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And then, pass. Jimmy. And oh, goodness. And Tanya and Bob. And as usually, I invite if anyone would like to try and give us a little introduction of what you understood and what's clear for you. The invitation is open. There is no pressure. It's just invitation.Okay. A couple of people will come late, so we have the door open. Anyway, so with this really, the non-duality as a concept. Locket, do you want to say something? Okay. Yes, a non-duality we are talking about, meaning there is a base which there isn't really, or is, or it can't be said, nothing can be said about that base of pure space-like awareness that is indivisible, unfindable for the mind, non-objectifiable, but yet absolutely present and undeniably here.
And in the direct experience of this moment, there is no one who is not aware of that presence. No one who can deny the fact of their own existence. So there is a presence, there is awareness of presence. And there is subtle joy if there is no distraction from that awareness of presence. Or there is sheer misery when the distraction from that awareness of presence goes to the story and the drama of a poor miserable little human that I allegedly am. So it really is that simple. There is a basic difference in processing, experiencing, expressing and processing the whole dream.either from the perspective of that space-like awareness, where everything is included, where nothing is rejected, everything is already happening effortlessly in that field of knowing, the whole world, the whole universe, that room, every thought, every feeling is happening within that field of knowing.
Which is who I am. Or another way of processing the world, constructing, and this is on autopilot, nobody is guilty of doing it, constructing a self-reference point, a little me, imagining that there is some little creature there somewhere that is running the show, thinking the thoughts. And then of course, when the judgmental thoughts arise, there is a response to it, it's a guilt, it's a shame, a sense of unworthiness and there is no entity there that takes the thoughts but it feels like it because throughout the life the conditioning was running to always reference everything that happens to that imagined self-centered And that's a wonderful, wonderful way of assisting that complex human adventure, navigating through the dream, combining themselves as creatures into the large groups of interests.
And there is nothing wrong with that. But when it is believed to be the reality rather than navigation aid, then of course what follows is the strong senseof identity, the cage of concept. I am this little creature and I am responsible for running my dream, for running the whole show. And I'm not doing very well because I am failing at thinking only loving and positive thoughts. I have nasty judgmental thoughts, plus I have nasty dark memories, or I have fear about future. Only in the direct experience, you don't. There is no one having anything. There is just spontaneous arising. So really just realizing how in the direct experience there is spontaneous arising of thoughts, which I am not thinking.
They just show up in consciousness. Thoughts are showing up the same way as noises outside are showing up and they are known. And I am the knowing principle in which I am in a position of the endless childlike discoverer of how the next fresh and new moment is going to be. What it is going to present, what feelings, what sounds, what sensations. And that field, that pure knowing presence, it does not reject anything. It does not even prefer anything. When the feeling comes, just like a weather on the sky, and the feeling is dark, the knowing of it is not dark. The knowing of it is just the knowing.
The darkness arises in the...knowing and knowing doesn't mind what does mind is that survival instinct running through the machine through the navigation aid which of course is designed to survive because if it is dead it can't be that aid for life to see and experience and express itself So the agenda of that vehicle is to survive. And for that agenda to be applicable, it has all sorts of different responses. Some of them will be trauma responses. Some of them will be mis... What do you call it? Misconditioning, maybe. The body is conditioned. It knows how to breathe, how to fend for itself. It communicates when it's hungry or when it's cold or when there is any sense of lack or deficiency.
And there is nothing wrong with that. This is actually wonderful. But when that imagined self is superimposed on that natural communication, and now this is me, I am hungry or I am angry or I am deficient. Well, then it goes with the psychological suffering, sense of unworthiness, sense of unlovability. And now the brilliant program which is protecting the vehicle for the life to freely experience itself, now itis confined to serving a role of so-called ego or imagined reference point. And now, of course, the natural drive that the body has, and everybody, the body of a baby, the body of a dog, the body of an eagle, natural drive towards surviving and thriving, avoiding danger, avoiding pain, being attracted towards pleasure or healthy food or good mates or whatever it is, that natural movement is now hijacked by the sense of me.
This is I. I am doing it. If I am in an environment that is not good enough, and hey, it's never good enough, because that program is designed to always find something better. So no matter how good it is, the program is not to settle, it's just to look for more. That hungry ghost of a mind will always look for more, more pleasure, more fulfillment, more money, more security. Now, if I believe this is me, this is I, I am the mind. Well, obviously, the unsatiated hunger of that hungry ghost, I am deficient. I don't have enough. I deserve better. I deserve the partner, the money, whatever it is.
And now I am incomplete. And life is against me and the world is against me and I'm in misery. But if I see that thesame mechanism is absolutely neutral is just part of the of the regular functioning and it happens within the consciousness that doesn't mind that actually appreciates it well there's natural appreciation for whatever comes hunger anger sadness whatever comes it comes to be fully experienced in the moment and that consciousness in which it appears It has no objections. The space has no objections. Sky has no objections. So moment to moment, you may notice that there is an objection arising. There is a resistance arising.
But that resistance is also arising in that field, in that knowing, that consciousness, which embrace it equally with everything else. If the thought is arising, why is the world like this? Or why am I like this? And then the feeling comes with it. And then the resistance, oh shit, I'm doing it wrong. I got caught up in the mind. And all the loads of things. The space in which that arises is untouched, uncontaminated, is always free. So to realize that at any moment and every moment, there is identification arising with that imagined self, but there is also subtle knowing of thatidentification arising and that knowing is free recognize that you are that that which is free not that which is identified that which is identified arises in the consciousness that you are the whole whole world arises in a consciousness the translation will be different Of course, we have agreed upon reality, the shared dream.
