency mitigating that natural expression. And stories, yes, they can inspire and they point.

They are lovely. Sophie says, wise and wonderful woman, speaking directly, strength with great gentleness. Happy International Women's Day. Thank you, Kat. Thank you, Sophie. And dear Peter, now you are an example too of honesty, courage and love. So lovely to resonate with you here. Oh, you are, Sophie's in Portugal, so wonderful to have you here. I guess it's a neat, oh, maybe you are in the UK now. It's the middle of the night nonetheless, and lovely to have you. And Nishkala says, there is a Facebook feedback, sorry, feedback from one of the mics. Whoops. Maybe they were too close. Okay.Okay, just yes, thank you. And Anthony says, it is like walking on water, but don't fall in.

That's a nice story. That's a beautiful story. The gentleness of just, yeah. Beautiful. And Catherine says, there are no stories that transmit the truth, only the belief in a story. Well, yes, if there is no receptivity, there is a belief on the story and no resonation. But if there is openness, if there is receptivity, then of course, everything transmits the truth. The bird singing transmits the truth. Because any form that appears in the field, be it a sound or be it a shape, is really a manifestation, an expression of that formlessness. So yes, the attention, if it is filtered through the mind, it completely misses out what underlies the story.

But if the attention is in the core or the essence, there is nothing that can obscure it. No story, no concept, no belief, no fanaticism. Can never obscure the fact that if not for that existence underlying it, there couldn't be a fanaticism, violence, a dream, a belief, nothing. And Nishkala says, not now. Oh, we have... Bill says,is self-illuminating and the only constant, requiring no subject, object or validation. Absolutely. And it is free to express. It's not that if there is awareness, there is a need for silence and being mute and sit still in samadhi. Awareness is ever free. And even if the expression is from the absolutely confused, crazy mind, it is still the same life using the crazy interface, but it's still expressing itself.

It's just that when the interface, the translation, the crazy part of the translating and expressing that pure essence is seen through, then naturally it can't be believed anymore. Then naturally it doesn't matter whether it sings or what it sings. Tibor says, sometimes the second mic has a lot of handling noise off camera, not feedback. Aha. Okay. Thank you, Tibor. I'll try to keep it on something soft maybe. Probably me. Maybe shaking around. Aha. Yes, could be. Yeah, we'll watch it out. Do you want to add something, Peter? Yeah, I'm always up to add something more. That's the thing, you know, we're always there to add something more.I think that's a really good thing to look at, isn't it?

Why are we speaking here? Why do we do anything at all? We do not. We do not. It only appears this way. There's no doing it anyway. That's true. Why are we beating our hearts? We don't. Yeah. This is the end of all that discussion. You take it to an end point and that's the end. No more to say. In the meantime, we fumble around trying to express ourselves and to be with something beyond what we consider ourselves to be. Always wrong. Always, always wrong. Never right.What a relief. We're relieved from the guru model now. Being wrong. What a relief. Amen. Beautiful. Amen. Yes. We're relieved from the guru model, meaning that we cannot aspire to be a teacher of any kind at all.

No. And get away with it, really. That was a great aspiration for me over a long period of time. To be a teacher, a good teacher, I've got to get the concepts right, I've got to express myself differently. What a limitation to be something. Oh, yeah. Crazy. Other than being nothing.Exactly. I've got myself the mic somehow. Yeah, that belief, if it becomes a belief, that the chain of thoughts and ideas and concepts about, I think, driving here, did I have time for a coffee? Oh, maybe I can. I might be running late. I mightn't get a seat. Stop, yes, I've got one. Oh, I'm here early, blah, blah, blah.

But it's just that the dawning or I think you're saying coming back to it or recognising what you really are is that timeless livingness, not the chatter that goes on about what you're doing and what you're not doing or whatever. Just that being, and I like what you said, Kat, about the air conditioner and being alive to all the senses that in that, listening to the birds or seeing the traffic from a different point of view or just being with the senses, suddenly all the chatter drops back and that recognition takes place again that what you really are is none of that thinking about who you are, where you are, or what you're doing.is important.

