This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
Now we got Ross and Jimmy. We have Pesto and we have Howard. Haman. Haman. Dean. Dean. And we have Bob. And Tanya. And... Okay, so for those who don't know me, or who are here for the first time, my name is Kat, I'm Box Freedom, and I promise you that the message will carry on as soon as there is a need for people to show up and hear it. So the thing that I heard today was that it takes a while for that to sink in or be understood, and that's right away reminded me about the story that Bob used to say on the meetings.
And the story comes from him being in the Muktananda's ashram, 1975, traveling kaushit, doing all sorts of seva, chanting, meditating, and he had to go there because his life fell apart. His wife left him. Believe it or not, she ran away with nearly twice older man.And his life fell apart. So he ended up going to the ashram for indefinite. He thought he's going to stay there forever. And doing all the seva. So Muktananda would gather people and would give them a spiel every now and then. And he would tell them the story about the guy who was looking to find out the truth or find out his true nature.
And he would find a guru, down the road, he would ask the guru, okay, can you teach me the truth? And the guru said, yes, I'm ready. Do, at, dot.And the guy said, yeah, sure. Well, I mean, come on. Off he left, went up the road, found another guru, and said, okay, you know, this guy down the road, he just made fun of me. He just disrespectfully just crushed me over. Can you teach me the truth? And he says, okay, so you saw the guy down the road. And what did he tell you? What type of truth is that? And he says, uh-huh, okay, I'll teach you.
But you're going to be eligible first. You're going to serve me for 12 years, faithfully. And then you will be ready to hear. The guy says, I'll do anything. I'll do anything. So he called the manager of the Yashama and asked him, what sort of jobs do we have left? The guy is going to... I've got some advice. It's Sam, he's another. Nah, okay. Yeah, we hope those each... Sometimes that happens. We'll just see. All I can do is that. And that. Okay, see if that sounds any better. So the guy ended up in the ashram of the guru up the road, serving him faithfully for 12 years, doing all sorts of seva, chanting, and shoveling cow shit, because that was the only pay.permanent job that they had in the ashram.
So after 12 years of shoveling cow shit, he went to the guru and he said, I'm eligible now. I can hear you. Will you teach me the truth? And he says, yes, you can hear it now. Thou art that. And that was a joke that everybody laughed as Muktananda was telling the joke. Without realizing that it wasn't actually a joke. Those guys like Bob were sitting there shoveling cow shit in his very ashram, hoping that in the future time, when they are eligible enough or when they've done enough, they will finally hear that it's never been hidden. That is not a joke. That is the final truth that can't be taught.
There is no teachings here. And this is what Bob would often start the meeting from. I can't teach you anything. There's nothing to teach.So it is really just the recognition or the realization that that which is sought for is already here, present, shining right in your face. There is nothing to be found other than just recognizing what is being ignored. Bob would call it the ignorance, ignoring your true nature. Ignoring the fact that you are alive. And that's a miracle, really. That's an incredible radiance of being without which the nothing is. And usually the mind steps in a picture.Okay. So, and this is, this is again where Bob would invite everyone to take it for the face value initially that thou are that, that you are, you know that you are, start from there.
You are that, you are the life essence animating the body. Now, if there are any objections arising, let's look at the objections. Let's look at what stands in the way of recognizing it fully right now.And what comes up? A thought, a sensation, an interpretation of the thought and sensation? What usually comes up is, yes, but why am I still taking everything personally? Let's look who is taking anything personally. Or is there anyone there? Or is just a strong sensation? In the body interpreted as a story of me taking something personally. Because if we look, if we really put all the scrutiny and look at what is happening moment to moment, we will find out that anything that is ever happening is the sensation, perception, interpretation, story, story of what it means.And this is where the pointing to the true nature starts when you realize that whatever arises in whichever way it arises is just a phenomena.
And that phenomena is registered in that cognizing emptiness. It is known and the knowing of the phenomena. doesn't share the characteristics of the phenomena. If I experience whatever it is, sadness or anger or anxiety, the realization that I'm experiencing that this is the experience is not anxious or angry. It is completely neutral. It is just a knowing, pure knowing. And in Hindu scripture, there is a pointer saying that the ultimate truth is being and knowing and preference for being or stillness, loving to be. So that's the truth. Whatever else appears is illusion or maya, the name and form, the shape, the pattern. That's maya. Why is it illusion?
Because it's impermanent. Because it comes and goes. You can't rely on it. It is here right now, the next moment is something else. So this dreamlike is just fluctuating dream. While the essential nature or the pure existence or the naturalstate that doesn't have any characteristics that is doesn't have any it's nothing that you can say about it apart from the fact that is undeniably here nobody can try and stop being or stop registering being conscious It is there. Every time you look, there is an existence. What it is, it's a different story. That's the mind coming up and giving it shape and form. That's the illusion.
That's the maya. So I am is the truth. I am a person. I am a human being. I am Australian or Polish or whatever. That's maya. That's the illusion. The part which is... Which is the reality is experienceable directly right in this moment. And it is always right this moment. And it is always here. It's never not here. Every time you look. The mind may come up with the idea, yes, but how about when I'm sleeping? How about when I die? How about a thousand years before I was born? Well, and then you can see how those mental images come in the picture to question, but even those mental images are being experienced.
