This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
Sim, Jim, Chris, Tony, Jimmy, Haman, John, Ross, Tony, and Tanya and Kat. That is going to roll around. Now we're going to be talking about no thing. Not nothing, but not a thing. This is the old discussion that goes on forever. Whether the non-duality is annihilating. We are denying the fact of existence of a dream. You are denying the fact of our own existence. No, that can't be denied. You have to be there to even deny it. So the idea of denying existence is ridiculous. But we don't assert it either because it is not a thing to be asserted. You can't put the finger on existence.
You can't draw the circle around it. You can't say what it is. You can't objectify it. But denying it is ridiculous. So we are not talking about nothing, but the no thing, which can't be spoken of. Whatever can be spoken of can't be the real Tao. But it can be pointed to, because it is obvious in the direct experience. There is no one who doesn't exist. There's no one who isn't aware of the fact that they exist. Even though you can't say what it is,Because it is not a thing. But it is there. And this is really the final truth. Tatva Masi. That you are.
That you are, you are, you exist, you are aware of existence. What you are, unknowable. That you are, undeniable. And bringing the attention, bringing the heart back to the truth. It's really what we do here. And there are a thousand ways of... I don't know, I didn't count. But there's a lot of ways to point to that truth. And every pointer has behind it the motivation of the pointer. The heart of the pointer is to bring the attention back to that awareness of presence.Yes, so back to the heart of the truth, which is the awareness of presence. The mind can't get it, the mind can't grasp it.
For the mind, it indeed will be nothing, because it isn't anything that could be objectified. And mind as an instrument, there is no such thing as mind, but the capacity for thinking, capacity for language, is the capacity for labeling and objectifying things.That's why mind can never get it, because it's not an object, it's not a label, it's not a thing. So that is one of the pointers. Don't try and grasp it with thinking. The trying, the thinking, the getting there, the idea of grasping, understanding, comprehending, embracing that. In the future when I try hard enough. It's a waste of steam, really. It's impossible. That's not a difficult thing to do.
That's an impossible thing to do. Because there is nothing that, there is no thing and nothing for the mind that needs to be grasped. The awareness of presence is already here, shining forth, without any need for the mind to do or to achieve or to understand anything. If anything, that mind, that thinking capacity, objectifying and labeling has to get out of the way, has to be relaxed, has to be left aside, parked aside. Let it do its job.because it has an important function in the whole scheme of things, in navigating around the difficulties of the dream, in keeping the body safe and fairly happy, as happy as it can, pleasure as it can.
So let it do its job, let it do its function and leave it as it is. If the mind is stressing about something, leave it as it is. See how it is with the intention of resolving situation and making the life smoother. But see also that it is completely reliant and dependent on the content of the dream. It isn't that important, even if it feels extremely crucial in the moment. The heartache, loss of a job, the promotion. The sickness, the life-threatening disease, it may feel extremely important and the mind will be processing it forever. It will be rumbling on it, chewing on it. That's its job.
But what does it have to do with the awareness of presence? It can occupy the whole attention span. Or it can be just a function, the same function as sensing the temperature in a space. You are aware of the temperature without thinking about it.That is also part of the processing capacity of that processor there. Same with thinking. You might be marginally aware that there is some processing going on, some judging going on, some chewing going on. But it doesn't have to cause psychological suffering. It doesn't have to be final truth. Whatever the mind has to say is not the final truth of what you are.
Because you are, regardless of its chatting or not chatting. When the mind stops for a moment, existence doesn't stop. You're still here. You're still aware. You're still alive. That aliveness is there anytime you check. So you can say, in forever now. You may say it wasn't there a thousand years ago, but hello, the idea of thousand years ago, the idea of thousand years from now, where the aliveness of this particular body isn't there, what is it? An idea. And that idea is happening in the aliveness, in this present moment now. The whole past, if recalled, if showing up as a thought, is happening in that alive moment now.So that moment is the reality.
And in that moment of reality, you know the final truth already. There is nothing that anyone knows about the final truth that you don't. You know that you exist. You are aware of your presence. There might be things that other people know less. You know, like, I can bring about someone who doubted everything else in the dream, and of course the dream is smoother. They doubt all the conspiracy theories, they doubt all the associations with the victim identity, or with whatever has happened to the poor miserable me, whether there is a poor miserable me. That is less information, less clutter to be believed and to waste the energy on sustaining.But the final truth, the awareness of existence, you know already fully, 100%.
There's nothing more to be known about that. There's something less to be known about other stuff, whether it is important to eat meat or vegetable, whether it is important to vote for righties or lefties, whether it is important that artificial intelligence will develop consciousness or not. This is all distractions. They are all possible, all those distractions that seem incredibly important. Am I going to lose all my money? Or am I going to beat my cancer or whatever? Those distractions are only here because of the awareness of presence.So see what stands in the way, what takes that precious attention, which could be sustaining that sense of wonder, sense of aliveness, the luminous radiance of the existence, the miraculousness of the presence of the I Am.
What is taking the energy out of it? Where is the energy going? Story of me, my personal drama, my ambitions.Or this didn't happen to me, or I like that. This is where the psychological suffering comes into the picture. The obsession about me, the self-centeredness, the poor miserable little me that is not good enough, that is unlovable, that is not deserving. And what is that me? If you look directly, what is that me? Where is it when you don't think about it? Is it there when you post a thought?And you can check at any moment. Is there any eye that does the looking? The looking, the seeing is happening.
Is there anyone who does that? The thinking is happening. The ruminating, rumbling, comparing, judging is happening. Digestion is happening. The idea that there is an I that does it, and the idea that there is I that can do it better, or can stop doing it, is just an idea.The eye that can manifest the wealth or health or whatever. Those ideas, they don't come from nothing. They're beautiful, beautiful ways of utilizing the placebo effect in the dream. If you want to believe there is an eye, well, you obviously don't belong in non-dual investigation. But you may utilize some life through you, may get a good ride of the placebo effect of the love.