That just goes on by itself. It always goes on by itself and we attribute ourselves as being the doer or the thinker or the mover and the shaker, but it's not the case. It's not any of those conceptual ideas. And yet you can get lost in the conceptual ideas at times and think that, you know, this is happening to me and what am I going to do and blah, blah, blah. But that all drops away at some stage and you realise that was all a passing dream too. So, yeah, really good to hear you, Peter. It was terrific. Terrific spiel and it's nice to be sharing it with all of you today.

But that's another thing is that I've got people going through things at the moment in my life, but the realization that there is no separation, that we are just that beingness, the oneness, and the mind creates the other person that's going through something or that we're experiencing something different. It's all mental conceptualization. There is just the one being, really, and all these mind ideas come into it about you know, who they are and what they are and what they're going through.completely a product of thinking. Yeah, that's quite right. Yeah. Everything's a product of the mind and separation. Funny thing, isn't it? Clearly a beautiful, can be very beautiful too.

Just look around and see how crazy everybody is. Completely nuts. But I'm also completely nuts. Woo! And the difference between this is not at any distance at all. We can overcome that quite clearly simply by including everybody in a

It really is what's happening. I see a difference only when I see differences. Do I see myself as God in action? I think you are not completely nuts, Tanya. It doesn't matter now. It's way too late in the first to worry about any differences. But we are all nuts, we all want, right? What a beautiful way of bringing everything to collapsing the separation, even if you use the words that may sound like a judgment.

But it's a cute judgment. It's a cute one. What an amazing illusion. What an amazing... Whatever's going on, how... Awesome. In awe of it that these apparent seeming individual entities are buying the illusion that they are an individual entity, a unit separate from. Incredible. Incredible. And you said the word why before. And it's natural. Why not? Who is there to ask that question, to care?Can you find them? Can you find it? The person who cares about the answer to that question? No. No one there. And also, why is a switch on for the improvising capacity of the mind that will generate a lot of stories?

Make sure you generate more than one because one is really, really easy to believe and get lost in. But if there is few stories, why? Then we can laugh at all of them. We can just include them. The story why is literally a switch on for the improvising capacity of that interpreting services to bring a good story. Why we here? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why am I playing this role? Well, you are not. But the moment you ask the question why, the mind will answer. Why was I born or who was I last century? You ask any of the questions and if there is no ready-made answer, it will be made up.

Because like chat GPT, absolutely. But chat GPT is a little bit more kind of reliable because it bases on the common knowledge of the collective illusion called world. While this one, it doesn't base on anything. It's a random associations that will bring, you know, you ask it about past incarnations or whatever, and there is no data.So it will just beautifully, beautifully improvise it. It's like a dancer. It's incredible. So trusting this is nuts, is being nuts, absolutely, believing it. But yet, you know, that role of playing a role, of being nuts, of playing a role, any role, is also part of the automatic functioning. You are in front of your children, you are a father, you are in front of your spouse, you are a partner, you are in front of whatever, the shopkeeper, you are a client or customer or whatever you are.

Automatically, there is no need to think about it. Those roles are already preconditioned in the machine. One thing that is conscious about it all is that you can just sit back, relax the awareness and notice, notice, noticing capacity, cognizing emptiness, being that emptiness with the capacity of cognizing whatever the mind is bringing up, creating, expressing, watching it, enjoying it. And I have beautiful, beautiful comment from Bill here who says, freedom is easier than talking about it. And that is, my God, Bill, if you don't mind, I put it as a title. We love talking about it because that's just love for life and love for the truth expressing.

And there's nothing wrong in talking. And there's no choice whether talking happens or it doesn't. But yes, the freedom is absolutely, is so inevitably underlying.talking whether talking is there or is not there it's much much much easier than talking about it much more obvious and anthony says always wrong beautiful beautiful yeah the mind is always wrong it never there is no truth in concepts concepts are namarupa they belong to the illusion to maya Sat Chit Ananda is the reality, being, awareness of being and the love of being, existence. That is never changing. That is what we are, the space of consciousness. Names, forms, concepts, ideas, the thoughts are constantly changing.