Right now the past the future the theoretical situation which is not happening right now like before the body was born the theoretical situation that will happen again not right now when the bodyIt all appears right now in that presence that you are. And this is it, the presence, the presence that you are, the aliveness, the radiance of existence, which is neither of those things. Bob liked to call it intelligence energy because it had the quality of energy. The quality of energy, energy doesn't really have quality, it has potentiality. It in a dormant state is still like when you switch off the light the electricity doesn't flow but you can't say that it isn't there it is there as a potentiality because you flick the switch and it is flowing it is there so you can't say it is it you can't say it isn't so he liked the word energy but also pointing out that innate intelligence within that energy field why intelligence anywhere you look you will see a wonder the the wonder of of the human body coming into existence and the story will tell you that there are genes in a little reproductive cells that are coming together the the little sperm that is penetrating the ovum and it knows what to do it already is being there is an intelligence within it that follows certain pattern or whatever program and creates that body that has later on the capacity to investthe nature of things and the same intelligence you can see in nature in the way the planet is moving around the Sun and the seasons are changing and the tides and the moon wherever you look with that fresh eye without judgment just is just wow wow you see the movement of energy experiencing, expressing itself as the 10,000 things, shaping and forming all the patterns, all that incredible display in the intelligent way.
So that was his preference, but he would also say that the word intelligence energy, it is not it. No pointer is it. No awareness or space-like consciousness, nothing is it because there is no it. If it is... Pure singularity or it is what you are, the natural state or essential nature, it can't be it. It is the I am, it is the most intimate sense of existence that is self-evident. Nobody can tell you that you are that because you can't deny the fact of your own existence. Nobody needs to tell you that because it's self-evident. So that the fact that the registering is going onIt is in its, it's a proof in the pudding.
So we call it it just to, just to, pointed it just to invite people to resonate and recognize that there is innate knowing within you which can't really argue with it of course you can i mean anyone who wants to rubbish the pointers the easiest thing in the world to just pull apart the words but there is always if there is an attraction or if there is a program of longing, a program of seeking, what's beyond the whole display, then the resonation can come and look where the pointer is pointing rather than pull apart the words. And it's just definitely more satisfying because the pointers are to remind you what is already clear, what is already known.
You were born with that.certainty of existence, the little baby or the cat, they can't deny their own existence. Not that they would assert it either. There's no need to assert or deny anything. But it's self-evident. And that is it. That is the final truth. So if that was to shine forth and was to be given a first place in your heart, above all the thinking, above all the interpreting, life flows in a sense with the sense of amazement and ease and beauty. And everything, even uncomfortable sensations in the body, even tragic or dramatic stories that are coming out, are just what appears on that screen of that miraculousness of existence on that radiance.
And what a different way or different paradigm of experiencing the dream. If you are completely relaxed as space, if you are the space, if you are the consciousness, the wide open field of knowing, the wide open limitless field of witnessing, the cognizing emptiness, and whatever appears in it or on it,Well, it's not personal anymore. It's just an appearance. The headache is an appearance. The cat meowing is an appearance. And if that's just an appearance, it is just going to be here temporarily for a moment, for a fleeting moment. That's the time to actually embrace it. That's the time to enjoy it because it's not going to last.
So the paradigm of existence, of living in a space of just not even allowing because there is no one to allow anything, not even discovering because, again, there's no one to discover anything. And yet there is this quality of... Openness and curiosity of that consciousness constantly experiencing and expressing itself dancing and showing itself a reflection of itself in every moment in every form so there is an underlying wow Even if the part of that whole dance is a sense of psychological suffering or sense of something being really personal or hurtful or devastating or disappointing. Now, looking from that space of heart, which all embraces everything, that is another call for.
Ah, wow, beautiful, loving compassion.rather than suffering. There is nothing excluded, no sensation, no experience, no human experience is excluded. It's not that when you realize that everything that arises and feels personal, it really isn't. It doesn't really make you a zombie or a psychopath who doesn't experience that human adventure. It is as available, if not more, for the fearlessness of letting everything show up without any hint of resistance. And everything is everything. It's love, it's hate, it's all of it. It's just like you see the animals experiencing or anything in nature, all range of whatever life has to offer, all range of vibrational energies calling for attention.wanting a pet or a food, we're talking about a cat.
Anything that arises spontaneously and then even if there is an agenda arising spontaneously did you think that did you think the thought this is what the non-duality aims at it can't teach anything because there is nothing to teach it can just gently point and translate perhaps so that it is recognized that what is happening right now is already that it's already that life essence experiencing and expressing itself as whatever arises if there is a suffering arising that is life experiencing itself as a suffering arising if there is a strong sense of self wow what an incredible phenomena arising but if that phenomena is seen for what it is that arising within the field of knowing just a phenomena arising even to say within a field it's not a without or within there isn't it's just all space of knowing the cognizing emptiness But if you see even a sense of something being painful, something being offensive or being personal or being judged orcompared with us not enough wow what an arising and this is where one of uh they all bob's pointers are brilliant and beautiful but one of the celebrated pointers i think gilbert celebrates that one a lot is watch the mind See how that brilliant projector brings up every scene, every interpretation, every story.
See how it functions. See how it divides. See how it relates. Whatever comes up is straight away related to me. I like this. I don't like this. I want to keep this. I don't want to keep that. This shouldn't have happened to me. That should have happened. Why is it happening to others? All the drama associated with just instead of seeing the arising the phenomena just as it is for example I've received a really vulgar message of phone call and then the defenses are rising up in the body and they and the anger fumes out that's what arising that's what is arising how amazing that this pre-conditioned organism is behaving in this way to this situation.
Wow, incredible. And there is no story at all, but it shouldn't behave this way.Like in the story that Nisargadatta was asked, oh, if someone comes and slaps you, what are you going to do? How would I know, he says. Slap me, we'll find out. Or some others ask him, oh, what if there is a fight on the street? He says, I don't know. It depends on, again, it depends on 10,000 things. Maybe I'll join the fight. Or maybe I'll stop screaming, yell, who knows? The state of being the emptiness, open emptiness, not resisting anything that shows up, being... Amazed at its own reflections. Who is not amazed when you look at the starry night and you see, wow, it blows your mind.