Whatever attraction things like that but if you are drawn to realize yourself as that life if there is a longing or calling for the final truth in which there is no personal self to claim credit to control to judge But there is just a thinking mind, one of the functions of that vehicle. Just like you may have a car and in the car there will be a function of tooting or braking or flashing lights if there is a low fuel. Those things are part of the normal functioning. In a human machine, seeing, hearing, making noises, speaking, is part of the normal functioning. But are you the car?
Are you the human vehicle?The possibility is to realize that you are the life experiencing and expressing through the vehicle and us the vehicle. Vehicle is not excluded. Because if life is all there is, if life or the essence or the intelligence or the energy is all there is, then obviously that energy is behind everything. That energy is behind the breathing. That's where Christianity comes about with the idea of Father, the God, who is omnipotent. All the power belongs to God. The power of speaking belongs to God. The power of digesting the food is a God's power. He is omnipotence, omnipotence. He does everything. There is nowhere that he is not.
Omnipresence. So my presence is really God's presence. That's God present as me, as the body-mind. Which is not who I am, but it is close enough as a pointer. So who am I? Who are you? Are you the omnipresence? Or are you the idea, the mental image, the poor, miserable, little, unlovable, pathetic, Small, insignificant, tiny.Yes. I was just helping you with words. I don't get that. You can go. It's beautiful. Yes, there isn't a choice. Oh yeah, I choose to be loved then. I choose to be God. Who? Who chooses it? Is there anyone who has any choice? And that who you are in essence is not the one who is powerless, miserable, non-doer, nothing.
As life, you are expressing us this moment with all the choices involved. So it's not entirely, I mean there is no truth in the pointers. Pointers are just pointing. They are not stating the truth. Truth cannot be stated.But as we started, everybody already knows the truth. It's just a reminder, hello, there's nothing new under the sun. There is nothing that anyone can teach you or tell you because you already know that, you already are that. You are present. You are aware of presence. You are the presence awareness itself already. Again now, what's obscuring? What makes us forget that basics? And that is it, the I.
How can I forget it? Now the idea of I comes into the picture, oh yes, I remember, I remember I am that, oh yes, I'm going to go and pronounce it out, this is who I am, I'm enlightened. No, there is no separate imagined self to claim or disclaim, to remember or to not remember. That which remembers and that which forgets is the entity, is the mind-created conceptual image. Knowing doesn't need remembering. It is always there, whether it is remembered or is not.Somehow, reminders may work initially, And they do, that's why they happen. That's why there are so many ways of bringing them on. Reminders, hello, I know that, of course.
But who is the eye that knows that? No, no, no, not that eye, no, no. There is a knowing. There is knowing, there is a knowing of seeing. There is knowing of sweating. There is a knowing of just pure existence. And the qualitatively different sort of a knowing, you know, the first generation knowing does not contain anything. It doesn't have to express as the particular way of knowing. The pure existence does not even need to translate as seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, thinking, whatever. But then it comes the dream, the beautiful reflection of that awareness of presence. Which reflects us the seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, sweating, digesting, drinking, dreaming, fantasizing, ruminating, dramatizing.
All that is the expression of that potentiality, of that aliveness. And when you see, when there is a realization,that this is just life playing its own game. Just the same way as the universe plays its own game, expressing as the sun, the planets, the weather, the tsunami, the volcano, the tides, the seasons. You don't need to take credit for it, alter it, fix it, modify it. Nothing needs to be done about it. It runs of its own. In the same way the human pattern runs of its own. It has a weather of getting up in the morning in a good mood, then the mood changes, and something happens, the narrative happens, taking credit happens.
All those things are happening on the screen of awareness. All the content of a dream happens just like a movie happens on the screen. Just like the projector is projecting something that is an expression of the creativity of another life form. Movie director is a life form. The ant is a life form. The planet is a life form. From the perspective of life, it finds infinite ways of expressing, experiencing itself. And one of the ways is just finding yourself in this room and bringing back pointers to what is already clear. What cannot beachieved in the future, what cannot be achieved through practice, because it doesn't have to, because there is no one to achieve it, and because there is nothing to achieve.
Because it's already here. The presence is here. If not for that presence, the dream wouldn't be possible. So now the motivation for even finding the truth in the dream, outside of dream, realizing the dream, is the suffering. Now the suffering can be welcome too. Because the suffering is the motivation to look deeper, to look behind. Is it true? Is it really that important?Whatever is happening, however traumatic, Well, you were okay before it happened. You can be okay after it happens, without the thinking, of course. With the thinking, well, we can have thousands of stories. Who you are and how you are. And there's nothing wrong with that function either.
The storyteller function of the mind. It's a beautiful, beautiful function and it's to be appreciated if you are free from believing the storyteller. Because when you believe the storyteller, no matter how compelling and beautiful the story is, it's going to cause pain. Because it can change, it can turn, it can end.Freedom is the freedom from the story. Freedom from believing that whatever mind is saying is the truth. Particularly about the identity of self. Who am I? What am I? Am I a seeker? Am I a human being looking for fulfillment? What am I really looking for? What do I want? Why is this moment now not good enough as it is?What is wrong with right now if I don't think about it?
What do I want? And then comes the function of that brilliant machinery which is designed to not only help navigating through life, not only keep you safe and bring seek for pleasure and fulfillment. It kicks in with the stories. And if we look for those stories and we recognize the story, story of a cosmic union with the universe.Wow, what a pleasure. Ultimate pleasure of enlightenment. Finally arriving in a sense of completeness when there is no fear, only love. I love all my enemies. What a vision in the future. It's obviously not right now. I don't love my enemies right now. I don't love mosquitoes, do you?
So those stories, when we look at them and we see what they are, they're no different to the stories of arriving and being a rock star. Everybody's cheering when you sing. Or a great actor making multi-million dollars in the films and everybody loving it. Did you ever meet anyone who was really, really accomplished and attractive? I have a sad story from a primary school when there was a girl who was really good looking.She couldn't meet a boy. She was too good. Half of the ladies hated and loathed her because she was so attractive. The other half envied her. That idea of accomplishment, lasting sense of fulfillment and pleasure, ecstasy of orgasm, of a cosmic union and loving thy neighbors.