So they are part of the illusion. Madness is the reality. Hach, Anthony, always wrong. He says first, beautiful, and then madness is the reality. Hach. Yes, the madness of thinking is the... Seeming reality. Seeming, because all thoughts are mad. And also, Bill says, life is never ahead of itself. Only thoughts are. You go, please. Well, just the thinking goes on. But we talk about believing the story. You know, the problem is we believe the rubbish that comes up or sees on it and take it to be the real. And what is that believing? I know Bob used to say acceptance of an alleged fact, et cetera, you know.

In the absence of reason. In the absence of reason, absolutely. What is it that accepts, you know, there's another in literature I often read, it says insanity is...is believing a lie and it's all lies in a way that all the concepts aren't concepts aren't real and yet people will go around talking about it well you know i've done it too talk it as as if it's the truth and uh what what makes that fine line between believing it and seeing it as a lie Yeah, that's a very, very good question. There's a Buddhist monk who said, without mindfulness and wisdom close to the heart, we become mere performing puppets.

And he quoted the Buddha in one of his sutras. Explaining to a senior monk about Namarupa. And he was saying that Namarupa worked together and then they convinceThey convince one that they're real, they're the real person, self-entity, separate self-entity. And he said, just as a wooden puppet will stand up, move about, appear full of life and energy, just so with Nama and Rupa working together, there appears to be someone who stands up, moves around, talks,He is to be full of life and energy. When there's really no one there. It's like Peter saying, it's all, you know, the work of madmen. But it starts with ignorance.

And what the ignorance is about is ignorance of our true nature.I would say that it... Ignorance of our true nature is a simple, simple thing. Everybody knows the answer. It's not difficult. Probably every man and his dog wants to be the next guru, the next teacher. Unfortunately, there's one too many gurus out there already. And so what can we do now?and do it all the knowledge. Be nothing is all we can do. And that's what that presentation out there seemingly is telling us again and again and again. I am nothing. I don't even exist. And just again this unfolding of ideas that happens, everyone is equally mad.

It's not like you're mad at anybody else, you're not. In that recognition that everyone is crazy or everyone is... Is more light than the next guy, whatever way you want to look at it, it doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter because in one fell swoop you can see that nobody's madder than anybody else. In that place, you all of a sudden come into a realization of the homelessness of everything, the mundane nature of the whole thing. If everyone's crazy, equally crazy, then the difference between people is equal, in a spiritual sense, if you like. We see what is really going on here. The unlimited expression of God through this apparatus called separation.

You're kind of like rubber bands, if you like. You're a rubber band.You're connected with this rubber band. You're coming in and out of unity, out of unity, into separation. So far in that you have to bounce out again. Way of describing it, I suppose. Anyway, that's it. Yeah, in this craziness, there's nothing, no thing that is wrong intrinsically either. It just is. It's when we label it and give it words that we separate. Between good and bad and ordinary and hot and cold and whatever. And what is helpful, though, is to hold no concepts. Play with them. Let them play. Let them flow. Just have their recognition of what's going on.

But not grasping or taking anything, keeping anything that limits. Just be prepared to be taken away with the flow. And that's all fine. Nothing wrong in this nutty craziness. And we have...Anika says, yes, the realization that there is no separation. This heart is feeling such acute love for all the, for all despite being in illusory crisis. Yes, I hope you are all right. Anika is in the midst of the eye of a cyclone. I think the worst is behind you. And Laura, good to know we are equally crazy. We are one. We are one craziness. I don't know even about the crazy. It may hold the judgment for some people, but all words can.