That's the reflection. That's the consciousness looking at itself because there is only one, there is nothing else. And in that moment of incredible beauty or overwhelmed of any sort, the program of constructing separate self is temporarily suspended. Moments everyone can relate to the moment of great love or great beauty that feels like oh yes oh this this is good there is no objections there is nothing wrong this moment is perfect as it is those are all samples of natural stateBut when the content is different, there is still a possibility of viewing whatever arises in the same way, because that space-like awareness, that presence in which it arises, of itself it doesn't object to anything space allows everything to arise as it is it doesn't even allow it doesn't have the capacity to deny or allow it's just a pointer but it just is unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected, as Bob says.
And then Bob would say, leave it as it is. Whatever arises, don't touch it, don't go there, don't try to fix it, don't judge it, don't make a story of it. And it doesn't mean that there is a you that should follow the instruction of not modifying or not controlling it. Not at all. This is the pointer that is to resonate. And it's just to touch your heart. And, oh, yeah, right. Yeah, I remember. You know, when everything is just as it is and there's no need to fix anything. It's just, ah. That's when I am like space. And those are usually the moments when the mind doesn't arise with objections.
But even when the mind does arise with objections, but it is given its rightful place as a servant, not a servant.as a master. The objections are arising in the field of knowing. For Bob and I, for the nearly a decade that we lived together, objections were a wonderful, wonderful source of extra entertainment. The objections, the complaints the mind would come up with right from the morning, it was just, it didn't matter whether he would voice them or I would voice them, they were always met with laughter. The mind complaining oh look at the weather is cold again of course what else darling what else what else is wrong come on bring it on let's have a good good start of a day with laughter because when you see that behind the complaining mind is always that beautiful attitude of a servant a loving servant oh i'm so sorry it's about whether i would absolutely love for you to have a sunshine every day How beautiful.
Oh, yeah, this person shouldn't call because we would sometimes get the threats over the phone. Oh, I'll burn your house. You stole my mind. Another compliment, by the way. Yeah, well, I don't think so. Well, nobody has burned it so far. But I did pick up funkles with tits like that a couple of times. It was super funny. It was super funny to even
actually report it to Bob and see how the body is going to respond to it. Oh, is it going to clench or is it going to laugh straight away? Or is it going to, what sort of sensation and vibrations are going to be produced into us as a response to any situation, every situation?
What a show. And of course, there are situations in life when there is no space for even looking at the responses because fight flight freeze just does it on its own on autopilot and by the way every behavior is always on autopilot there is nothing that has any space for being chosen carefully The illusion of choice, of course, it comes. You can go for a therapy one or the other and they will teach you to break the pattern or tell the mantra at some point. And yes, if the body is conditioned this way, it will totally do it. Just like the body is teachable in a way of cooking, driving a car, having conversations on some level, learning languages.
But even that is the capacity of that learning mechanism to just absorb new pieces of software and automate them. So what's conscious about the whole preconditioned body-mind machine which breathes on autopilot? And of course, it can be modified to a certain extent, providedthat the thought of modification will arise and it arise of its own. It may arise in response to the environment because someone says, oh, let's take a deep breath. Oh, it responded. Oh, it didn't. Who cares? So all of those behaviors is just as if it was inseparable one. Having 10,000 different vibrations interacting constantly, exchanging, exchanging ideas, air, breath, food, all of it.
You can see how nothing that you consider you could be separated at all. From environment, from the air it breathes, from the water it is made of and it needs replenishing, from the matter. And even the thought, try to have a thought unrelated to the environment. And the environment isn't necessarily what's outside the body, inside the body's environment equally, because the boundary of this is the difference, I am here and the world outside my skin is not I, that's only a concept. The baby is born and doesn't have such an idea. It wouldn't know whether it's a gurgling in the stomach or whether it's a gurgling in the stomach of a mother.
And it doesn't make a difference. It doesn't matter because it is self-organizing. The whole universe.It does it of its own. And it really is just that whole joy of gathering and pointing to thousand little facets and aspects of that incredible spontaneous unfolding without any doership required, without any control required. That's a joy of its own to just recognize the magnificence of that life essence, self-sustainability of that life essence, and the potentiality of seeing it from the paradigm. Of complete freedom of being it rather than being a person, being a conceptual image, being a poor, miserable, little, unworthy, not good enough, not lovable, not respected, that little dream character or an actor.
And a dream, the analogy of the dream that Bob Woodhammer as well, or the analogy of the actor. Believing themselves to be something or the other and suffering accordingly. That one is to be seen as another phenomena arising. And that one is really easily seen when you actually look how many different roles the body tends to play.to adopt and identify us. I'm a driver when I'm driving. And to other members of the traffic, I'm the driver. And for myself, I'm the driver, whatever it is. And then when I'm dealing with my partner or my children or my parents, the role changes and shape shifts constantly.
When I'm moving, I'm the body. When I'm sitting still and dwelling in the imagination, I'm the mind. So what am I? Am I any of that changing phenomena? What is it that doesn't change? All the roles moving constantly, all the masks put one after another, all the costumes. What is it that doesn't change? And it's always there since childhood. As a little child going to school or kindergarten, there is that quality of presence. That nothing can be said about because the body is different, the mental states are different, the self-definitions are different, but the quality of existence, the pure existence, the pure capacity for knowingAnd then as that child grows, enters the puberty and then experiences all the dramas and traumas and heartaches and heartbreaks and relationships and jobs and challenges and mainly in the context of being around other human creatures.