What a dream.Awakening from that dream is a freedom from wanting what is not. Those promises never deliver. You can get quick fix and get on drugs or get on chocolate fudge ice cream or whatever and you're going to have 15 seconds or 15 minutes of bliss and ecstasy. But that's about it. The whole dream, the whole dualistic expression has to appear dualistically. There has to be day followed by night, otherwise there is no day. There has to be pain followed by pleasure, otherwise there is no pain and no pleasure. There has to be, if there is a cosmic union, there also has to be sense of isolation and separation.
Otherwise the cosmic union couldn't possibly be appreciated or experienced. So those experiences, those beautiful fleeting moments of pleasure and fulfillment, they have beginning and an end. They are not the final truth. No matter how ecstatic the sense of cosmic union or other pleasures are, they have beginning and an end. They're not the final truth. They're not what you're looking for. They're not lasting. So even finding it for a moment,missing out on that which never changes, which is always underlying every experience, pleasant and painful, every state, state of mind or state of mood or state of heart. There is something that is there, radiant and luminous, never changing.
enabling all the experiences, pleasant and unpleasant, to come and go. And that is always here and is overlooked. Because of that mind promising further future pleasure for non-existent self and being believed, chasing enlightenment, chasing awakening. Yes, yes, I understand all that. I agree with that. Who understands? Who agrees? I understand it conceptually, but I don't experience it. Wow. What are you not experiencing? Are you not existing right now?Everyone is existing. So you may not be experiencing that illusory dream of the future pleasure, but that's a good thing. Because even if it was right here, right now, the next moment it won't. It can't last. There is no lasting orgasm.
The serotonin shock will kill the machine if it lasts too long. But the awareness of presence, the subtle joy of being, is therefore taking the moment the distractions are out of the way, the chasing behind little pleasures, chasing behind trying to fix this moment to be more compelling or more suited to particular preferences of the imagined conceptual image. Relaxing that need for anything to be any different than what it is, and resting in that uncontrived singularity of being. Resting in that miraculousness of existence. And there is joy in that. There is elation in that. There is lightness in that.I think that's enough. Anyone would like to bring any of the pointers?
Because we're just going to talk about the same old thing. But there are so many beautiful ways of bringing it to the surface by pointing and offering that frequency of resonating. Just bringing it back to the heart. So it bubbles up in joy. Bringing the moment of suffering and seeing it from that paradigm change. It's not the change, well you could call it a change of perspective from the, you know, like that tight costume of personal imagined identity to that relaxed presence of awareness or aliveness when you see it like, oh this is happening to me, versus, oh wow, the life expressing through this body, boom, how intense, how amazing.
But I like to call it a paradigm change. Because suddenly, you know, the leap is from the one individual, like from zero to eternity. It's really a paradigm change. And it is available the moment you stop thinking. Or a moment when you stop thinking. It is there. Now the thinking starts again.doesn't go anywhere, it's still there. The thinking doesn't obscure it, it doesn't do anything to it, just like digestion doesn't, just like hearing. Thinking is a subtle hearing. You hear that monologue or dialogue inside your head, you're hearing it, you can even play with it, you know, the little little Arnold Petrix changing the tonality of the voice or changing the speed of speaking and you can just change the voice to a voice of a comedian or whatever.
Hearing that monologue, hearingis the capacity of this body hearing, the idea that there is a little me there inside that is hearing, or there is the me inside that is speaking. That idea is to be seen through and questioned. Capacity for hearing is no different to capacity for sweating or salivating. Or speaking, or thinking, is a capacity that this human pattern has. Capacity for dreaming, capacity for imagining. And witnessing what is being utilized, which capacity is being utilized. Right now there is a witnessing of the capacity for speaking, utilizing itself through the body. There's no one doing that. There's no one speaking. There's just speaking happening.
Like hearing is happening and hearing of the traffic noise and hearing of whatever comes out from here is the same hearing, the capacity for hearing. See, hearing you're in a monologue, rumbling about, oh, this shouldn't have happened to me, or I would prefer that, or what is going to happen tomorrow. That hearing is equally automatic, is the content of hearing, equally automatic and equally discovered as the hearing of the next bird singing on the next tram passing. And seeing it from that perspective without taking credit for, oh, this is me, this is my voice, this is me, this is myself, this is...I am that self.
I am speaking. I am thinking that. There is no undoing any of it. If you open up to the possibility that there is no undoing thinking and speaking, and then you notice how life unfolds of its own and how you are being lived, you as the body-mind machine, and you, life, living itself through and us, the body-mind machine, generating thoughts. Thoughts are being discovered. Oh, interesting. That I realized. Just like sensations, like feelings. Everything that is showing up on the screen.It's a discovery. Natural curiosity arises. What is my next thought gonna be? What is my next drama gonna be? What is my next beef gonna be?
A fight? Who knows? Staying in that privileged position of having absolutely no preference for what life wants to cast on that screen. And just marveling of what it is. Not expecting it always to be pleasure, like mind does. But being utterly open, completely open.and allowing the pleasant and unpleasant and happy and unhappy without any even need to label them as pleasant or unpleasant. The labels might come up just like any other thing, just like thoughts, like sweat, like saliva, like digestive juices. It will come up. But without a need to associate it with the individual who created them, because there isn't anyone there. Life gets so simple.
It gets as simple as it gets for the kangaroo or makpai. She's hopping around, seeing where the attention is moved.It's not up to you. And us life. Life doesn't need to choose. Life doesn't need to make conscious choices. Because life is the totality. So everything interacts and influence with everything. Without the thinking, you realize that you are that life.So thinking. What? Without really understanding what's generating the thinking.It may sound a little confusing, but ultimately it comes down to the feeling of free will and doership that's creating this constant thought stream, that we're hypnotized, that awareness is hypnotized. Into And if that's not understood, and I have to emphasize here that what is being shared by all of us is merely a description.Because there's a tendency, it's not a prescription, there's no prescription in this at all, it's purely a description of life.