I know that in your words, Peter, it is kind of cute and sweet being not being crazy. There's nothing wrong with that. There's a cuteness. There is a quality of like... Mischief. But yeah. As good word as any other, isn't it? Yeah. I only use craziness because it's easy to deal with, easier to deal with than any kind of intellectual superiority. We're equally better than the next guy or equally crazy. And Anthony says here, we can infer the sanity of that which is behind this manifestation. Yes, what is crazy, what is sane, everything is as it is. I love when Tanya highlights, you know, be like a sky.are they just are they no good no bad they no crazy no black no dark they just are they passing through they move on same as thoughts ideas the emptiness cognizing emptiness it allows everything equally it doesn't even allow it it is it just is just is and that isness is inherently what we all share the isness that's regardless of forms in which it appears.

And also, I wanted to kind of make it lighter, that beautiful idea that Peter, again, humans in the dream, in the human experience, is largely shared. I need to find out who I am. I need to be something else. I need to be this, that, and the other. I need to be a mom. I need to be a teacher. I need to be a better wife. I need to be a politician. Whatever it is, it always presumed that there is an I. That has that desire, that drive, or that choice. If there isn't one, then who needs to be what? And why would the life itself ever want to limit itself to one temporary role in the appearance?

And then again, as Bob always pointed out, you know, it is about the message. It isn't about the teacher, about the messenger. It isn't about which mouthpiece the message is delivered or is expressing through. That one, it doesn't matter. It's a form.It is going to rot. It is going to die. Whether it happens in 20 years or 120 years, who cares? This is a piece of flesh. This is a meat factory, a sheep factory, whatever. It doesn't matter. It's just a mouthpiece. So who wants to be and what and why? It is just this isness here, right here, the isness. And through that isness, life is looking and seeing the room from different angles.

And through the isness of the whale, it sees the waves or the reefs. And through the isness of the bird, it sees the whatever, eagles flying, mice, whatever. It is the same life utilizing the vehicles of expression for its own amusement, if one could say this way. Who cares really? It is just is. There is no why, there is no because, there is no need for justifying story of what is happening. The miracle of existence is happening. And the appreciation is on the menu. If there is no confinement or no limitation or no role that I encapsulated myself in, the cage of concept, I am this, I am a main speaker on the meeting, shit.

I am not. There is just is-ness. And I don't know my next thought, just like any of you, no one does. We don't know the next feeling, the next action, the next urge in the body. It may come as a burp, who knows? It's not who I am. It does its own thing.It does beat the heart. It does whatever, creates, moves the blood. I have no idea about that. It's life, life-ing, it's doing its thing. And how wonderful to not believe or entertain any idea about this moment or any other moment to be any different than it appears right now. Or any role for anyone to be any different, any limitation they may arise.

I want to be better at this. I want to learn another language or I want to whatever, become something or the other. But if those thoughts are not entertained or believed in or taken on board like bob says if they are not the energy of belief is not giving them life because that energy is only one energy it's intelligence energies all life if they not animated to appear alive and vibrant. If they're not hijacked like a virus of that system, they're free to move on. Just like Tanya was saying, don't hold the idea. Let them just float through because that's what the space does. Space does not have preference for only positive thoughts and not negative thoughts.

Space doesn't have any preferences at all. We can't even say that it exists. It's a field of potentiality. We can't say it doesn't exist.because everything appears in it, but we can't even say it does. That's the mindfuck here, because it can't be expressed. It is incomprehensible. It is beyond the duality of the language of symbols. And that's the beauty of it, because at the same time, it can't be denied. In direct experience, you don't even need the language. You don't even need to express it, as Bill was saying. Freedom is easier than talking about it and thinking about it and pointing to it. Although it is a joy, it still is a joy.

And we have... Anthony says we can infer the sanity of that which is behind manifestation. Yes. And beautiful says Anika, the miracle of existence is happening. It is even in a crisis. And that's the beauty of it. Again, when you when you watch the nature, you watch the wildlife. The miracle of existence is happening and the crisis is, let's face it, we happen, you know, like cyclone, how many of them? I mean, I heard that one is every whatever, 40 years or something, hitting that area, big crisis. Well, we have minor crises, but we don't have to survive every night. We don't have to watch out constantly for the predators like every other creature out there.