Although people have really relationships, meaning less or meaningful, depending on definition, with anything, with their cars, with their houses, with their pets, with their ideas, with their dreams, with their careers, wherever that sense of meanness, being separate, being different, comes from. Sometimes it's an attachment to their artistic nature or authenticity. Sometimes there's the attachment to their role in the society or career or whatever it is. And you can see how it is never all the time. It is always coming and going, even if someone is so intensely obsessed, for example, the identities of eating disorder. I am the anorexic, end of story, I'm always that.
Well, when you go to sleep, you're not. When you dream, you're not. So this, which never changes, this, which is the same,amongst all the roles, all the identities. This which sometimes is related to or referred as the most intimate sense of self, but without the boundaries of a self, self as something limited. But the intimate sense of existence, the pure presence, the certainty that I am, the knowing that I am, that which we call it, the pure awareness or the pure consciousness or whatever, but that is here. Here, it's not out there, it's not it, it's not God somewhere on the sky, or it is not even omnipresent, something that is everywhere, everywhere.
So how come I can't experience it in you or you if it's everywhere? All those concepts, no, it's much, much, much simpler. It's here. And if I don't define here as limited to this,Here is all there is. Here and now. And nothing else can be said about it. And it can't be denied. And whatever hides it or veils it is a story. No, that's not good enough. I still feel that there is a me. Okay, so how does it feel to still be a me? Oh, it feels contraction. Okay, so you don't feel that you are a me. You just feel contraction, right? Okay, so this is a big distinction.
The contraction of its own has no qualities. The interpretation that the fact of contraction being present means that there is a me, and now I have to get rid of it, kill it, brush it, put it under the carpet, that's a lot of story. What is arising is contraction. What is arising is also the interpretation of the contraction, assuming that there is a real creature somewhere there that owns the contraction. But the contraction of its own has no qualities. It doesn't prove anything. It is just what arises. And as it arises, it's another beautiful, beloved child of the absolute, just shining in its full glory.
Let's look at it. Contraction. Oh, wow. Yummy. I can feel that there is a little bit of a tension.The breathing gets shallow. Wow. Wow. How shallow does it get? Let me look. Oh my gosh, there is a tension in the belly. Wow. Yum. So much is going on in this moment. Without the story that that means that there is some creature that is somewhere experiencing or doing it the experience of its own is full there is nothing wrong with the experience of contraction The interpretation is added. And of course, it doesn't mean, oh, okay, I'll just stop adding the interpretation. Who stops to add interpretation?
There's no one there. It's a software. It's a program. Contraction arises. Interpretation arises straight away. Just like when you have the automatic subtitle function in the YouTube, the subtitles automatically will arise. And of course, they will be scrambled a little bit too. So that's what happens. The interpretation arises and it's a little bit scrambled. It says, oh, there is a me. That's a proof. The contraction in the body, that's a proof. Me is real. How am I going to get rid of it? If I am real, now I can get rid of the I. And Bob would say it's like bunky. Pointer it's like trying to wash away blood with blood there's always blood remains the one who wants to get rid of the of the one the eye which the ego which wants to get rid of the ego let's say it succeeds but who's remainSo not only there is no need to get rid of anything, there is nothing to get rid of.
There's no one there. There's no one who is beating the heart. There's no one who is growing the hair. There's never been anyone thinking a thought. It is funny. And Bob had this beautiful revealing pointer. If you think you can think the thought, tell me what's your next thought going to be.I don't know. I'll have to wait to discover. I can't think it. How can I decide anything if I have to just discover what thought is going to arrive? Aha. So what about making decisions? If I can't think the thought, how can I make a decision? What a joke, huh? You want to say something?
Not really. I'm loving what you're speaking and I can't say why or there's no reason and actually there's no reason for any of this and generally this is not spoken about and it's like a haven to come here and speak and hear. And I think, I guess it's resonating really with the reality. So I love that. And a lot of my life has been loving this, you know, with this life. And it's still going. It's amazing to me that it's, I mean, it's so simple. Yes. And yet all of us run around.you know, chasing things and all the things you were just talking about, you know, the dramas of family and relationship and money and work and all of these things that seem so important up here, you know, that actually when you put it like, There's nobody here.
Where does that, what happens to all of that? So I'm very grateful to hear this and to share this. Thank you for having this here. Oh, thank you for that laughter. This is the greatest joy. And Bob and I would always just lit up when we see how, you know, the laughter is just a betrayal of the cosmic joke. You can't think your way out. You just have to laugh. Nothing ever happens. It's just display. Yeah. And the lightness. Yes. Yes, we won't put the camera in. No. So what about, again, the showstopper for me is somebody attacks me with an axe and breaks my leg and I'm bleeding.
It doesn't feel like I don't exist. Yeah, not right now, though. It doesn't. No.It doesn't feel like I don't exist. No, it doesn't look like your leg is bleeding. No, no, it's not happening right now. Of course. No, no. You're going to rain. So that's getting in the way. Yes, the imagination, always, always, yes. It doesn't feel like imagination. That's the point. That's the brilliance of the illusion. It doesn't feel like imagination. It feels so real. Oh, my God. I can envision myself on my dead bed. There's evidence, though, that the leg is broken. But not right now.I'm trying to figure out what point you're trying to make.
Yes, right now there is no evidence that the leg is broken because the leg is not broken. No, I'm just... Theorizing. Yes. Yeah, I'm theorizing. Yes, yes. Here's an example. Instead of projecting into the potential future using the imagination, What's happening right now? Oh, nothing. Nothing wrong right now. No, nothing wrong right now. But I can say that, you know, a month ago I broke some ribs because I fell over. Yes, beautiful pointer that Bob absolutely loved of Nisargadatta, one of his favourites. Nothing can ever trouble you except in your own imagination. Really, this is the definition of suffering. Nothing can trouble you except in your own imagination.