But the tendency of the feeling of doership is to grab these teachings and go, okay, I need to be in this, how can I stop my thinking? And that's the feeling of doership coming in the back door. So with our seeing of that process, how that feeling of free will and doership keeps coming in the back door more and more subtly. We may witness that, okay, the thoughts are happening, actions are happening, the hands are moving. But the ingrained feeling of doership is so much deeper than that. And it's so much more subtle. So there's a tendency to say for instance, we're all here today because we feel like we want to get something out of this.
Why do we want to get something out of this? Because there's a subtle feeling that what this is isn't enough.We're looking for something else. We're seeking something else. And that's the feeling that if only I understand this, if I fully grok it, then I'll get what I'm looking for. And that is ultimately the individual self. It's not the identity, the personality. We all have all evolved a separate personality. We have our idiosyncrasies and our different sort of character traits, which makes us all different expressions of that life force. But the feeling of being a separate self is so much more subtle than that. And it's the feeling.of I'm an individual moving through life.
I need to make my decisions. I need to somehow take control of life and steer it. I need to understand this message. I need to be more open. I need to be awareness or whatever. It's that feeling. And just notice how it gets more and more subtle. And the description is, the message is that everybody here now is a perfect expression as you are. Of that. Nothing needs to change. Nothing needs to be any different. And in the hearing of this description of a different way of seeing life,there may be an eroding away of that feeling of being separate. Do a self with free will and volition.
They may not. Either way, it doesn't matter. But allow yourself, or don't even, you know, there can be an allowing of this description to wash over you just as waves will, over time, wash over rocks and slowly erode and change the formation. Of those rocks. Coming to satsang, listening to this message, may over time erode away that feeling of being a separate self. Because nobody needs to know about awareness. We are already that. That's an established fact. Shut the door. I'm sure nobody's in any doubt that they're aware. We all know that we're aware. It's just this subtle feeling of doership. And listening to this message over time may slowly erode that feeling.
But there's nothing that needs to be done. Life is doing it all. Life is delivering the message.Life is hearing the message. But I guess that's all I really wanted to point out is that feeling, because this is what was noticed here and has changed over time, is as the investigation has gotten deeper and deeper, because the feeling of doership gets very, very subtle. Very subtle. And it's that feeling of doership that is generating the thought stream. Because once it's fully realized that this whole manifestation is non-dual, it's one happening, it's doing it all itself.As that description erodes away more and more that feeling of doership, there's more and more of a relaxation that happens in the body because you're kind of in the stream, you're being, the stream's carrying you, you don't need to swim.
You let go. And in that letting go that may happen, there's also a letting go of that thought stream that naturally... Slows down. Because there's no need, you realise, there's no need to constantly be worrying about next week.or what you did last week because there's no sense of time. Whatever's coming up will take care of itself. There's a deep understanding that can happen that it's already a done deal. It's okay. Everything's taken care of. And ultimately, the realization of this message, if it happens, is just a complete relaxation with life. And that is a relaxation not only of the body, but of the mind. The mind, you can give the mind the day off.
It doesn't need to work anymore. It was never doing anything anyway. It believed it was. It's just a belief and it's a false belief. But I guess that's what I just want to point out anyway and just noticing in my... Own deeper realization of this, the subtleties of the feeling of doership. That remain in the system that we need to constantly sort of investigate if we're interested, if the interest is there. And that can even be the feeling. It normally arises in the feeling that this moment isn't enough.That's when the feeling of doership, free will comes in that I need to subtly fix something. Something needs to be fixed or it's changed.
And that gets really, really subtle. And the investigation will continue on because it's easy to see. We know we're not doing the thinking. That's easily pointed out. We can see the thoughts are just happening. Start to notice if you can. Any uncomfortableness that comes up in the moment of a subtle something needs to change because that's when the mind's coming in wanting to alter, modify, correct. Anything and as that's noticed leave that as it is too it's not because that doesn't need to change what i'm pointing out here is just has to be seen because nothing but you can't change the feeling of doership is doership the feeling that i need to stop being the doer is being the doer Self can't get out of self.just has to be seen and just see the process happening and in the seeing of it the system will reconfigure like those rocks being eroded down over time by the waves the rocks aren't doing anything it's just a process of life of nature happening And hearing this message is the same thing.
It's just life. It's a process of life. It's a description. Just really have to drive that point home that there's no prescriptive nature to this at all. It's just a message of a possibility and a different way of seeing life. And if there's an openness to that, Just let the understanding happen. It'll happen of its own.Anyway, I've said enough. Thank you. I've been doing too much. Thank you. Thank you, Jamie, and thank you, Kat, for your beautiful spiel as well. It was so lovely. It was just, yeah, life can't be taught. Life is doing the life thing. It will happen regardless of any supposed individual's desires or preferences or whatever.
It's that word grace that comes up again and again. It's just a way of saying, Forget about it. Stop trying to understand it. Just, Jamie used the expression, just see it. See it. But even that, and the seeing, and when we say see it, it's on life again. Chasing tail. Everything is on life. And thank you, Kat, for reminding of the, you know, the exquisite, amazing fact of existence.Wow. Not a small thing. Not a small thing. Wow. Wow. That do the limitless, vast field of possibility. That, as Jamie was saying, sometimes feels when there's a collection of concepts or concepts small, feels small. There's a focusing in on.point rather than being open, open, unimpeded, no cage of concepts, just wow.
Relax into that heart. If you can. Can you? Or recognize that there is part of that presence that is already relaxed always and forever, just in the whole speak. And I'll just quickly read. I don't know what we're going to do about it, but we had a little bit of a volume problem in the beginning. And sorry, Sol and Sally, and thank you for letting us know. I'll have to check the... The feedback earlier and Catherine says to be without thought in the waking state is the greatest worship that's a quote from Nisargadatta and Jyoti says good morning Kat can you please talk to me thinking is the separation again and thanks yes that's that's exactly right you wrapped it up me thinking is the sense of separation thinking is happening just the same way everything just the same way thunderstorm is happening there is no little uh thunderer who does the thunderstorm like there is no rainer doing the raining it's just raining it's just thinking But the idea that there is a me taking credit for a thinking is the idea of separation.