Including mosquitoes, including possums. So the comfort of the human life, we do really to get the beauty of the duality.to somehow, I mean, life does it, spice with psychological suffering. Because we don't really have serious problems for our bodies. I mean, of course, there are ailments, just like every other creature. But spicing it up with psychological suffering, which brings the craze up to the motivation of looking deeper, looking beyond the concepts. Well, that seems to be a common story shared in these rooms. Anybody else want to? Anyone? Anyone?I was thinking a few days ago how, so I had a really tragic, traumatic childhood. And it's taken me every bit of my entire adult life to consciously, deliberately, intentionally work through that, through so many different modalities, including...

Microdosing on psilocybin to help rewrite neural pathways. And it's just been a journey of angst. And the other day I realized I survived my childhood. But the realization was, the realization was one of liberation and one of, can I swear? Cover it. Really fucked off. Because I realized, oh, fuck me. I actually finished surviving that the day I left home. What I didn't finish surviving was the mental construct of the pain of that, the psychological suffering. And it's really like fucking with me. Because I'm like, on the one hand, it's completely over. Like it is over. There are no more nightmares. There's no more screaming out at the night.

There's no more this. There's no more that.But it's that thing that you were saying, Kat. It's like we survive, but then we carry on with the story. And I thought, so I like suffered for 40 years after I left home at 16. I suffered for 40 years needlessly. I was a bit annoyed and you think I'd be going, woohoo, but I wasn't. And I'm still like walking through as if I'm walking through, I don't know. I don't know what's going on with me at the moment. I just feel like I'm walking through emptiness and it just doesn't stop and it won't stop and there's nothing that the me can do to stop it.

And I know that. And it's suffering and it's pain and it's also not. And it's like, what do you do with that on the human level? You don't. You just keep walking through. It's like the message, Pete, it's like as if he looked into my soul and spoke directly to me for me. I'm so grateful what you said. Everything you said just resonated 1,000%. And so there's just this beautiful deliciousness of presence in this room. And there's also the realization of suffering and the realization that it doesn't have to be that way. Yeah. But I don't know how to drop that. And there's also the realization of there is no me to drop that.

That's it. Yeah. But what do you do with that? Oh, well, you just keep walking through the...fucking wilderness until one day the gapeless gate appears yes and you trust that you trust that life is holding you already you know that life that brought you here that life that is breathing you beating your heart Just relax because that resistance and for me all the psychological suffering and unresolved trauma in that one instant of disintegration of the idea of being separate self became impersonal. There is still a lot of neurosis perhaps on many, many levels in the system, but it is not mine anymore. It doesn't cause any suffering anymore.

I still have behaviors that I wouldn't speak to strangers or anything like that, but there is no anxiety or fear behind it because the realization is that this is the conditioning of the body and this is not mine, this is not me, this is not I. So now, because that life that sustains the body, it will always, you know, it will take time, of course, to rewire some neural pathways, but it will always prioritize to keeping the body alive. That's the love of being. Trusting that life, if there is any residue of the individual that is preoccupied, engaged, sorry, suffering, longing, trusting, just relaxing back, relaxing back that attention which creates that form of individual.

And really focusing, coming back to the heart.and remembering that life is beating it for you. Life is going to rewire everything for you. The you is just a residue, is just a habit of hallucinating the self in time who went through all that. But that self never existed. It's only a habit of belief, habit of that animating energy still there. But the more you trust the life that is beating your heart,

Really, even putting a hand on your heart and just, I'm totally taken care of. I don't have to worry. The less of that animating energy will be invested in hallucinating that self that which went through all that hell.

And the memories are still going to be available. I have the darkest memories available anytime I reach out there. But again, they're not mine. They don't cause re-traumatization when I even narrate them. There is a freedom absolutely possible. And how it is going to unfold in every individual vehicle for life, that is unknown. And how and when and to which extent and how it is going to be dropping away and relaxing. But trust is... Isn't it intuitive to actually just, as you say, walking through it, just keep showing up, being here, walking through it and trusting that those things are already slowly easing off and they'll continue.