Imagination of a broken leg, imagination of losing your job, imagination of going old, imagination of your children dying. But it's not imagination, it did happen. Yes, okay. All the memory. Where is it right now? It's a memory. It's a memory. That's right. So back then, there was a suffering. Right now, when you think about it, you can bring up all that suffering in this moment right now, where there's nothing wrong inherently. All my current suffering is trying to get this clear.That's my suffering. Because I want self-realization. So I accept. So I accept. I accept. I absolutely know that I'm not the doer. Well, I think I mostly think I'm not the doer.
90% I'm not the doer. But this issue about matter is the issue that something happens and then there's a consequence to the physical body. It's hard for me to say there's nothing there as far as, or that that isn't hard and that doesn't exist. This is rubbish. This is another. No, you go, Tanya. Forget about the idea of matter for a moment.Just take a look. Take a real, solid, robust look. What is there sitting behind your eyes? Where are you? Yeah, I, yeah. Where are you? Everywhere. When you, is there, what can you find? What can you find when you look?Well, I can't see anything.
Can you find that point of... Selfness, the meanness, the controller, the one who thinks. No, I can't. So that's right. What's your actual... That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. So all that's happening is just this. It's just what's happening in the moment. Just this. Including memory. When you're saying, but tomorrow if I fall over and break my leg, well, isn't that a thought? Yeah. Isn't the memory of a past, so-called past event, just a recreate? Actually, it's a thought. It's another imagination. You have to recreate that. It's getting created at that instant.It's fresh and new. I'll think about that one. No, no, the advice is not to think about it because you won't find the answer in the mind.
That's the whole point. The thought comes up and these questions arise and, oh, if I could only have that question, if I could only understand that, I'd be realised. Exactly right. Well, that's a dream of becoming. I know. And it's, to put it another way, a lack of appreciation for what's happening right now. I'm very grateful for what's happening. What I mean is alertness to what's happening right now. Falling in love with this moment, which is the only aliveness. And yes, yes. But can you see the difference between the aliveness right now and the imagination of the bad things or the good things? Can you see the difference in the quality of experience?
Yes, I'm not catastrophizing. I just want to, I need to convince because I'm, I've got. This is the way. I question things. Wonderful. And that's what Bob says. He says, investigate. Absolutely. I'm investigating. Yes. Yes. But you don't investigate. Yeah, that's it. You investigate. That's it. If I don't exist, how can I investigate? Yes. Investigation happens.But you're watching it happen in a sense. You're registering it happening. And those thoughts, you're not thinking them. They're arising to you and you're registering them. You're listening in a way. You're seeing them. You're not making your, as this seeming entity, isn't making any of that happen. It's just happening for you.
That's good. Yes, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. So when you go, but I just need to understand this and figure this out. Well, that's the Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole. You'll never find the answer in the mind. So Bob's advice always was watch the mind, see how it works. And I can do that bit, yes. Familiarise yourself with its mechanical functioning. But that doesn't answer this question. That's a thought. That's a thought. Why don't you just let it go? Let it go. Let it go. All right. I have actually, I'm really curious because... This may be helpful for many people who will be hearing it. You said, you know.
90% of the cases you're not the doer. Yeah. What is the 10% of the cases when you are the doer? Just curious, just give us a couple of examples. Well, I thought that's the point you were making just before, that there was...a small, when something happens, a spontaneous, spontaneously when something happens and you have to respond or you have to make a decision. Complete autopilot. Yeah, I think I accept that. I think 90%, 95%. So give us one example when you actually really feel you are the doer. Just one.I can't. My head's foggy. But I'll get back to you on that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Get back. Because you want... No, you're good. Because it is really, really... It is going to be really helpful. People would often say, you know... In the most important decisions, I was vacillating whether I should quit the job or I should stay in the job. You know, this is my whole life at stake. Yes, definitely it was conscious decision that I'd made. And now we can look at this moment. We can look very, very closely. Okay, how is it the conscious decision that I made? I can even use the imagination and put myself back in that imaginary situation of... Signing or not signing that contract or accepting or not accepting that job or whatever and just even using the imagination see what i saw feel what i felt see the options available the thoughts available and see how one of them suddenly was more emotionally charged than the others and then the hand landed on the paper oh wait wait wait now another one came more emotionally charged than the first one okay so now scrap it up and then again a moment of vacillation and then maybe a sound or maybe a sight or maybe flickering lightAnd suddenly the result happened.
The decision shone itself up in a full glory. Yes, that's it. I'll stand by it as a thought, as a very, very emotionally charged thought. Have I made it? How would I do that? How would I actually create emotional charge in the body? How would I even create that electrical impulse there causing that mental image of thought? Hmm. Wasn't it really that it just, I was the presence, the field. And that decision made it safe clear, then vacillated, then came up again, and then the different one came up again, and then again shook away, and suddenly, yes, made itself known in the field. The storyline came, this is I, I'm speaking now.
I am making this decision and I am going to stick by it. The narration, automatic subtitles, completely on autopilot, pre-programmed, just as it was the decision. Because if they were different sets of skills, different dreams, different values, all preconditioned, the outcome would also be different. That's why it is different outcome for everyone because every body, mind, machine has its very unique set of little dealing navigationalized softwares and mechanisms and idiosyncrasies. Just one more question, yeah, but just slightly different. Okay, so... So I'm pure awareness, right? Yeah.So how come this can't see, can see this but not? Everything. It does? It does. Everything. It does. Everything.