That me is something.somehow isolated and different in that moment to the moment itself which is impossible and thank you for bringing it up and Laura she says oh yes the audio still problem and then it got improved thank you Dean and Tracy says, just curious, without the feeling or idea of doership, where does personal responsibility comes in? Beautiful question. Bob used to answer it and there is no one like him with that really brilliant one-liners. Responsibility. Ability to respond. Everything in nature has the ability to respond. Personal would be questionable, but yes, this is part of the game. The game of in the dream of being persons responsible personally is part of the dream.
But ability to respond to the environment everyone has inbuilt and is not quite personal. Tanya says, so any irritation is a story that something should change and just notice that as nothing needs to change. Well, the truth is, if there is irritation, let's say you are walking and a piece of stone fell into your shoe, there is an irritation there. And then the stop.may happen and taking the shoe off and throwing the stone away may happen, there is no need for the narrative complaining about it and taking it personally and taking credit for resolving the issue. Irritating may happen, respond, responsibility, ability to respond to irritation will also happen.
And the idea of me doing any of it comes secondary. It is added. And that's that. And thank you, Tanya and Jacinta. You know, today's pointer was about, you know, nothingness. And I found, you know, like the mind, surrender. People think that if you surrender, you're giving up. But in actual fact, if you actually surrender into the now, into the quietness of the now, the story ends and you become that which you already are. And that's, you know, just surrendering in each moment is really simple and it just quietens the mind. It's just in the silence of the breath and there's nothing there. And then you start.
But the more you practice that, you start to see that you're beyond that and your whole life you've been creating drama that's irrelevant to anything. It's that, yeah, you've just been living it. But just surrender because the mind really thinks you're giving up because it wants to find the answer. But as we know, the answer lies within. So surrendering. Yeah, that's a good pointer. Surrender. People would often ask then, oh, how do I practice surrender? You recognize that part, that space-like awareness, which is already surrendered. That is how you practice surrender. Recognize that there is no practitioner needing to do anything. Just recognize the natural surrender, that the part of just witnessing the presence, which is aware of whatever the mind, whatever the antics mind is doing, that space is already surrendered.
It already has no agenda, no objective. It's just a pure presence. So the pointer is absolutely valid, like the pointer of grace or the pointer of what Tanya was just saying, you know, but how do you relax? How do you do anything? You recognize it's a pure recognition of that which is already. Relaxed space is already present and relaxed fully surrender with no agenda and that is what you are and it is never not here so doWink is not required. There's no need to get there or do anything. Just relax and recognize that it is already present. And it's just the silence of the breath when you, you know, take a breath without a mind.
It just brings you into stillness and space of life itself, really. Yeah, thank you for that. That's another beautiful little tip that you just brought in that Bob used to give us in one liner. Let the thought ride on the breath. What an inspiration. Not that there is anyone who can do, let or not let, but you can just recognize how the taking breath in inspires a thought and taking it out can release that thought, breathe it out. Again, non-doing, but recognizing. And that inspires thought may actually... Invoke or inspire noticing and recognition. And we have Tanya says, thank you Kat. Yes, if there is irritation and response comes up, it is not personal.
I noticed that there is a narrative that certain things should go the way I want them to and thought complains about that. I don't create the thoughts and no one isfound here know me but this irritation story still arises well wonderful celebrated tanya you do not want to get brain damage or alzheimer's or any other ways in which your brain will be incapable of narrating bullshit little stories you you do want is is the freedom from the story when the story is there whether the story is there the complaint comes up i think i said it too many times but i still repeat it because it's really really funny and practical pointer bob and i we had a ball we had a time of our lives the nine years and nine days that we had up until the last day was filled with love and laughter and the greatest reason for laughter was the complaining mind it was absolutely celebrated every time the mind would come up with a little bullshit oh you know it's a little bit too cold we would just laugh our butts off because you can't believe it anymore but it's job as that navigation aid that is supposed to look after the whole vehicle is to of course deliver the best is to find what is broken and fix it is to find the source of pleasure and how can you do it if you don't look around the environment and find faults in itHow can you fix anything if you don't find faults?
Plus, the survival. Look, this is dangerous. This is inflammatory. This is that. Again, it is doing its job. It's functioning perfectly well. Blow it a kiss. Give it a wink, Bob would often say. Give it a wink. Give it a little nudge and a hug and say, I love you. Thank you. Sweet. Jamie. Just in regard to the... I can't remember her name. She mentioned about irritation. And what I was describing isn't really a sense of irritation because I get irritated all the time. Lots of things irritate me. That's not it. That's, you know, that's just the personality. We have our preferences. We have our body chemistry, sometimes we get irritated, sometimes less irritated.
What I was sort of pointing to was more a feeling of contraction, a subtle feeling of contraction, of uncomfortableness, of somehow something needs to change.And it's different to the feeling of normal irritation if you have a stone in your foot or an annoying person or something's irritating you. That's a totally different thing. This is... Difficulty and uncomfortableness with sitting with what is and a feeling, subtle feeling, that something needs to change. And you'll notice that change will come in maybe going to the fridge and grabbing a chocolate or lighting a cigarette or scrolling on your phone.It gets very, very subtle and that is the subtle.
That's what's generating the thinking. I think it was Ramana, he talks about, is it fasteners or something like mental uncomfortableness that come up and as What's happened here in my own sort of journey is getting more and more subtle and noticing that uncomfortableness even before it arises.and being able to sit if the uncomfortableness is there, to just sit with it, look at it. And it's like what was it Bob used to say about fear, there's death of fear is certain. I can't remember. I was trying to think of it the other day. Face your fears and death of fear is certain. Something like that. Something like that.