We say there are walls, there is room, there are other people, they are separate from me. Within the dream, it is all valid. Within the dream, it is all functional. Our cats, when they walk around the house, they also see the walls are separate. They don't bump into them. But in their experience, the division, the conceptual division between me and the world doesn't exist as far as we know how the cat's brain functions. And we can see how that division only exists in thoughts. The moment we push the thoughts aside and trust what is experienced directly, not through the interpretation of the mind, we can notice that there is no problem, there is no division, there is no separation.
I can't separate myself from the environment. I can't have a thought apart from the environment, whether it is the environment of the body, hunger or anger or whatever, or whether there is environment outside the body, because inside-outside is also just conceptual division. How could you even?separate the body from the air it's breathing, from the perceptions, from water, space, is inseparable. It just appears separate for, again, navigation aid. It's for the dream to be more colorful, for the expression, for the experiencing. But that which knows, that which is witnessing the presence in which all that dream arises, that one is what you are. And when you stop thinking for a moment, that is obvious.
Without the thought, I think, Tony, is that? Without the thought, what's wrong with right now, if one doesn't think about it, it's nothing. Without the thought, who are you?Without the thought, do you have a past? Without the thought, are you female or male? Do you even have a human body without the thought? In the direct experience, in the experience of presence, without the image, mental image of having shape or size or form, do you really have one?And you can see how the mental image comes into the existence. And you can see how memory-based it is. When I sit like this, I don't experience my face or my body in any way, apart from the memory of the image that I saw maybe in the mirror in the morning or on the pictures.
This is already mental processing. Direct experience minus the mental processing is uncompromised. You can't say anything about it, but you can't stop existing. You can't deny your existence. But what is that existence? Is it bound by anything if you don't add the fake boundary of a concept, of mental image, of a shape and a size of a body?When you see how the dream is constructed, and it's a nice way to see it when you look at the dream at night, when the body is sleeping and the eyes are closed and it is motionless on the bed, and the consciousness is creating another body that is moving, climbing the mountains, flying, the eyes are open, the mouth are moving, is communicating, fighting.
What is that body? And it has a shape. And us, I'm usually navigating ships still in my dreams. Ten years I haven't been doing it and it's still there. So on those ships, I can see the shimmering on the water. I can climb to the engine room. And the body obviously has all those capacities. But the physical body is lying down on bed motionless. So what is that other body, that dream body, that experiences the dream world, which disappears right when the body wakes up? It goes back into oblivion. But it was real. It felt so real. The emotion may feel even more real in the dream because the part of the impulse control is disabled so they can go crazy.
And that dream is very similar. Bob used to say that the only difference is that that dream is kind of picked up every morning from it was left behind last night.So it has seeming continuity. But that is part of a projection also, because time cannot be experienced. So we can... I did have reoccurring dreams in my time of especially working at SeaWorld. There wasn't that much stimuli. So there was a lot of dreaming going on. The brain needed to entertain itself. And reoccurring dreams, I would come back to the same situations, the same people, the same worlds, completely alien worlds.I've never seen even the movies or books or anywhere.
And it felt like this was another world, parallel life. So this one, it feels like this. But again, the time is manufactured in a moment of now. The whole past arises as like one big chunk of... Memories to unpack. They're not even memories. They're just the information field to which the dream body is tapping. And suddenly it is all there. But did it even ever happen? Did the past happen? What's your experience of being a child right now? It's just a memory. So how can you know that you ever was? That is again a wonderful navigational aid. That is also a wonderful way for that life essence, which Bob used to call intelligence energy.
It's like a field of a thousand volts going through that body, which slows it down to frame by frame in time. Otherwise, the fuses would be blown away. So the time is again another helpful aid. If you see it as such, it's not going to bind you. You can see how through different modalities in the therapy, you can actually change the past. Through the hypnosis and other things, through thetrauma work, all those things, they can be reinterpreted and changed for whatever the purposes of a realigning neural networks, whatever. But because it can be changed, it can be manipulated, it can be controlled, how real is it?
It is just an appearance. All the past exists only when you think about it. The moment the thought is pushed aside, you can't bring the past. It is only an idea, an image in the mind, just as is anything else outside of that room. Spain, Poland, Mars, Moon, where are they? How are you experiencing them right now in this field? Mental images. Mental images present in consciousness are something digged out from the memory, again agreed upon reality. But this moment right now,is full and complete without needing to divert or distract from that juiciness of existence into the mental entertainment without fantasizing about me trying to get something or become someone or my past or my fears or my trauma without all that load of self-obsession there is a juiciness and aliveness in this moment that does not exist in any memory memory is somewhat flat and lifeless while this moment this current breath this current perception sound taste touch is suffused with that aliveness is vibrant And in that vibrancy, when the attention is dispersed enough, so all the senses are open, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, they're open.
In that openness, that's what life is. It's always open. It's like open field. It's like space. And that's your essential nature, being open, being like space. And if there is contraction arising in that field, that contraction is also known in the openness. If there is resistance arising,It is known in the openness. And that openness, that sameness or stillness, is complete, is lacking nothing, it has no shape, no form, timeless, birthless. And right in this moment, Hello, baby. Right in this moment, it is here. It is here for taking, for experiencing. Without the thought, no one can deny their own existence. And no one can put any shape or form on that existence.
Unless you employ the thought to define it.You are the space of seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. Unless you bring the thought that defines, no, I'm here and I'm looking from there. That's a thought. Or I'm the body, a male or female or whatever. That's a thought. Direct experience is uncompromisingly simple, open, timeless, spaceless. And there is nothing wrong. Even when the body is uncomfortable, there is nothing wrong unless there is a thought that the body shouldn't be uncomfortable.And the body is already equipped with resolving any discomfort in the best way it can. It can never do anything wrong because it has one simple program, survive and thrive.
So you can absolutely relax and trust the body. And of course, the body may have wrong programming. It will go for drugs or alcohol or whatever. But it's still doing its best. It's still none of your business. It still knows how to, just like this cat. The body is already conditioned. He is safe and secure, so he's walking, parading in front of strangers. When the body, when, well, he didn't, he hasn't been like this when he first came to this house. It's slightly traumatized and it took him a while to rewrite all the programs. So if the body is traumatized and it will withdraw and it will hide, Still none of your business.