But this manifestation sees this. That's this manifestation's job, to see this for pure awareness. Yes. That's its job. Yes, yes. You talk about wanting to realise. A desire to realise before, to become enlightened. Yeah, becoming, yeah. Becoming comfortable with that. So, you know, there's embedded in that. I sort of, yeah. Embedded in that is an assumption of lack. Yes, yes, yes. Something's not whole. Something I'm lacking, something needs to be changed, improved, adjusted. My perspective. Something's not good enough. Something's not good enough. Yeah, yeah.What about, you know, the other, you know, start from you are that, from the position you are whole, you are that.
There's nothing to fix. There's nothing to change. There's nowhere to go. There's nothing to do. There's no destination. There's no path. You're already home. You never left home. And total satisfaction in where you are right now, nothing to do. And also, if you actually see, you know, that voice, that tiny little still small voice saying, but no, but I want more pleasure. I want more expansion. I want more fulfillment. I want all the trees to bow down to me. I want people to look up to me. I wish myself so much love and ecstasy. I just can't settle for this. How sweet. This is the little voice of the mind which is designed, which is programmed to always optimize the conditions to keep the body alive.
So the life can see, hear, taste, smell, experience to keep the body alive and to optimize the pleasure. This is how the whole system is designed. So of course it will say, yeah, but come on, you know, if there was only more sunshine today, I wish myself more sunshine because there is so much love of being here.I wish myself to be 20 years younger and $20 million wealthier and maybe whatever else I want to wish. That's the navigational aid, the program of translating that pure love of being into seeing, thinking, hearing, tasting. And through the mind, it translates as complaining. And that complaining is the voice of love, obviously.
It's the voice that says, no, I can't settle for that. I deserve more pleasure. I deserve more light. I deserve more love. I don't want this. But this, which says I, It's a phenomena. It arises in that aliveness. If there was no life essence, this I speaking, it's beautiful, loving, wishing desires for more pleasure that couldn't be here. So you are prior to that arising I which says, no, no, this is me. This is me. Not this, this. Because when that I stops complaining for a moment, what's wrong with right now if I don't think about it? Oh, let me see. Oh, yeah, if I don't think about it, it's okay, it's fine.
Because I can't say I want more love because that's a thought. If I can't think a thought, I can't say there is anything wrong, but I can't say there is anything right either.Yes, but that's a thought. And seeing that this beautiful wish for maximizing ecstasy is just the way life expresses us love of being. And let it be there. I promise you, look at that cut. It also has a wish to maximize ecstasy and he got Jimmy to provide for it. Every single creature has this program of self-preservation and maximizing the thriving, the pleasure. And just seeing, I love actually looking at my own conditioned mind, finding ways to maximize pleasure and sometimes following the ways.
A lot of people follow that to their own detriment, going into drugs or into food or sex or whatever. And that self-preservation gone wrong a little bit, not conditioned, not socialized properly. But hearing that voice of objections and seeing that behind that love of objection is just, it's really, it's most beautiful love wish for fulfillment that is already here. Before that voice even speaks and is overlooked because 90% or 100% of attention goes to that voice and says,This is me. I can't see or get what I want. But this which says this is me arises in the field of knowing that you are already. You were born with that presence before the language has been conditioned in the little body.
And before the little child learned to say, this is me, and therefore those are my thoughts, and therefore I'm limited here to whatever is being spoken in my head. Before language was learned, me didn't have any concept that the presence was just pure presence and just giving that radiance of existence first like giving it space giving it stage loving it more than the content it's not as if there is someone who chooses space over the form or the emptiness over form over and no it's just not ignoring it anymore giving a due recognition that if not for that radiant aliveness that presence that existence the complaint wouldn't even be there the eye which wants more pleasure wouldn't even be there so this is always first when you see it fully suddenly The complaining eye is that small, it's just the background.
Oh, let's complain. Sweetheart.It's not a problem. It's not believed. Yeah, Jimmy goes first. Yeah, sorry for that. Sorry. I was going to speak to the pain and say there will be times in your life where there is pain, but during those times there's also... The stillness, perceiving the pain. Oh, yeah. And just being with that while the pain's there, just a witnessing. Because you talked about like the form and the manifestation. Our forms are limited.but we're the limitless that's perceiving the form. And also just the book I was reading this week in terms of wanting to achieve something or get there or understand it. There's something to be achieved.
There's something that can be like taken away. We all want to know this truth. But if it's real truth, it's here always. And what's always here can't be taken away. And it's sort of...sitting with the ordinary awareness or that beingness. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Just to illustrate that. There's a strong memory. Of a pre-verbal experience. The story of it goes, I was sitting in the lounge room at the house where I grew up.It was a very strong experience. So it keeps coming back and as this body-mind matures over the years, seemingly, it was clear that this happened at about two, two years old. There was no thinking in it, involved in it.
But what it was, was just sort of getting into a quiet, contemplative state and just being amazed by just the things that were there without thinking, without, it was just the wonder of everything really, but no words to really express it until later, there's more understanding about that. And it was this non-dual state beyond a very fragile sense of duality.I'm not sure in that experience whether that existed or not, but at the time there was just no centre. No, no. There was a sense of identity and that didn't have a position, didn't have any desires, just a sense of wonder.Yeah, so... Like they say, the golden age.
Lies just below a very fragile belief in this duality. That seems solid. We've made it solid and real after all the tuition we've had and thein duality and separate existence. The development of me and I, concepts like that. And even when you think about it, we're talking about reality. And it's interesting that reality, in different languages, for instance, Sanskrit, Widia, and in Pali,something similar Rigpa in the language of Zogchamp. Zen Buddhism. And in Sanskrit, The difference between reality and ignorance is inserting the smallest syllable of our language, the up. Ignorance is a with you. Or.a ring back. One little assertion of one little objection, my but, covers the reality with ignorance.