There's no difference between you as... You don't exist as a separate entity.You are the pain and suffering in the instant that is there in the mind. It happens at the very same time. I don't know whether that helps, but it definitely helps me. If I find myself in any but condition of freedom, Just totally expressing as I am without consequence is really what goes on.losing the track of what I wanted to say exactly. But just hold on a minute, it might come back. This. I'm going to have a lot of money. I'm going to have a lot of money. Yeah, I think it just the realization sort of struck me a while ago that I'm not the struggle I have with myself.

I'm not the fight with my neurotic ideas or my habits or anything like that. Those things go on. But I realized they're not me. And the more I realized they're not me, the less important those things are and the less it seems to come up as an issue, you know. It's just a stepping outside of all that in a way of just realizing you are that. You're not. Your past or your future or anything like that. And it seems so consuming. You think, oh, yeah, no, I get that. One day I'll get rid of this. One day it won't happen like that or something. All those things that you think.habitually you just see as mental habits that those that pattern of thinking Yeah, I totally hear what you're saying and I agree with everything you've all said.

I feel like it's just the nervous system that has to learn to rewrite itself because I realized this morning, oh, this is just habit. This is just habitual, little habitual me, you know. And there is really no walking around in the wilderness, although that's how it feels. It just feels like there's this never-ending wilderness. And it's like, just chill, Tasha, because it's just the fucking nervous system. That's all. Just, I don't know. I really, I actually don't know. Don't know. But thank you. Yeah, I really, really enjoyed that spiel. Yeah, it was good.The key issue here is just simply to be, you know, to recognise where your definition comes in.

Who are you really? That's all. Keep looking at that. Is that the truth? How do I know that? It's silly. I know that I am this being suffering. In some neurological condition. The way you are in the moment you entertain the thought of it, that's it. That's the way it works, you see. That's the way the separation ever out of the world. The instant that you think that you are it. However, you are not it, because that evaporates all the time. Try and keep it in place. You can't. That's the truth of you. I always go, you know, I'm in doubt. I bring it back to first principles.

First principle is, where is this occurring? Here and now. All I am is here and now. What do I know for certain in all of this? Do I know the story? Anything, any element of the story is true? No, is this what I... I definitely agree with you that these things can be very emotionally charged. They can be. But they're only ever an instant anyway. There's no difference between this instant and some other instant. In its content, maybe.It just shows how much that content is irrelevant to the whole situation. That's what we learn here, we go the other way. You're trying all the time. We try all the time.

I'm not separating you out at all. But you try all the time to make a better idea of self. And I can be a better idea of me, a better version of me. Somehow I'm wrong. Somehow I got it all wrong. The fact that I think all the things under the sun appear to be the ownership of that in that moment. You know, makes that... You know for certain. That's the question I'm asking you right now. What do you know for certain? She didn't know. Yeah. But what I know for certain? What I know for certain? I don't know. You know that you don't know.

Yeah. But you know you have to be, not you know. Yeah, I... Sorry, you're not my slave girl. As cute as you are, you're not my slave girl. For sure, without a doubt, I know that I don't know. Well, that's great. Do you know that you don't know? Ah. I don't know. I don't even know that I don't know. You know?I'm not sure where that is, where I'm unraveled completely in these. And it's okay. Yeah. Yeah, brilliant. That's it. Be free. Free of all the notions of the heart. We never want anything to be solid, really. We want to know that anything is real. Sometimes.

Do you really want a reference point? Sometimes, yes. Other than... I know I'm not supposed to say that from a non-dual point of view, but truth is, sometimes, yes. I don't want to be clever, you know. Thank you. I just wanted to say one time I had a panic attack come up in the not too distant past and from some old trauma, totally unexpected, totally frozen, totally fucked. And I remember coming to Bob and Kat's place and Bob said to me, Anita, are you unaware right now? And it just took, it's like pulling an electric plug out. I'm in this head going, I'm not safe, I'm not safe, I'm not safe, I'm not safe.