It's resolving its own conditioning in the best way according to the programming of surviving. So whatever the body is doing, whatever thoughts are showing up in the mind, none of your business. Leave them unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. Be the presence that you are. Be the witnessing presence in which the body is doing its thing, the mind is doing its thing, the trauma is doing its thing. Just be a presence. And that presence, even if there isResponse is socially undesirable, an outburst of anger or anxiety. That presence does not have, it does not share in the same judgment. The individual may say, oh, that's not ideal. But the space doesn't mind.
It doesn't judge anything. So from that perspective, there is no body that is wrong. There is no one that is inferior or has anything wrong with them. You are already... Come, darling. Come. You are already pure perfection, obviously, because that field, that unified field of life essence that has created itself a vessel for experiencing and expressing itself is the omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. It is the godliness. And it created you in its own image and likeness as pure perfection. Yes, I know. Yes, so that's it. He says yes. Now this is the time, I think, to open up for discussion. And I want to question. I came up here when you were speaking, and, you know, from an individual's point of view,It can appear as if things are wrong, not right.
But it is exactly as it is. There is no body doing anything wrong or right. You've never done anything wrong or right because there's never been a you to do it. And they often say, you know, love it, love all of it. Love all of it as it appears, as it comes up. Or none of it. Love none of it. But neutrality. Can you be neutral? Can you be neutral about everything that appears? That's facilitated by not putting energy belief into the thoughts as they arrive. The post-event narrator that likes to label doesn't like to do anything. That's its job. Label, provide, you know,
entertainment, but none of it is necessary.
None of it is necessary. Cats don't have symbolic language. Preconceptual babies don't have symbolic language. Everything just happens as it must. It does, and it doesn't have to be a point to anything either. That's the mind. When you go, well, why? Why is it? Well, it just is. It just is. And how can you identify, how can it be possible to identify a cause or causes when, well, Really, everything is connected. There's no way of putting your finger on anything that does anything. There's no doers. It's just stuff that's happening. You can think of it as one concept is stimulus response.Just the body, the thoughts, all of this is just response.
To what's going on. Which one is the stimulus and which is the response? Even that is, you know, how can you identify the cause and effect of the same thing in essence? But just coming back to that, position that you are that. There's nothing that needs to be done, to be changed, to be altered.Just a relaxation by nobody. Into that sameness, stillness, silent. Something that we can't label, can't put our finger on. It sits there all the time, doesn't change. The trams agree. Ding, ding, time's up. What was that? Chips. Chips? Chips.Next, Jacinta. Me? Yes, you. You put me on the spot there, young lady.
I suppose, yeah, you know, I was just thinking everything is that. Actually, I wrote something last year and put it on Facebook and it came up the other day. And, you know, sometimes you write things and you know, and then you go, oh. I know things without, you know, I wrote it, not the inward of me wrote it, but then when I thought, oh, my God, I know things, everything is that. And no matter what you think or how you feel about someone, it's just, you know, coming up in that moment. Moment in time and every you know everything is that I remember I think she the other day our emotions energy everything is just that that's happening as Bob would say it's everything is fresh and new everything is now and That is the beauty in life, to experience everything.
You know, I'm not saying, you know, at times we do get a bit challenged, but, you know, really just then ask yourself the question, who's thinking that thought? And as soon as you ask that thought,There's just the silence and stillness in the now. And, you know, that's life, really, just enjoying, you know, everything. I was walking yesterday and I took a photo of, you know, of a tree with a, you know, like a spider web and there was a hole. And I looked like there was a face in there. I could see a face, you know, in that hole. I sent it to my kids.
I think they thought I was mad because they go, no, can't see a face. But it doesn't really matter, you know, like it was just like that's what I was experiencing in that moment. I thought I saw a face, but there was no face. But, yeah. Yeah, it is. Life is beautiful and just allow it because, you know, there was plenty of years where I didn't think it was beautiful and I was a victim. And, yeah, so now it's good. That is everything, really. And just realising, you know, it takes a while to get your head around it, but... You know, like love, like, you know, because everyone thinks love is outside of yourself, that, you know, that parents should have loved you this way or that.
But once you're in the now, in the moment, There's no judgment, as you've said. Everything is love. And, yeah, it's an extraordinary world. And to see everything as it is. Thanks.Yeah, I think the beauty of life is something I've been experiencing a lot more recently. And I think I mentioned a little while ago, I've kind of been using my lunch break at work just to walk around the city and look up at the buildings and the trees. And I have a friend at work who's... Also interested in you know these discussions and so sometimes we go on these walks together and we just slowly walk around the city silently for maybe 40 minutes and and look up at the buildings and the trees and the sunlight kind of shining through the buildings and there's there's just this vibrant beauty that is so immediate and now when the mind falls away and there's this kind of you know the mind comes in i'm like what what are we doing here like what is this because there's something so beautiful and enjoyable about it but there's not like in we're not inquiring as such It's just a relaxing into, I mean, for me, it physically feels like it's in the chest area.
That's what it seems to be. And after one of these walks, my friend asked me, he's like, what is happening here? I'm like, I really don't know. But then if I look at it, it's... That were not perceivedperceiving through the filters of the mind when we go on these walks and realize that so often everything we look at is there's a filter of concepts overlaying that what we're looking at it's like oh that's a building i've seen that building that's a tree and then as soon as that concept is perceived through the the reality of it is not experienced And when you're perceiving not through those concepts of just direct experiencing, everything is so new and vibrant.