But it's only such a veil, thin veil. You know? And it's gone. Moved on. Even the habit, seeming habit, of belief in an individual self, entity, is like that as well. And it comes and goes.And that's the sticky, sticky cornerstone thought, if you like, that the seeming psychological suffering attaches to. If you've not got any belief in that, phenomena, then all thoughts can come all day long about, then you wouldn't, nothing, you know, would seemingly stick. It doesn't anyway, but it's that gossamer thing that Ross is talking about. Comes and goes, comes and goes. But when those doubts come and the thoughts about needing to investigate, needing to understand why, you know, convince me, convince me this is this and this is not this, that's always an invitation to do the investigation.
And go and look, see if you can find that reference point or a boundary for that doer, me. And just in the doing that, it's a dragging of attention away from, you know, what else the other thoughts and you going back to that and, oh, it's gone. It's just an opportunity to do that. If there's one kind of technique, it's not a technique or anything, but it is very useful.way really to look for yourself and see and I got a beautiful quote to share which I put on on Bob's little Facebook group I don't know if that's gonna be visible on this one Oh, yes, sort of.
So I found it going through tons of Bob's things that I still have. I'm writing the biography, so I'm digging out through evidence and stuff. He scribbled it recently from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Because he needed it to actually inspire someone who was really suffering persistently and it was a repeated color so the quote says some of your griefs you have cured and the sharpest you still have survived but what torments of pain you endured from evils that never arrived yeah nothing can trouble you except in your own imagination but what what Jimmy was saying and generally this is really a good line of investigation to look through the pains that you have endured and you know the broken leg the memory of a broken leg I remember a couple of memories of my accidents on motorbikes once I was a passenger another one I drove to the pot of oilin the night, in the rain, so ribs broken.
The moment of the whole accident, if you were to imagine it, it would be absolutely terrifying because you're on the busy road, there are trucks coming from the other sides and there are trams like, oh my God. But I tell you, as it happened, moment to moment, there was absolutely not the slightest. Hinge of fear or terror or any of it. It was just the unfolding moment to moment. I'm going ahead and I'm going sideways and I can hear the bump of a helmet over the asphalt. And then as I'm picking myself up, I can feel the... I can feel the backhand breathe fully. Ooh, interesting.
But the pain doesn't really kick in on the battlefield, just as we have all the reports from the battlefield. It comes in when the body finds itself in safety. Just as even the wounds won't stop bleeding to like get home. To see the terror in Bob's eyes, that was actually more painful than the whole accident and everything. But we have the narrative, the story that brings up, you know, that even that little thing could be said in ways that will make goosebumps on people's necks and backs.Really, moment to moment happening is just this. Even the moment, and I remember having it on my couple of individual calls lately, the moment of people really fearing dying.
And she's, okay, let's see what is happening during dying. Is there such thing as dying? Does it ever happen? Because as we were going through it with Bob, we didn't find any dying. We didn't find cancer in the direct experience. Moment to moment experience, there was experience of breathing, definitely. There was experience of breathing going shallow, that too. And there was experience of no breathing in his body also. But in which point this becomes death and in which point it becomes a terrifying, horrific tragedy or impossibility, it is only the point of narration. Because in the direct experience also cancer. You know, we were, sometimes we would just laugh at it.
We would get up, he would be sleeping in the hospital bed here, my sofa would be right here. At five in the morning, he would be already right awake, so I would just hop into the bed with him and we would say, okay, so where is the cancer? If you don't think about it. And then suddenly, okay, you know, what's the pain? Two in a scale to 10. Okay, I'll give you an up.or I'll increase a little bit or tell the palliative nurses to just notch down the drive with the painkiller. But again, the immediate experience of pain, when it becomes cancer, The cancer is the label for condition, which is absolutely helpful, wonderful in the way of self-organizing universe, managing and communicating.
There's nothing wrong with that, but it can't be experienced. What can be experienced moment to moment, even the greatest strategy, broken legs and tortures or dying of cancer, even that stripped off all the interpretation is just...and whatever sensations are included in that field of knowing. Really, nothing can trouble you. The story of dying of cancer is terrifying, horrific, is saddening, is... Oh, God, it's heartbreaking. But if there is no story... We were leaving all that seeming battle because again battle with cancer is also just a story But we were leaving day to day waking up every morning with a sense of oh Please we are here.
We are both here. What does it matter? What is the label of the medical conditional situation? He's here And then one day he was not. And again, the story would be of tragedy of, you know, like losing the best thing that could ever possibly happen in a dream. Oh, my God, taken away. Oh, shit. You know, I don't want to be around anymore. But that's just a story. Without that story, it's just. And the sensation that goes with it. The sensation may be crying, but what's wrong with that if it is not labeled or interpreted as something that shouldn't be happening? And even if there is a sharp sensation of pain in the system, even that, as uncomfortable as it is,as it may be, because I can't tell that there was a great joy in having broken ribs and six weeks of not having one full breath, really.
It wasn't much of a pleasure, but there was a joy, a subtle joy associated with the fact that there is freedom even with this. Yeah, that's... There is no pleasure without pain. There is no darkness without light. There is no winter without summer. It just takes its turn. It appears as it does. Breath in and breath out.Okay, we have Dean has the mic. Just to add to what Kat was talking about with the last days of Bob, I was reading a book called, oh, it doesn't matter, it's a Mahayana Buddhism book. And there was an interview between, or a story, between an interview with this, teacher of Buddhism and some other monk sort of guy, I think.
And halfway through the interview, the fellow that was being interviewed, the teacher, he started to look a little bit unease at unease. The fellow interviewing him said, are you all right? And he said, I'm having a heart attack. And so I may need to stop. At which point the other guy started to panic and he said, well, can I help? Can I do this? Can I do that? And he said, no, it's all right. I forget what the following bit was. He went into a meditative state. And it was similar to Bob. It's just his breathing just got shallower and eventually just... There was nothing.