And it's similar to that because that uncomfortableness is kind of like a subtle fear.We don't want to face it, so we tend to distract ourselves and we can eat a chocolate bar or do something. But in the sitting with it and looking at it, It's like that facing the fear that you actually realize that this is nothing. And noticing, seeing. What the body is doing, what the mind is doing. Because ultimately this message is, we're just under a hypnosis where there's a false identification. So what we are, what Kat pointed out at the start, is established facts. Our pure identity is non-conceptual, ever-press, pure awareness.
We are that. Awareness is not a doer. It doesn't think. It doesn't do. It doesn't feel. It's just purely the screen.And what we are is that awareness has become identified with this body, only this body. So therefore the mind is also part of the body. So ultimately what it comes down to is just a discrimination and the sitting with the uncomfortableness is a kind of investigation and discrimination. Of seeing that actually, am I uncomfortable as awareness, as our true identity? Do I have a problem? Do I need to eat a chocolate bar? Not conceptually thinking, but through the investigation. The investigation is non-verbal, it's non-conceptual, it's pure seeing.
Because the intelligence, just as...We can look around this room and everything is instantly cognized and recognized. We don't need to label and call that a lamp and that's a chair and that's Jordan. It's just seen. And the investigation is similar. It's just a seeing of what's happening internally in the system, in the mind, in the body. Because, and that's the discrimination that can happen. No one's doing it. It just happens. And as the process of hearing this message, which coming to satsang does, is a constant eroding away of that. And at first...The changes can be profound because when this message is first heard, it can cause quite a significant shift in the identification.
But that isn't the end of the story. The investigation is ongoing, and it probably is ongoing for the life of this body-mind because it gets much more subtle. But as that message erodes down, that feeling of self, you get to a point where you go, actually, This is good enough.So what? There's still a narrative going on. So what? There's still a feeling of whatever, of contraction in the body. So what? This is perfect. This is good enough. And really, That's the place I'm at now with this, is it's good enough, whatever arises. And if the investigation comes up and looks at these things, then that's what's happening and that's fine.
Can we all sort of agree that we'd just like to be in a place where this is enough? That is beautifully said, beautifully said. This is good enough. And that is actually, you know, what Nisargadatta defines the natural state or the final realization of the final truth. There is nothing wrong anymore. That suddenly you look around and you see yes the narrative is there but so what who cares there is nothing wrong anymore there's nothing wrong that there is a stone in the shoe or there is irritation or there is you know there's nothing wrong show me a dog that find anything wrong when another dog is passing and it just goes jumps out of the skin and barks like nuts There is no bull that says there is anything wrong when the red blanket is waved in front of it.It just charges the blanket.
There is no volcano that will say that there is anything wrong when it is just bubbling to erupt in a huge outburst. There is nothing wrong. The realization that there is nothing wrong. The realization that it is good enough. The thinking is going on. It's good enough. The body is aging. The hair are getting gray. So what? Who cares? Is there anyone having any objections to it? Yes, the narrative mind will bring the objections out. Of course. So what? Wonderful. Thank you. Wow. Laugh at it. Amazing. There is nothing wrong in the way this moment is expressed by life itself. There is nothing wrong. And if there is no thinking, it is obvious.
But if there is thinking, it is the same. There is nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong in thinking that complains and objects to everything. Who cares? Anybody there who cares, look again. And now there is a couple of things here. Catherine says, Catherine and James, thinking is not our natural state. Yeah, thinking is just the appearance on the natural state. We weren't born with thinking. It's just an appearance, it's something that comes and goes. And Barbara says, being deeply, soulfully awakened, one is...able to be more positive and not being afraid of anything in one's life. We must all be part to build a better, happier, healthier, safer world and not by dwelling with one's all kinds of negativity.
That is a very, very romantic perspective of the mind seeking pleasure. Lovely acknowledge that give it a nudge give it a wink yes we we who's the we need more pleasure more kindness more love we need to save the world in the future because the world is not good enough as it is everything is wrong with everyone and with the world because there isn't enough kindness yeah very very sweet perspective of the mind is good to be acknowledged and recognized as that because this is also a voice of love I love the beauty and kindness. I love the high qualities of humanity being supportive and caring and safe.
Recognize the love behind it. Sweet. And Catherine says, thinking is meant to be your servant, not your fucking master. And the you that thinking is a servant or a master is just a pure presence. And Jyoti, oh no, that is...No comment on this one. Yeah, that's it too. Just keep all these instructions. To whom am I speaking? Who is speaking? Keep seeing, as Bob would say, keep seeing that there is no one entity who sees. It's the core investigation. Take a look. Can you find a reference point anywhere, a boundary that defines this seeming entity? Good luck with that. And then what? Then what? If you can't find your little self, what can you change?
What can you do? Who can you save? Who can you save? Who can you... Make it safer. Where can you go? What can change? What can change over time? Who can become? It negates all of that. Yet.I'm going to use the word you. Who cares about words anyway? No, you exist. There's a knowing. You don't know where it's coming from. It's just happening. But it cannot be denied. There and we use the word life often to describe that again it's just a word it's just a word take out all the clocks take out all the words take out all the mirrors and what have you got just being just being pure, simple, life-living, lifing process that is fresh and new, every teeny tiny spontaneous happening.
It's just happening like a... We use the word singularity. It's just happening.You know, who's going to become a lesser small me in the future? Who is that going to happen to? Who's going to improve over time in terms of that clarity? Who? Beautiful. Yes, so simple. Tracy says, this teaching has brought about so much peace to me and enabled me to get through some really difficult things in my life. Yeah, it makes life lighter. The realization that whatever happens in nature, floods and fires and days and winters and summers, are just impermanence playing out. And it's lovely that they do, because without the difficult things, you wouldn't appreciate the easy ones.
They interchange. And Dean, come on, you have the mic. Please. No, no, I saw you, you had the mic.This is what is. Yes. I appreciate being in here. Thank you. Thank you, Hyman. Yeah, that's what it is. And Peter says, like Krishnamurti says, I don't mind what happens. And the I that doesn't mind what happens, the only I that doesn't mind what happens is space. Personal I, the imagined self, always has preference. For pleasure over pain, for joy over sadness. That's its nature. But the space, which is the ultimate self, the ultimate, your true nature. Unconditional love. Unconditional love. Doesn't mind what happens. Come on, you had the mic.