And a building I've looked at a hundred times before is brand new. And there's just... It's just a beauty, a beauty and a love. And, you know, the separation kind of falls away between you and the autumn leaves flickering in the wind. It's just lovely. And then... Yeah, and you know, it's because I've been doing this walk so often lately, sometimes now I'll start walking and I'm like, it's not, it doesn't happen, it's not working anymore. It must have just been a once off. And then those thoughts, obviously the trigger should be like, oh, what's, what are these thoughts? And when you look, it's so easy to fall away and the center of attention is no longer in the thoughts.
The thoughts are still flicking away and they're just part of the same whole.that you're directly experiencing. And yeah, it's just such an interesting insight into the function of thought and how thought clouds our direct perception. And you don't have to get rid of the thoughts. It's just a slow relaxing into the whatever word you would call like your deepest, I don't even know what word, but just a relaxing away from it. Into direct experiencing and then everything is brand new and beautiful like like some will laugh on these walks like look at that beautiful brick like or even like a drab 70s office building somehow is vibrant and it's it's an astonishing It's an astonishing taste of direct experience.
Yeah, that's all.Can't shut me up now. No, and I was walking the other morning and it was dark and I left a lot earlier and part of it's, you know, like it's quite rough, you know, like tree trunks and everything. And, you know, like the other way was all these cars coming and I was thinking to myself, I've never said it before, but I'm thinking I am the way, I am the, you know, the life and the truth. So all along, no matter how dark it was, there's always something there to sort of help you along the way. And I thought, oh, wow. And what really intrigued me.
It was a full moon and then as I was walking, you know, the sun was rising up behind the Dandenongs there. And then it was like everything, there was no difference. It was like I was experiencing the darkness and the light at the same time. So one way you'd turn left and then there was a moon still there. And the other way, the light was coming up from the mountains. And then you realise there's no difference between night and day. It's just happening all at once sort of thing. So there you go. Any thoughts?Thanks, everyone. Reflections. Just sitting here now. Everything, watching from a still point, everything is still.
Probably better put that there is a stillness. And everything, everything thing moves and changes and makes noises.But from the point of stillness, Everything here. Has no boundaries. There's no boundaries. If you extend your arm out, eventually it disappears. Where does it go to? There's no boundary you can see. There's a kind of a blurry vignette effect, I suppose. But it's all just... This space-like awareness that things are, manifesting in.And that's an amazing thing. We're looking through two eyes. We only have one view. And that view is unlimited. It doesn't have a boundary. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Amazing. Thank you, Ross. It is quite amazing. There is no reference point, isn't it?
And Anika says here, love it. None of your business. It is this ridiculous obsession with the story. We want to be such sticky beaks and be involved, but it is none of my business. Thank you. Love it. Yeah, the illusion of control. That's the trick in the dream, that there is an I and that I has any saying, that I can choose thoughts or manifest reality. See if there is an I, see if you can find one. Because if you are a life itself, if you are a totality, just driving that little car, you don't have to be preoccupied with any self-obsession. Everything's already resolving of its own and you can just enjoy the ride.
And like Jacinta was saying initially, and you will see how the processor functions.Like Bob says, watch the mind, see how it works. See how it runs the program of facial recognition. It will see faces in the clouds, faces in the skies, faces in the trees. That's the program that was necessary for that body-mind to develop. As a little child, first it got a program of sound recognition, then facial recognition, then all the other programs of navigating the dream came online. But who actually owns them? They are just programs, the same as digestion. You're not preoccupied with your digestion. You're not doing it. You're not doing the sweating of the skin.
You're not doing the heartbeat. You're not growing your hair. In the very same way, you're not thinking your thoughts. The machine is already doing whatever it needs to do. You can just enjoy the ride, relax and be curious. You are the field of curiosity in which the dream unfolds fresh and new every moment. And then if there is no preoccupation in relating it to poor miserable me, the self-centered, the imagined self-centered who imagines that it has the control. And then it fails and fails and fails. Because how can I stop thinking? How can I stop having negative thoughts? How can I control that if there's no I to do any of it?
Recognize that lifeis already functioning nobody lit the sun nobody moved the planet around nobody replaces the cells nobody rain the rains nobody feels the feelings they all arise naturally beautifully in that mysterious appearance and just be mind blown by it and see how the processor comes and makes sense post factum oh that means this and there is another comment here from peter i am amused when my chinese friend says in her limited english when asked why she's doing something she says No why. But I realized she's recognizing that life is just happening. No why. Thank you, Peter. That's brilliant. You can see how the why, how meaning making arises after the action has already started.
What means what? What do I see? Constant interpretation going on. And this is again wonderful program running on absolute autopilot, just like facial recognition. There is nothing conscious about the working of the machine. The only consciousness is the presence in which that mechanical patterns are arising. And fading and as you know your machine like bob was saying see the mind learn how it functions and you will have free entertainment foreverAnd from that point of curiosity, who is there to judge it? Any response, the most ugly, violent, sad, whatever, testosterone-driven response or lack-driven response, wow, that program is there. It's not mine. It's not me. You're learning it.
You are the space in which you're discovering the mystery of life, expressing as this melancholia, depression, sadness. Yum. You can see if it's not personal, it's fascinating. If it's not happening to me, it's just what I'm discovering on the screen of awareness. There is nothing wrong with that. You can put the horror movie and there is nothing wrong. The movie doesn't touch the screen and screen is what you are. And that's the beauty of living just like you are describing. And this is such a delight to actually hear those descriptions confirming that, oh, yeah, you know, how easy and natural is perceiving that. Moment as it unfolds without relating referring and judging without preoccupation with self-centered with me what does it mean to me oh is it happening to me how am i going to keep it and not lose it how am i going to be like this all the time all the all the futureall the control, the illusion of control coming into it and clouding this ever fresh, beautiful moment of mystery.