Just stopped. And someone else said that this was a meditation on death. He went through the emotions of...this end of life process and just die, just disappeared or went back into the the indestructible truth of life. There's no death, no end of life, no birth, no death. Yeah, it was interesting. It made me think of what a great,Sage, Bob Ross. A beautiful end of life. Vision was cat feeding Bob his last days, dying of cancer. He's feeding him ice cream with a spoon. And multicoloured, it was the works, multicoloured ice cream with every flavour. Yeah.Yeah, what a way to go. And Ross was changing that.
Yep. We'll see it soon. Yeah, hopefully. We'll have a wall somewhere. Yeah. Not far off now. Yeah, it looks absolutely wonderful. Amazing. What was the title? Paula, one of the members of the group, she called it... The old sailor and the mermaid.It reminds me of the last thing that Plato wrote for his dedication to Socrates, was the last days of Socrates. Beautiful stories. Do you read per day, half an hour, 45 minutes, one hour? Do you read books? Yeah, I like to study in the morning.I like to study in the morning if I get a chance. I find there's quite a difference in the early morning hours to read something good like that, or even Bob's little book to start with, that little white book.
What was coming to mind earlier in the discussion with Miranda and Kat and Tanya, was in that little white book on about the third page, he says, Keep seeing there is no one who sees or something like that. Was it? Yes. Recognize it's seeing. Everything is happening by itself naturally. Yeah.Thank you. I have the last one. Last word. Reminding me of being with people who have so-called died, never died actually. And where all that and that never dies and that. I mean, it sounds like an idea, but it's just a reality. Like, there is no comprehending it. It so touches the heart too, this, and we try and talk about it and express and that's the manifestation.
It's the dance, it's the play, and I love that. It seems like there's two, you know, like the manifest and the unmanifest absolute, and yet there isn't two even or even one. And joy and bliss come and go as well, pain and suffering, and all the time there's only that.that or that doesn't come and go. And how we know that, I have no idea. We just, because we are that and this is that and that's really all there is. I'm loving the conversation and all these attempts to, you know, yeah, such a joke as well. So I love that. And thank you again. So grateful for this.
It's amazing, huh? Amazing. Amazing. Really amazing. Amazing. Yeah.Anyone else? Okay, well, so I'm going to attempt to describe more that than that was, that that is, because that's all there is. So how can anyone describe anything more or less than what is? I mean, what should I say? What can be said? The beauty is that there's no knowing of the next word, the next thought, the next bit of the appearance, but the talk of the last few minutes of death. The birth-death cycle is just such a, it's really what keeps this dream sort of together or makes it appear so real and vulnerable and true, but it's so...
It's such an incredible aspect of the dream because it's still an aspect of the dream. It still is the dream itself, the key to the dream, the birth and death cycle. And then in between that is this idea that there's this me, this sense of someone here the whole time. And there isn't. And that's just the beauty of it. That's the magnificent of it. It's so incredible to discover that there was never anyone anywhere.just here, but anywhere, ever as such, as this sort of individual kind of entity, running the show, making decisions, all this kind of stuff. And then nothing's really changed at all. Nothing changes.
And because that same essence, that same thatness, or I like to call it thisness, it's just this, just whatever appears, is the appearance. And this appearance, the reason there's no, we were talking earlier about like boundaries or seeing things from one place, there's no end to that place, there's no beginning, there's no centre, there's no circumference, there's no, so the seeing itself has no limits. But once upon a time, it felt like it was being seen through these eyes. And that's just another idea or belief, a thought, a construct. And no one's done that either. So the seeing or the experiencing or this appearing as everything.
As appearing as birth, as appearing as death, as appearing as someone trying to fix something, someone trying to improve someone, someone, full stop, someone in a body, or someone who's trying to, you know, transcend the body, or someone who's trying to whatever improve.change, modify, have a better experience in the body. All of it, every single, there's not one iota of it that's more real or more true than another. All of it is the whole, every single part of it is the dream appearing. As seemingly as all of these things, as solidity. So you're talking about solidity earlier, but this is solid. But it's not like the solidity is like an idea appearing, a sensation, a bunch of different little impulses appearing in this.
To appear as what's called solid. And without the thought of solidity, it's just that. It's just that. There's no solid, there's no hard, there's no soft, there's no comparison, there's no perspective that's better or correct or true or real. An infinite array of perspectives, a kaleidoscope of perspectives, and none of them, they're all dreamlike. Equally dreamlike, equally whimsical, equally ridiculous and benign. So the perspective of having a body and being this and living and dying is another perspective in the infinite, you know, In the ocean of perspectives, it has no ground. It has nowhere to go, just like these words.It's like the next thought, the next feeling, the next sensation.
And it's so starkly... unavoidable, unescapable, unfathomable, uncomprehensible, unrecognizable in that sense, and yet completely undeniable, which makes no sense in itself, because how can you undeny, how can you not deny or deny The existence itself is what is that which can't be denied. But to describe it can be described for infinitum.I'll probably just stop at this moment. What are you, should I say some more, Haman? Do you want to say some more? Do you want to read the comment? Peter says when you were talking, he says, it's the vibe. Yeah, that's it, it's the vibe. What were you going to say? Thank you. Yeah, we have a few more.
We have right now 17 people with us watching, and all the other comments are mainly, that's great. Thank you. It's good. Awesome. Love this. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, who's been watching with us. We do like when you contribute questions or insights, but it's the vibe. We'll do it just nicely. Yeah. Hit it. Hit it. Hit it. Thanks, everyone.