And it was an old program, right? Something got triggered. It was an old program. And he just said, Anita, are you unaware right now?I thought, it's happening within awareness. And who is aware and what is aware? It was really quite remarkable for me at that time. I found that such a beautiful pointer at that time when I was in total freeze mode. Yeah, so, you know, days are just... You know, the sense of self is a bad habit. It's just habitual. When... Those thoughts arise and there's an awareness of them, you could see it as an invitation to do the investigation and take a look and see if you can find Tasha.

She's dissolving. Can you find a reference point for Tasha? Can you find a boundary?I know, I know. And then realise, and then realise, and then take a look at... Where's this looking coming from? Who's looking? And you realise you can't find who's looking. And so on and so on and so on back to infinity. It's just what is happening. But it's an invitation when those thoughts come up. And I had a similar childhood, as you know. This is an opportunity to take a look and find out who's suffering. Find the entity, the supposed entity that's suffering.We have a couple of minutes. Okay, so Bill says, look out the window.

Life is just life. Can't add to or delete anything from it. But we can snazzy things up a bit by adding a theoretical makeover. That's exactly what is happening. Life is right here, right now, unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. And we add to it all the concepts, all the ideas, all the past, the future, the interpretation. Yeah, beautiful. And Martin says, look at what obscures the I am-ness, which is non-conceptual. Something is aware of these thoughts. These thoughts come and obscure the natural awareness. The belief in the obscuration is believing that this thought that appears and disappears is you. Nothing you can do about any of this, and I don't know that.

Just life appearing. Don't listen to anything I say, please. This was beautifully put, Martin. It was beautiful. It was perfect. That's it. This is roughly the same what Tanya was saying, just really. Really noticing capacity and using those thoughts as the opportunity to see where they appear to, who they appear to.And Gilbert says, apparently, the BS never stops. There is no need to buy into any of it. Do not buy shares in the counterfeit enterprise. The me is a total fiction. Beautiful. And Anthony says that one that reaches into the bag of experiences needs to be based in the light of truth and love. That's beautiful.

Yeah. Kill the ego by drowning it in love. It can't take it. It can't. It's made of fear and insecurity and it's illusory. It's a cage of concept which needs constant defending of this illusory boundaries. It is nothing. And Laura says, thank you. Great meeting. Wonderful to be back in the Sangha. Wonderful to have you, Laura. And Anthony says, knowing is the biggest thorn. Knowing the capacity for knowing or cognizing emptiness, knowing this or that is the illusion. I know that I don't know. Even here, you can ask, who is it that knows that they don't know? Who is it that knows that you don't know?

Who is uncertain there? Is there anyone there? Or it's just a wave of uncertainty just floating through that cognizing emptiness that is aware. Of that wave containing the wordI now this is an eye that is uncertain but hey who knows where is that uncertain I known in that emptiness that cognizing field of of knowing or awareness registers that uncertain I but that's not me the field registers Something that in a moment, in an instant, gets like flooded with that animating essence and it feels real, just like Santa Claus for a child. It's believed. But again, who is believing that space, in the space, the whole show arises and it is known in that space?

And space doesn't believe anything. It just holds space for whatever is arising. It's like the screen, like Bob talks about the empty screen. It just is a screen for whatever the movie, the drama, the comedy. And just relaxing, stepping back and realizing there's always the bigger picture of just this is the content, this is whatever happening. Even if the content, because the, you know, especially the traumatizing thought will shake the whole system. Will create the hormones, will create stress in the system, will make the breathing shallow, will cause all that incredible, incredible reflections.The body is a mirror for that thought to really be experienced fully.

But those reflections, this shallow breathing, these tensions here, here, they are also known. And the pure knowing of it is not affected by it. The pure knowing, the knowing. And it's always delightful to actually, I was walking people through panic attacks, asking them questions. Okay, tell me about the brief. Tell me about mental images. Tell me about, you know, the shakiness. Isn't it fascinating? Oh, shit. Oh, shit. It's going away. No, no. Stay there. Stay there. I want to get to know you better. It almost invites you to really want to dive deeper. And thank you, Dean. I can see you. Punch it. And thank you, everyone.