When there is beautiful content of all the sensory perceptions and sensations and sights and sounds and full immersion. It's not like watching the flat screen and having mirror neurons crying with the hero and condemning the villain. No, it's all immersive. You are the dream character within, privileged to see that 4D beautiful stimulation, life. But if you have the clarity that you are just there, a point in consciousness, discovering this moment, discovering this vehicle, just being presence and nothing else, not needing to alter, modify, correct, judge anything, because you are not the doer. You're not even there. The presence is there, but you as a point in presence, where is the point?
Can you pinpoint where you are? Here? How do you know? Or here? Or here? How do you know? Where are you looking from to say that you are here? Sometimes, like Loki was saying, it kind of appears like there is a aliveness in the chest, that being, that sense of well-being or love.But even to say it is in the chest, how do I know it is in the chest? Where am I looking from? And you can see that the knowing is completely unlocated. The sensation can be located by all means. And sensation of... Breathing deeply with relaxation and subtle pleasure this joy of being free in that just one with the space yes there is a great pleasure in that but that pleasure is also an experience arising in the awareness awareness doesn't feel pleasure awareness feels awareness is the pure knowing there is there is no feeling there is just pure undeniable knowing not of something but just the cognitive capacity just like in the seeing seeing does not choose It's a field.
It allows everything in it. If the judgment comes, I like this, I don't like this, that's already what arising. The seeing is absolutely neutral. It doesn't, looking is the movement of attention, but the seeing is all embracing. Don't be the looking, be the seeing. And see how the looking is also automatic. Like I often said when we used to go with Bob around the block sometimes twice a day, we used to go out as much as we could every day.Our conditioned minds had completely different preference for the movement of attention. I would see every light highlighted by the leaf reflection in the pond of water on the cars.
I just love blink. And he would see engines. I know. He would see engines, architectures. That was his conditioned mind, preferring and marveling and appreciating those creatures. I would see beautiful dresses or beautiful pairs of eyes with a nice makeup or beautiful hair. It's just gluttony for beauty. But his definition of beauty would be different. He would hear the engines, for example, and that would be pleasurable. So the conditions, the looking, the conditioned attention, again, you can discover what's pleasurable in this particular vehicle. You can be curious what's pleasurable in others. And then it may be, and I kind of... I know that I'm doing it, but I'm doing it lovingly, kind of diminishing the brilliance and the mystery of life unfolding into just bringing it down to pain-pleasure.
Just the basic duality, day-night, pain-pleasure. We say it's all love. It's not just pleasure. Come on, don't make it so low. It's not. It's not. The duality. Love is...The ultimate pleasure is the ultimate sense of fulfillment in which life finds itself. The judgment statement on pleasure-pain comes from the conditioned mind. Life does not have a judgment. It follows the bliss, or there is natural attraction and repulsion. And we can call it love, but love doesn't have the opposite in the definition. Love is that base essence which shows up in thousand costumes, for example, fear. And Nisargadatta explained it beautifully when he said fear. It's love for safety.
Of course it's love. I mean, who would experience fear if they didn't love safety? Or greed is love for abundance. It's still love. It doesn't have the opposite. But the way we understand and process love is, oh, it's bliss beyond pleasure. Ananda, enlightenment, this is what I want. I want ecstasy. I want thousand orgasms non-stop. And a serotonin shock and dying in that in no time. But the freedom is, the true freedom is, when the beauty is perceived, understanding that it has to be known from its opposite. How there can be darkness if there is no light? How can there be pleasure if there is no pain?the whole dream has to have all rays of shades and shapes and patterns otherwise there is nothing so appreciation for the duality when there is time for sadness wow how sweet how humbling without the sadness i wouldn't know joy Everything has its place.
And everything is the manifestation of that one essence, dancing for itself. It's like Shakti dances and the world appears, but it only appears. It doesn't have real existence in the definition of the reality, which is eternal, never changing. That one changes all the time. Perceptions are changing. Experiences are changing. The bodies are changing. Thoughts are changing. What doesn't change?There's one thing that never changes. Every time you look, you are here. What you are, can't know. Only concept will define it. But who needs to define? Who needs to define what am I, who am I? That urge to define and understand and narrate and kill the mystery.
poor, miserable little human, is the urge of the conceptualizing mind. Because again, it's an aid in the navigation. It helps. I spent 17 years at sea. How wonderfully helpful it was to know where is my position in the hierarchy. And how wonderfully helpful it was that the rest of the crew knew that too. There's nothing wrong with that self-definitions when you know what they are. They are rising roles. How wonderful to know, you know, you're the mother and not the daughter in the relation with your kid. Beautiful. Those are arising costumes. In the consciousness that doesn't have identity, in you, in the presence that doesn't have identity.
And when you see how those identities are changing and dancing, wow, what an entertainment again. Who am I now? Hmm, who am I now? And it's always changing in different roles. But the presence behind is the same. And there's not, when you watch the mind and see how it works, as you're saying, it's always changing and, you know, this label comes up or that label comes up. Even if you pay attention and you realize that, you know, you could have the most violent thought. Just pop up yet the body is sittingcalmly in a chair watching a movie but the violent thought comes up right it's not even uh like a you know a matching between the the body's actions and the violent thought that comes up just like when you're dreaming you're lying still on the bed and you're doing all of this stuff you could be i don't know an axe murderer chasing them but the body's still it's a good so it's a it's a giveaway it's kind of a it's a metaphor for for the actuality of the experiencing which is the stillness stillness and the calmness and the silence but you know what's coming up seemingly this so-called mind and so-called thoughts and everything is just part of the experiencing it's don't take it to be the answer or the explanation it's just a narration if any it's another way you know way of thinking of it is it to think is thatAs you say, it's none of my business.
You're not doing it. There's no doer there to be doing it. It's just arising. Who knows from where related to previous programming or something that has been witnessed in the environment or whatever, and the thought comes up that they're lying behind that. There's a 10,000, you know, million.bits and pieces that lie behind that to make that arise. It just happens. There's no need to put any energy or belief into any of those, any words, concepts. We had a meeting the other day and we dissected the word concept. Con. Sept. Con, it's a lie. And sept is, someone looked it up, is Latin for, is it cage?
