This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
Hi guys, this is Kat. It has been six months today since we are all missing physical presence of Bob, because he's still very much here in the hearts. So I prepared another file with a little bit of a snippets of our life together on 2022-2023 with the snippets of pointers from my book Sailor Bob Bags of Pointers on S and A. S for separation, split. Bob From the time we started to reason, that sense of separation came upon us. As soon as the I thought came up, so did its opposite, not I, or other than I. With that arose a belief in something that is separate and apart from I.
Bob So, you believe yourself to be this person, this separate self. How did it come about? Well, we learned words and around the age of two, two and a half, the reasoning capacity developed in us and we started using words. We were told, you are little Johnny. So this is I, little Johnny or me, we reasoned, and that is not I. With that separation, I, not I, came insecurity and vulnerability. From that moment, we tried to resolve what has never been real in the first place. Bob But you can't be separated from the totality. It is that sense of separation, the belief in the separate identity, an individual or a person.
That is where the fear comes from. If you were the totality, could you fear anything? But you are the totality. You are the tsunami. You are the cyclone. You are the volcano erupting. You are that everything. S for seemingly so, Bop Upon a bit of investigation and contemplation it becomes evident that separation is only seemingly so. Look at seemingly separate pieces of furniture. This chair was a piece of wood and few nails at some point, or a tree, a sapling, a seed. S for self-centre, soul, Bop So, you believe you are this separate entity, this person. Look where this word person comes from. It came from the Latin language.
In Latin, the word persona means a mask. We put on the mask of identity and we believe we are this mask. During the pandemic, we can see how a mask obscures some of your features, restricts your speech and breathing. It may protect the body also. But we do not take ourselves to be that mask. The imagined self-centre is like a mask. We are not it. Bok Are you asking me if I'm using my ego? Well, I know for a fact that there is no me anywhere to use an ego or anything at all. Bok Perhaps when they talk about soul they don't mean S-O-U-L but S-O-L-E, the one and only.
There is no personal soul. Nobody has ever found one. I have found one. Know my soul or your soul, but soul one. Bob You say you are still here. Well, where else would you want to be? Just see if this here has any boundaries unless you think about them. See if there is any location to it at all. The body with its senses is just a costume for this spirit to experience and express itself. Spirit seemingly needs a vessel through which it expresses. S like spirit. Spirit doesn't know matter. Why? Because they are not two. They are not separate. They are aspects of the same.
Matter is like a congealed spirit. Just like steam, water and ice are different states of the same H2O, or like a blood clot that congeals. Spirit doesn't know matter. Emptiness doesn't know form. Shiva doesn't know Shakti. Darkness doesn't know light. As for supreme, superior, Bob. There are not two at all. Bob When you walked into this room, you formed a concept about everyone. And everyone formed a concept about you. You also have a concept about yourself. Which concept is right? No concept is ever right. And without the concept, who would ever be superior to you? Who would ever be inferior to you? And what would you want from the other person?
S for sentient, sensitive self, Bob. You're asking if these sentient beings called humans that have been around for thousands of years were all wrong. Well, I know that I was wrong in believing that I was a sentient human being. S for self-obsession, self-centeredness, Bob. When you see the falseness of that self-center, then you are no longer bound by that, and that is the freedom. That is freedom from the seeming bondage of self like the big book of A puts it This self is the cause of all my problems This cage of concepts this self which I have built around myself is a phantom It does not exist The cage door is open right now.
As a matter of fact, the whole cage can be seen for what it is, a mirage, and it will fall away right now. S for suffering Bob Me is the cause of all so-called psychological suffering. If you break a bone or burn the skin, it is physical. You can locate it. But if you have a so-called lump in the throat or knot in the guts, it is psychological. You know it is not real. You can't locate them precisely. All psychological suffering comes from relating to the self-centre, the me. When an antelope escapes a lion, he won't run to the others to tell them how horrible or unfair it was.
How the lion was picking on him or bullying him. But we can tell a well-embellished story in the pub even 20 years later. What is karma? It is the cause and effect. What I'm pointing to is the me that is a cause of all psychological suffering. It is only me that can be angry. Only me that can be fearful or depressed. It is only me that can be inferior. But can there be an effect if you don't relate it to the cause? There can't. And I just pointed out that the me, the cause, is total fiction. Without the cause, where would the effect lodge? S for sedation, Bob.