It's your turn. Just see what comes up. Nothing's going to really come up because nothing ever bloody happened to begin with and nothing's going to be said. But everyone said these nice words and they're all pointing and a lot of pointers. And I think, you know, we come to these meetings and... There's someone sits here, someone sits there, someone talks, someone sends a message, something permeates or resonates or hits and lands and whatever. And really, that's just an appearance too, because there's actually...the totality is actually always happening, always is, and it's always perfect and this, and in this thisness or nowness or sense of presence, it's actually, that's where the appearance, this is an idea that says that I am here and you are there, and that's an idea too, as well as every other idea that you've ever imagined.
The message itself is the recognition of this presence that's actually just inevitable. It's true, it's undeniable and it's unavoidable and it's universal as well. There's no one that can be different from it. So it's always there and yet I think no matter how magnificent the message is or the pointer is, as long as you're sitting here and someone there, it's always recognized or pointed as something to someone and that's okay and everything's okay. There's actually just one voice speaking in all the different, through all the different people as that, it's just one expression. We're reminding ourselves of ourselves. Like it's kind of ridiculous. We're all like, Jamie's not saying any brilliant words of wisdom.
There's one thing talking as a J.Amy speaking and as a stupid Dean who thinks he's listening, it's actually not really the case that's going on. It's just one thing going on, expressing as all these different forms. And I think that the landing of the pointers is the recognition of this totality of this oneness, one without a second, as Bob used to always say. And it's like... And all that means is that, um, things drop away, all ideas of knowing something actually just, you don't know anything, there's no knowing as such. There are impressions of thoughts and concepts and even the notion of doership is like an appearance of, shall I go to the movie today?
Like it's an impression, a thought that just appears and embedded in that impression is maybe a sense of a me or maybe a sense of a you or maybe a sense of a time or maybe the sense of a choice and then the next thought comes along and says yeah i think i will it's like oh yes i made a decision no one made any decision there was no decision there was just an appearance of these different energies um called thoughts um and and then some believed in to be the energy of belief is another thing about all of this believing in these energies, in these thoughts, is the energy of belief.
And that's...Pop used to speak a lot about the energy of belief and describe belief, but there's no belief. No belief can be true. It's that simple. Like, there's no belief. So if all these thoughts are appearing and telling and appearing to someone, really, even that's a false notion in itself because that's a belief. To whom are they appearing? They just appear. And they may claim that they're appearing to someone, but that's a belief again. So everything can be dismantled completely, and then the dismantler can be dismantled as a myth as well. And honestly, it just comes back to nothing again, nothing appearing as all this variety of expressions of colours, of sounds, of...
Emptiness or silence vibrating a sound and emptiness vibrating as objects. So I don't know, I have no idea what the hell to say. Maybe I'll just go around and slap people across the head or something interesting. So you're talking about surrender before. I just feel there's a sort of good...visualization when it you know that sort of describes surrender well and at Disneyland there's there's a ride called the the jungle boat
It's at the jungle boat or something. It's a big boat and you're in this boat and you're going through all down the rapids and avoiding crocodiles and there's all this stuff going on and you've got a steering wheel and you're steering through this, avoiding the crocodiles and going left and going right.
And you feel like you're doing, you're avoiding the crocodiles, you're doing everything. But the reality of the situation is the boat's actually on a rail. And it's got its predestined path. But there's a feeling that I'm doing it.So that in the realisation of non-doership, there may be a relaxing of I don't need to steer it, the boat's on its course. The subtlety of the non-surrender that I was sort of pointing to is even though we recognise that, we've still kind of got a hand near the wheel. Ready to grab it in case. So we haven't fully let go, even though we realise there's still a subtle holding on one hand just near the steering wheel.
Surrender is the sitting back, relaxing, closing your eyes. And just being.with what is and realizing that the journey is taken care of. You can take both hands off the wheel. And I think it was Ramana who said once to one of his questioners that like, You're on the train. The journey's already taken care of. Why are you carrying your luggage on your head? The train's carrying it all. You can put the luggage down. You can rest it down. You can rest. You can relax. And to my understanding, that's true surrender. Both hands off the wheel, relaxing, putting the luggage down fully.And that's the true surrender.
That can happen. There's nobody that surrenders, but as this understanding washes and washes over that feeling, the more it's seen, the surrender happens of its own. Yeah, I have a couple of things that our online community has given us to chew on. And thank you, Jamie. That was really beautiful. That actually shows up, you know, the idea of surrender is a helpful pointer. But it also kind of, you know, especially the train, the luggage thing. They are people actually, I know about physical people, they're a little bit twisted, but who did try to do, drive the sport car and close their eyes and believe that the spirit, God or whatever will do it.
That's not what we suggested here. It is to recognize that the presence in which the body is driving is already completely relaxed. The body is driving, it's also relaxed. And the narrative that is commenting, oh, this is I, I'm doing it, is not your essential self. That's really... There's an old Sufi saying, it's like, trust in God, but don't forget to tie up the camel. There you go. Yeah.And we have also... Sandy says, I can do nothing. However, there is an appreciation for being exposed to this understanding over and over in so many different ways. Yes, thank you, Sandy. Isn't it lovely when that form of love, like gratitude, appreciation, bubble up and there is no one doing it.
There's no one invoking it. It just shows up like Dean was saying. You know, things are just appearing on the screen. They're bubbling up. There is just expression coming out from every mouth, from every body language. And it is all in the field of seeing, including the vehicle that is actually describing it. It's all included. It's all one life, life in bubbling. And Tanya also says, beautiful, Dean brings up here that thought is another word for imagination, as thought doesn't accurately convey what is and can't say what this is. Yeah, absolutely. Description is never to describe. That's also one of the things that Bob used to always hammer down.