Not quite cage, but limitation, boundary. So you're, you know, yeah, you're caught up in the concept. Well, there you go. You've been caught up in this limiting lie, if you like. It's like religion. Indeed. Religion was. Religion's got lie in it. Yeah, really like and like television. But sometimes I look, I break it down into an anagram of love, intelligence, energy. So behind it, there lies. Like there's the intelligence, energy. There you go. I was just going to say earlier about, Kat was talking about the scene.It just came to mind, that line from Bob's book very early in Beyond Words, Beyond Mind. Keep seeing, keep in this natural seeing, keep seeing there is no thing that sees.
It's all just happening. Another word that's really good to analyze is individual. I am an individual. What does that mean? In means it's a negative. In is like insufficient or a word like that. Divvy from dividing. And dual, so it's not divided into duality, the true individual.I think we tend to hear a point alike, to be without preference, to be without preferences. And then arising to meet that concept or that pointer can be, I've got to be without preferences. I've got to have no preferences. That's impossible. Right? This other thought that comes up. So, oh, so I've got to be without preferences. So I just have to, you know, not prefer these things, what we have.
Oh, and you kind of, the mind then continues to conceptualize around having no preferences. I want this. I want to be this way. And then also we'll have the pleasant. Oh, it's so pleasant. Right? And this is just going on. The Buddha would put it craving and aversion, chasing between the two. And then when things are pleasant, we'll be like, this is what it's supposed to be like. I'm feeling so happy. I'm feeling so loving. This is where I'm supposed to be. Lovely. I'll just try and make this continue to go on. And then becomes un-Oh, I've lost it. I've lost it. Where did it go?
I was supposed to be where it was pleasant and where I was experiencing love. And here you hear over and over again, I, I, I. Running. Chasing. Rather than perhaps, as you all have pointed out, Preference. Oh, already I have no preference. The true I. Already the fundamental position does not mind. So pleasant arises. It just arises. I don't have preference for it. I don't have any part in it. It's not mine. I didn't create it. And so then it becomes unpleasant. I don't prefer that either. That's fine. That's just fine. The fundamental position. The watching. I was talking with a friend and Kat, as you were saying, it feels as though attention and awareness, to use terms, where the attention goes, the phenomenal, the form.
And it feels like, oh, I'm that. It feels like, where are you? Oh, I'm where the attention is.There's that Zen meditation where I'll stare at a flower. I become the flower because the attention is placed there. And awareness, just the clean slate. It's all appearing. On awareness and the attention goes about. So in this point, attention is form, phenomena, all that is arising. Awareness is simply dwell and emptiness.And there's a... That's great. As soon as you state things, as soon as you state it exactly, that concept robs the pointer, doesn't it? Because it can't be that. But this strange thing of neti-neti, I'm not this, I'm not this, I'm no form, I'm nothing but it's arising.
And interestingly, what happens as none of the arising, to which the mind can go, oh, I can't be anything. I can't identify with anything. Oh, I can't do this. But as you rest, as all is arising, you become all that is arising also. Right. No rejection. It's all fine. It's all fine. Right. Non-duality. I am that. I am all. And you can be simultaneously, paradoxically, all arising and no arising. There's no division, actually.It's just watching as the mind tries to go and find it. Go and find it. And so meditation tries to have us stop it. I'll go into samadhi. There's no thought there. That's where it is.
Oh, but now it's gone again. Now it's started again. Oh, I've lost it. I've lost it. It's all about doership. Right. It all comes back to the fundamental knot of the I, the me. All of that is predicated on the central energy of belief going into a me that does and can do anything. That's drop. As you said. Oh, no, it was Ross, you know, first line in Bob's book. You know, see that there is no one, no thing that's doing anything. It's just happening naturally. It's all happening naturally and spontaneously. And it's happening. The happening, the experiencing is us. We are that experiencing. We're not an object.
It's pure subjectivity. Does not require words. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, everything else. God does not require words to make shit happen.And all concepts just happens. And interestingly, regardless of what the concept is saying, whether it's saying I've got it or have not got it in that moment, does not matter. May feel you have it. You have the identification, but you may feel I'm there now or I'm not there now. That has nothing to do with it. So how is there somehow remembering, oh, it doesn't matter what the concept's doing, where it's going right now, which one I'm following. That aware, the clean slate, all happening on the slate, the screen.
And the clean slate is ever-present. Right. So this... This so-called we're discussing is belief in a concept a lie that captures it's instantaneously poof gone instantaneous because it's just one moment really it's why it's a singularity that's if there's you know No, why, how do you put this? Regrets, no regrets. Right? It's gone. It's dead. New, fresh and new every instant. So, pfft. Drop it all.And that's inherently tied up with the nowness. There's only now. And the life, it's not denied, it's not played with with the mind at all, it's just now. Now, now, and the vitality and the experiencing. And the play, the apparent play of life, we can make stories up about the play, but it's an apparent play of life force.
So exquisite. Exquisite. The illusion of time. The illusion of time is all in that play. It's central. You know, the story requires the idea of time. Yeah, and I am all that. I am that. Not I, the little I. Everything is that. There is no separation, no time, no separation. What else can it be? Nothing but that. It's so simple. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. So subtle. I have a... Comment from Anthony. There is a magic behind words when we break them down, almost like you can feel the infinite intelligence behind them, not just made up by man, but something beyond. Yeah, the essence, like Bob says, everything is that in the essence.
But not as it appears.So it is that and it appears of self-center. It appears as the thought, well, but yeah, okay, but I have to find out who I am. I have to define myself. Who? It's just a thought. It's just the idea that I have to find out who I am. It's just a thought. There is no I there that has to find anything. It's just the arising thought. But because it contains the concept I, it suddenly gets that sticky, seductive vibe to it. Oh, it is about me. And the delusion of grandeur. Oh, I am me. I am something separate from totality. My God, I have to now figure out, define, add to myself, heal myself, embellish myself, improve myself.