Being still, utterly present for whatever is arising, is the opposite of sedation. After all, disrupted, distracted or not, everything is constantly transient. But Sat Chit Ananda, which is always and ever here, is too subtle when attention is all tuned to the extremes. B. Fixation on me and relating everything to this me is the primary cause of suffering. It brings up the seeming need for sedation or distraction. S. Stop. Exercise. B. Don't pretend to be what you are not, said Nisargadatta Maharaj. If you understand the answer is not in the mind, how do you get out of the mind? There is only one way. Full stop.
Don't go there. What is wrong with right now if you don't think about it? To check it, you need to stop. Pause the thought for a moment. In fact, thought will pause by itself if there is genuine curiosity. And what is there without the thought? Bob. Digestion goes on. Seeing is also there. Hearing is there. All senses are working. But the thought is paused. From that you can see that what you are is prior to thought. This is because on what you are everything appears. Before the thought comes up, you must be there to know it. Bob Without the future can there be a spiritual path to be on?
Is there any room for progress? Who are you without the thought or mental image? Bob. What is wrong without the thought? Bob. When the thought is paused, have you fallen apart? No. All senses are working, the body keeps functioning, hair and fingernails keep growing, cells are being replaced, food is being digested, Only the thought is paused. You can see that what you are is prior to thought. And on that basic screen or awareness, whatever you like to call it, fresh and new thoughts will come up. But it will come up on that what was there when the thought was paused. S like sick of seeking?
Bob Stop looking for the answer in thinking. Stop trying to find the answer where you cannot find it. Didn't some of you try to find the answer in the mind for 20 or 30 years? Didn't it dawn on you that you are looking in the wrong place? You will never find peace of mind. Peace is when the mind is not. This they call the peace that passeth all understanding. Bob Bob Don't go there. S like source, exercise. B. Can anything come from nothing? And yet it is there, right in front of your eyes. It is and it isn't. And that is why they call it Maya, an illusion, a phenomenal manifestation B As steam water and ice are all the same H2O Bob It is the emptiness itself, waving, pulsating and throbbing with life, experiencing and expressing itself as diversity of forms, shapes and patterns.
It is the source and destination, the heart, the core, everything and no-thing. Some more on S. S for surrender. Bob. To surrender to life is to drop the illusion of control and give all credit where credit is due. S for surprisingly simple. Bob. There are not two. There is nothing simpler than one. S for singularity. Bob. Just rest in this uncontrived singularity. You are it. S for subtlety. B. Be with this subtlety of livingness and see what comes out of this. It is the very essence of life. There is nothing boring about the subtlety whatsoever. It may appear to be boring because it is no-thing to the mind.
B. When you come back to the nothingness, the subtleness which is no-thing, It seems very bland and very boring compared to what the mind has been used to, but stay with it for a while and see. There is a lot more to it than what you believe. Get into that blandness or that boringness or nothingness. Sit with it for a while. Don't try to do anything. Just be with it and see what comes up out of it. See the subtleties, what I call the uncaused joy, the sense of well-being, the sense nothing is wrong anymore, to use Nisargadatta's words. Be sincere. Chapter A Like C Aylor Bob A for Animals Bob There is a herd of deer grazing.
When a few wolves appear, the herd starts to run. Wolves will catch one, and as soon as they put it down, the other deer stop running away and return to grazing. And what do people do? They run a story, and often many years later they boast about what has happened to them back then. Bob All animals have ways to communicate. You can hear how they communicate. The bird has a different call for danger, or for when it is looking for a mate. Dogs have different barks, lions have roars, antelopes snort or stomp their feet when danger is around. All this is present happening. They have amazing capacities to survive.
They learn, problem solve, and some instinctively plan and prepare for winter. A for Awareness B Are you unaware right now? No, you are not unaware. So you must be aware. Awareness is there, right where you are. Awareness is just another word for the activity of knowing, intelligence, energy or consciousness. B This awareness is with you all the time. You are not unaware. You can't deny the fact of knowing, so you must be this awareness. No need to look for it anywhere or try to grasp it. It is not a thing to imagine or find. When it may be helpful to discriminate, we can say that consciousness is an existence, utterly aware that it exists.