And Peggy says, all is perfect, even if mind disagrees. Absolutely. That's its job. It means it functions. It functions as it does. And it doesn't really matter whether it agrees or it disagrees. It's just that it's just.It's an automatic function. It's just like, you know, you have your chat GPT or your Siri giving you advice and whether you say thank you or it does, oh, I understand how you feel. What does it matter? It's an automatic function. And Catherine says, Bob pointed out, don't employ the mind. What is mind? Nothing other than thought. Yeah, yeah, let it be as it does. Leave it as it is.
Agreeing, disagreeing, chatting, quiet, doesn't mind. Leave it as it is, unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. It's none of your problem. You as life are the presence in which everything appears, including mind, complaining or not. If you don't take it on board, or like Dean was saying, if you don't lure yourself to believing, you know, if there is no energy of belief, giving validity to whatever the complaint says, what does it matter? Let it complain.And that's that. I think there is few people who didn't say anything today. Anyone? Energy of belief is kind of like the electricity that powers the fan, isn't it? You know, if you see the...
See the feeling of... The thoughts are generated so much because that feeling of me, the creation of that illusion requires constant thoughts to keep the illusion going and it's kind of like the, just as a fan spins, it creates the... Image of something solid and real where there's actually nothing there it's the fan spinning and the energy belief that you were sort of pointing out is the electricity that keeps that fan spinning the selfing happening and the withdrawal of that energy of belief is the unplugging of that fan from the wall and They're slowing down to those thoughts.I liked what Dean said about one voice speaking.
Through all these different instruments. And I'm looking ahead and I can see all these mirrors. And there's one... Beautiful little rectangle of autumn light shining through these Yellow leaves. And then your recognition, this is an illusion. And there's another mirror that's showing the stairs going upstairs.And then you have to come to the same conclusion as Dean did, that there's only one mirror here. And that's appearing in the little iPhone screen and everything else and everybody in this appearance. Just one mirror. And just reflecting on the doer.couple thousand years ago In the Bhagavad Gita. Someone said, Nayawa King Chit Karamiti. That just translates as, Naiwa not, Ewa in very truth.
I do. Nothing whatsoever. King Chit. Karomiti. It's interesting that the iti on the end is like a quotation mark. And the translation is should think. So.Now I'm going to get Kalamiti. Yukt is Join, yote. Yokto manieta. Should think, manieta. So the truth knower, seated in the self, we would say, seeds in the the intelligence energy should think, I do nothing whatsoever.should think is a compulsion. So it's saying, it's literally saying, you should think, I do not, I know nothing. I should, I do nothing whatsoever. You should think that. So when something arises of me, me preparing to do something or say something orYou should think, I do nothing whatsoever.
And leave it at that. And rest in the ever fresh, non-conceptual presence awareness. And as Bob would say, there it is in one sentence. Yes, doing happens, but that is not a doer thereof. Doing happens, thinking happens, there's no thinker. Seeing happens, there's no seer. And just realizing that now,How easy life becomes. How important or unimportant everything is if there is no thinker thereof. And the miraculousness of the seeing, of the hearing, of the happening is not ascribed to anyone. But it shines forth. Nothing ever happened and yet that incredibly colorful dream is dancing in front of your eyes. There is no you that it is in front of your eyes, but it's just happening on the screen of awareness.And it happens only because there is the screen of awareness.
And this is not to assert the screen of awareness. Because there is no such thing as screen of awareness. This is where we go beyond the mind again. I had a discussion a week ago, a discussion, not really a discussion, because the man who used to come to our meetings doesn't really rise to the challenge of verifying his own direct experience. He's only a scholar reading books, so it's not really a subject to waste your time on. It is not a conceptual knowledge of what it is to be asserted or denied. It is not a scholarship competition, whether there is such thing as awareness, there is such thing as life essence or life itself or existence or anything of Atman or Brahman.
What a nonsense. Who cares? Who cares which way you're going to put it? The question is, Is there in the direct experience of this moment right now, Is there a consciousness or is there an awareness of presence? Is there anything? Is there anything? Happening right now.Are you alive? Is there an existence? Is there an awareness of existing? Now, objectifying it and speaking about it in a third person, a god, a Brahman, an Atman, an awareness, an intelligence, of course is missing the point. And of course, You can't find anything labeled as such. But can you deny the fact that there is even someone attempting to find or deny or assert anything like that?
You can't deny it, but you have to be there to do so.So that presence in which this is denied or asserted or discussed or not discussed, that presence, in that presence, because of that presence, as that presence and through that presence, the experiencing happens, the expression happens. There's no need to analyze it, what it is, what it isn't. But if it happens, that is part of the expression. The expression happens as talking, thinking, dancing, singing, whatever it happens. And who's got a mic? Hey, man, would you like to say something?Okay, I have a couple of beautiful insights, if you don't mind, I would read, because I know it's difficult to speak in public.
So there is one here says, it feels like life just happens. Even if I am in a certain situation, I feel a sense of familiarity as awareness, wondering, ah, if you... If you have had this sense as it deepens, the sense of presence, sense of life just happening, recognizing that in a daily life, just happening, beautiful. And I saw that I never did anything. There was no separate me, only life unfolding. The I was imagined, and what follows is no different, nothing special, just life as it is.Beautiful and very liberating, just as it is. And we could say and then highlight that nothing ever happened because what we call that something happening is the permanence.
And the only permanence is the awareness of presence. Everything else, every fleeting way in which the dream shows on the screen is gone. One minute ago the dream was different and is gone. One minute ago the millions of cells in your body were there and they are gone. They are memory right now. So nothing ever happened in the direct experience, just this moment now, ever fresh, always alive. And whatever is remembered and forgotten is not your true self, it's a fleeting phenomena, it's a passing light on the screen. Nothing, no thing. And I think, yes? Something else to read? No. Oh. I'm not sure if Haman's going to give us any last words, but actually it's beautifully expressed in your absolute silence.
It's perfection. Thanks for instruction. Thank you. Okay, so thank you everyone and see us next time. Thanks everyone.