But is there really any self apart from the concept that I am something or the other? I am full stop. That's the experience. Something or the other comes after. I was just going to discuss about the concept of sleeping and dreaming. Or the concept or the experiencing of dreaming. Of course, we can dream, can apparently fall asleep and have a dream about anybody that we know, about my father, about my, you know, people at work, about people I haven't met yet. But we're awake and it's still the dream.It's a dream within a dream. To some degree, you know, it's actually, it's as real as this experiencing.
It's the beautiful play and dance of Leela. Just something pretty quick, nothing to sort of add or embellish. You know, I work with people intimately and I really love encouraging them to identify the multiplicity of experience. So when they say, I'm sad, I sort of rephrase it or reframe it with them to their sadness there, which means that it can't just be... absolutist, I'm just this one thing. And to see the freedom in that, in myself and in others continually, just expands the kind of concept of this one central position or reference point, as Bob puts it. And I use something similar when I'm counselling with clients also, and another deconstruction can be, how does that sadness, what is your experience of that sadness?
Where do you experience? And then as you go through the sensations, Oh, feels pressure.I feel some nausea. It further can create the witnessing of that experience, right? Rather than it having a name, the concept and the belief in the concept, like you're saying, I am sad. Rather than there is sadness, the lack of the identity. And then also, oh, from the reference point, this is the experience of sadness with the sensation of nausea, the sensation of weight, the sensation of... Just as a watching and a drawing back from, more into that position of awareness, witnessing. And curiosity. Invitation, you know, life is showing up in this costume, in this moment, in this form.
Because there is love for being, you know, sadness has a right to experience and express, you know, that's another beautiful, juicy thing to explore the form, the emptiness that became a form of sadness. And if there is a judgment, there is resistance, all of those things are part of the landscape and they all can be explored with the curiosity and openness. And that which explores is not sad. That is curious. That is free from sadness. The sadness is...what arises and the idea of me being sad is also what arises it's just what a freedom who knows that there is a sadness or how do i know or how how is it experienced and now am i the field of witnessing sad by exploring sadness i'm pretty mind blown wow yeah amazing freedom from sadness at the same time without rejecting it pushing it away putting like cork in the bottle and hiding under the carpet no just completely exploring that form of energy taking the label out Without the label sadness, how does the heart feel?
How does the breathing feel? Where are the tensions? What's happening? Wow, isn't it amazing? How the body creates that particular moment, simulates that particular feeling in the field that will never be the same again. The time is now to just fully embrace it and rejoice in that and learn and explore. Because likely, before you even finish the exploration, it will change. Because that's the nature of the illusion. It constantly is in constant flux. It doesn't last. So love it while it's there. Be it sadness, be it...rain, whatever it is. And that loving compassion towards whatever arises, even if that's like Jacinta was saying, you know, the personality of a victim or being somehow overwhelmed.
Having a back trot in life like bob was saying when he was going through his struggles and drunk years and the zoo nights and all that incredible suffering well the fact of the nature is this is just a dream this is only temporary it is only now it is all going to resolve none of us will be here in 100 years So whatever it is the situation in the dream right now, it is to leave it presently, to explore it, to learn it, because tomorrow is not going to be there. There is no tomorrow.And with that attitude of freedom, the one that explores the curious field of witnessing, it does not experience any of the coloring of what it witnessed.
Like if there is a red film projected on the screen, screen's not red, it only appears. Screen is completely neutral. Like Tanya was saying before, take no position. You know, Nisar Gaddafi's quote, love all of it or none of it. You don't have that choice because there is no you to have it. But if you put the same attitude on absolutely everything, then it doesn't matter whether it is love or hate. It completely doesn't matter. If it's the same, even, love and hate is absent. Like Bob's quotes of Hin Sing Ming, when both love and hate are absent, everything is clear and undisguised. Paint everything black and there is no black because there is no point in which you could call it black everything in the appearance is known from its opposite so appreciate the opposites because without them that beautiful colorful dream could not be experienced And there is even no choice of experiencing or not experiencing because there is no one with the choice.
So whatever is happening right now is the absolute.or is that pure essence or that pure emptiness vibrating into those patterns shapes and forms without any reason without any volition it's just the experiencing and expression And being here, that being here, that witnessing presence in which that miraculous dance is happening. There is no suffering in presence. There is subtle joy in that presence. If it's undistracted by the story narrating, oh, it shouldn't be like this. What's wrong with me? I saw it. I don't see it. Maybe I will see it in future. Because right now, I can't narrate like this. Maybe you can. Get out of the way.
Let's see. Everything is uncompromisingly simple, is so simple that we miss it. The mind which is trying to grasp the difference and find the subtlety and the mind which is just a biocomputer that is incredibly helpful in navigating through the dream, learning skills, learning languages. Recognizing faces and voices and have those fantastic capacities, it cannot touch, it cannot come near the space in which it appears. It can never happen.how the vibration of the mind, the conceptualization grasping and objectifying, could ever objectify the field in
which arises the field that is not even a field it cannot be called an object it is pure subjectivity that subjectivity of pure existence pure presence how can that be objectified the only way is to say this is i this is my presence and this presence is inside me i own it But that's bullshit.
Presence cannot be owned. Now I am the body and the presence or aliveness or consciousness is in me. That's as close as the mind can get to trying to grasp ingraspable. The direct experience without the translation is there is a presence. I am that presence. And the boundaries may arise within me so i'm the presence and the body the navigational aid the car arises within the consciousness that i am and that's the experience you can use the arms and legs but who is using them You can see how that vehicle is already programmed to do whatever it needs to do. Again, none of your business.