Awareness is first, consciousness appears on it. A for Awakening Bob Aren't you awake right now? Did you have to do anything for that wakefulness to be there? Is that something that you have or it just is? It may get obscured by clouds of thoughts but it is never far away. A for Attention Bob Stay utterly awake with the five senses, wide open and unfixated awareness. We habitually focus most of the attention on thinking and the other senses get neglected. So, we may miss something important happening in the seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and smelling. B. Try and leave this moment now. You will see that you can't.
You may imagine you do so by directing your attention away from what is presently happening, but even that you still do in this immediacy of now. Bob This is what Nisargadatta had to say about the source of suffering. Desire is a fixation of the mind on an idea. Get out of its groove by denying it attention. A for Attention on Attention Exercise Bop Watch the mind. See how it operates. A like Answer Bop The answer is not in the mind. Stop trying to find the answer where you cannot find it. Didn't some of you try to find it in thinking for most of your life?
You are intelligent people. It is about time to realize it is not there. Bob A for appearance Bob The definition of phenomenon and you will see that phenomenon is what appears to be Not what is but what appears to be Numenon is what is All that you see is a phenomenal manifestation It is an illusion. Maya. A for absolute. Bob. What can you add to the absolute? Can you add anything? It wouldn't be absolute if you could. And what can you take away from it? Nothing. It is already total. You are already that totality. A for already, Bob. Start from the fact, whether you know it or feel it or understand it right now or not, that you are already that.
Everything is that already. A for animating aliveness, exercise, Bob. Do you know the difference between an alive body and a corpse? They both have all the inner organs. The corpse has the heart, the lungs, the voice box, etc. But without that animating force, the life essence, the body is just a corpse. Bob What is this thing that animates the universe? What moves the planets? What makes this body move and feel? It is this essence, energy or life. This life force is functioning in this body-mind. Thinking is taking place, seeing, hearing, heart beating. A for attraction, Bob. People are often asking about the law of attraction.
Yes, there is a natural law of attraction which is not what people make of it. Look at the little child, how he operates. When something attracts his attention, he grabs it or pushes it away. It functions naturally, effortlessly. There is no story in here anywhere. A for As They Are Leave things as they are. What does it mean? As they are means unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. To try to fix, change, alter, modify or correct means to resist. And what can you alter it with? Only the thought, the concept. When from the perfect, the perfect is taken, only the perfect remains, says the Guru Gita. Everything is perfect as it is, unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected.
A for add, accumulate, amass. Bob. When the child is about two, two and a half, the reasoning capacity starts to function in this human pattern. This is the capacity this human pattern has. Other patterns don't have this particular capacity, but they have other capacities. The bird has eyesight much better than we do, and the capacity of flying, which we do not have. But through the capacity of reasoning, we have built eyeglasses, binoculars and microscopes that enabled us to see better. And we constructed airplanes, balloons and helicopters that enabled us to fly. So, it is a wonderful capacity, but it can backfire also. Reasoning capacity or thinking is what we call the mind.
Mind is nothing but thinking and thinking is vibration. The nature of the mind is to vibrate and it can only vibrate dualistically. Watch the mind and see how it functions. Everything is either good or bad, pleasant or painful, or it is somewhere between those two. Those two extremes are boundaries we put on everything. Bob Our parents told us to go to school, to get a good education, a job, to make money. Then, we hope maybe a partner will complete us, or a new car, a promotion, membership of nation or community. Bob Parents told you, you are little Johnny, good little boy, or a bad one.
But what can you do with an image like this? You need to build it up, add to it events and experiences from the past to give it credibility. But it still feels kind of incomplete. So they tell you to go out, add, accumulate, amass, the title, profession, adventures, achievements, etc. But has that helped them? Are they fulfilled? Bob Mind has been used, since the time it first started to reason, for looking out there, grasping, grabbing and searching for bigger and better sensations. The greater, the noisier, the louder or more beautiful the sensation is, the more it gives a lift or a kick, the better it is.
That has become our habit pattern. That is what we seem to aim for. Is it a valid aim? A for Addiction, Abstinence, Bob I've been without alcohol and cigarettes, yet I've been without them now for over 60 years. My mind was telling me bullshit. Addictions can be broken, that is certain.