And you are the presence in which that arises. The navigation aid. You have the eyes to see. You can put binoculars, the seeing will change. Or you can put the microscope.Seeing will change. The seeing as a field will not, but the content, the content will change. So how could you be the body? If the body can be modified, it can fly. If it has additional devices there, paragliding or whatever, it can see the distance. It can hear differently. It's a machine. It can be modified. But the consciousness which dreams itself the body, and it dreams itself the binoculars and the wings or whatever it needs, That consciousness is prior to the body.
And now this is a hard problem of consciousness arising in nature and in science and everywhere in every human thought. Yes, but the consciousness is only there when a child knows enough words. Nope. The life essence was there before the child was even formed into a fetus. The life essence were there already suffusing the particles from which the child came into existence. The cognitive capacity, yes, it came online when the computer was developed enough. But you are not the cognitive capacity. Even though the cognitive capacity, the reasoning, will tell you this is I. I am a person. I'm 50 years old. I'm female. I'm this, I'm that.
This is just a concept. Those are arising ideas. They haven't been there when thebody was born and the body was already alive and again this concept also is just it's just a description pointing to time in which through the time that intelligence was creating and programming that vehicle but as we know time cannot be experienced it can only be imagined So in this moment, with the whole imagined time, from time immemorial, No, I have nothing to say. Blah, blah, blah. You're absolutely right.I don't come here for the words. I'm here for what Ross explained as described as the stillness.There is something that exists between the words.
It is not something that can be described or explained with words, and it is not a concept. The closest you can get to understanding it is through direct experience.It's like stillness. But it is not that. In Taoism they say the Tao that can be named is not the Tao. Nisa, Gadatta said, you are that.I am that. If I am that, and you are that, And we are that. What else is there to say? That's it. The dance of life. I heard the word mind thrown around a lot today. Started there was a sentence where Kat said It doesn't mind. And I heard you say, do you mind?
We break that down. Mind. What is mind? Ego. We say, if you mind something, your ego has a problem with it. If you don't mind something, then your ego is not affected. So mind, mind, my, I, try, cry, the sound of the word, the sound of the word, the energy of the word.I heard the word, it's not your business, the phrase, it's not your business, it's not my business, business, busyness, the sound is where the energy is. Languages is everywhere around us. Form a method by which we can connect. It's outside you, it's inside you. In your thoughts, there is a language.What language is happening in there?
What are those words? What energy is it bringing? Love. What is love the concept?And what is actually love? If I describe love to someone, will they understand it fully? Or is it something they must experience? What does it feel like to be loved and to be love? Stay curious. Keep asking questions.Our true nature is freedom. It's space. It's infinite. It's eternal. The mind is the opposite. It has boundaries. It has walls. It has restrictions. It has limitations. You are not your mind. You are free.Yeah, the word mind is great to have fun with. You know, there's that line in the movie Lawrence of Arabia. You know, they're standing around and Lawrence is doing this trick with a match, burns his fingers and he's just very calm, nothing bothers him.
And then this other guy tries to do it, goes, oh, that hurts. And Lawrence says, the trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts. What is hurt? What is pain? These are all concepts, you know. What we are is neutral about all of that. There's no minding of it hurting.at the fundamental intrinsic of what we are, the unnameable of what we are. There's no minding, there's no preference even, it's just happening. It was beautiful, right? Yeah, and Tanya also says beautiful. Do you have the mic? No? Sure. We've got a few more minutes. A couple of minutes. Come on. Come on. Send us off.
So I guess we started the meeting with, this meeting is all about non-duality, starting with the fact that we're already that. And we're going to end with that fact. And there's no other fact other than that. So in the meeting there was many, there's one essence. And what was described was like a, different expressions of that one essence in this phenomenal existence. The phenomena is that which appears to be. And in that appearance, those descriptions, experiences, recalls, did someone else want to say something? Oh, okay. We talked a little bit about the body and how itThere's a boundlessness. There's no end to where this arm goes or whatever, like you said, Ross.
There's no toe unless I think about the toe. And who is the eye that's thinking? And who created the attention to go there? There is no one running. There's no great puppet master in the sky pulling the strings. The marionettes are just floating along, putting attention on toes or on the next movement, the next thought. And we talked about mind just at the end then. And like, what is mind apart from thought? And if mind is thought, then what is thought? Like a vibration of energy, like a word. A word is a more gross form of energy. This is nothing appearing as the energy of that one essence, appearing as thoughts, words, objects, bodies.
sky, but it's the nothing or the emptiness, like vibrating, appearing as all these different patterns, all the different colours, sounds, all emanating from no sound, all emanating from space. Like nothing, but vibrating into absolutely everything, which is that. And I guess that's what the meeting is all about, the non-duality.It's pretty magnificent watching, listening to people fixated on the beauty of brick walls, spider webs, describing this thing in all the different varieties and the colours and, you know, Speaking about trauma, the other day there was someone experiencing this grand trauma and an incredible expression of it. And we sat there and looked at him afterwards and said, what are you without all of it?
And he said, It's just this. It's just this. And it always is this. And it can't be anything other than this. And this is that. One essence expressing as everything. And we can't be a thought. We are the essence, the space in which the whole expression, the whole show, infinite dimensions, universes, worlds, births, deaths, the whole of creation appears. And isn't it wonderful to know that like there's no one running it. There's no little thing in the background pulling the strings, running the show, making decisions, choices, being creative, being intelligent, planning, mapping.And it just, and there's, in that, recognition, there's absolute, there is no limit to that recognition.
There is no, it's a knowing, it's the emptiness knowing itself as itself for no real reason except, you could say, a celebration of love for the fact that it exists, for the fact that life is lifey. And expressing in this room, out this room, in beyond worlds, universes, planets.And yeah, that's it. That's it for now. Thanks for listening. Beautiful. Yes. Thank you, everyone. Yeah. What a dream, isn't it?