This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
Okay, so we're going to say our names, Sheila. Put it in again. Now the emptiness there.Okay, so welcome and welcome those who are online with us. I'm going to just check if the volume is fine. Okay.And? Testing. Didn't start yet. So, uh... Oh, thank you. So, traditionally starting the Bob's style meeting and that means we're going to give you a half an hour introduction and then we're going to open the forum for discussions, for questions, for sharing, for bringing up whatever works. And the whole thing is about reminding you that what you are, you already are. You already know it. There's absolutely no doubt. There's nothing that anyone can teach you or give you or remind you because even that sense of you that needs a reminder or believes that it doesn't get it or forget it or whatever is not your essential self.
It's just a narrative program translating and relating everything. To and us the me. So the basic fact of your own existence, the fact that you are alive, that you are present and you are conscious cannot be denied. And this is the essence of non-duality because this is the natural state, this is the Sat Chit Ananda. So everybody is present and is aware of that presence.And it's happy to be. Obviously, you don't look like a corpse, so you didn't take your life. You prefer to be alive, so that's self-evident. Even if the thought will come and say, no, I don't want to be here. Well, obviously, that thought wasn't charged enough to perform action.
So it's just a teaser. Loving to be, being, knowing, awareness of presence is self-evident. It can't be denied. It can't be stopped. No matter how hard you try.You can grab the chair here or you can come in there. Yeah, you got Miranda with us. Yes, so the fact that you are is undeniable. It can't be denied. It is right here, right now. You can't stop it. You can't pause it. You can't experience not being. Even if you say I am not, the experience of presence is prior to whatever could be said. What you are is a different story. What you are, you may say I am still a small me, not the ultimate reality, not the space, not the cognizing emptiness.
Those are just concepts. Those are words. The me is a word, the cognizing emptiness is a word, the God, the reality, they're all just concepts appearing in the aliveness, in the presence, in the consciousness that you are. So what you are is frankly is unknowable because anything that you come up with is just going to be a concept. It's just going to be a description. But to actually be able to know what you are, you obviously will have to see it from somewhere. And where would you be then? The one that is described or the one that is describing? It's an impossible conundrum. It can't be resolved.
So we don't really worry about it. We don't worry about defining what we are, finding the true self or finding...Anything or everything for the me, we look at the me first. Is it necessary to hallucinate an agency and translate and relate everything to that agency? Is it really required? The cat just walked through the room. It does not have the sense of agency. It is just a pure being, pure awareness. It does not engage in the concepts of what I am, who I am, why I am here, what's my mission, what's my purpose. None of that bothers it. It's one with life. When that body-mind machine of the cat needs something, the urge arises in the body-mind machine and it goes after its needs, it fulfills it.
If there is no sense of urge, if there is no thirst or hunger or danger, it just relaxes. Come on.Hold on, I'll get another chair. That's your sign. You have place on the sofa and you have all the time. As she was saying, go on. Well, come through. Welcome, everyone. Well, you're explaining the bit of the process, but just going back to the very start, like the sense of presence, the aliveness, the absolute, you know, the undeniable fact of existence. It's not just like we can talk about it and say, oh, it's just your existence. It's the most boring, it's the most nothing thing. It's the most incredible thing at the same time.
It's the reason for the whole dream. It's the reason that the heart beats and the breath happens. It's actually the whole show is this presence of awareness. So as ordinary and simple. And as impossible it is to get into it or get out of it or change it or anything, it is existence itself, it's life itself, it's you itself. Because without this awareness or this presence or this... Knowingness or this nowness.or this is-ness, you can describe it in so many different ways. Everything else that's discussed is within that or an expression of that, but the aliveness itself is undeniable and it's always, it's, It's the same nowness that was when you took your first breath, same nowness when you had your first thought, same nowness when you were traumatized or had the greatest experience of your life.
It's the same nowness. It's always the same nowness. And in that nowness, there is actually no time. There's no anything. It is always just this. But as you were just starting to describe, we don't take ourselves to be that. We take ourselves to be everything but that and anything but that. And it's usually in reference to thoughts. So you can continue wherever it was that we continued. Yeah, so you can see how the separate entity, how that assumption of being something or the other, the agency, is simulated. When you are born, you are born into a natural state. The little baby is looking out, the consciousness is looking out of the eyes of a beautiful little baby.
And it has no clue, it has no concept of what he is, why he is, where he's going, what's his mission, what's his...labels what's the name whether what's his gender nothing it's just a pure unadulterated aliveness that is naturally light if there is any need for the body that need will translate into screaming or crying or whatever and life through the caregivers will attend to this need or it won't and then in this case the body will die and life will open the eyes to another little baby as dramatic as it may sound or as dismissive as it may sound it applies to every creature every sentient and insentient creature in the in the so-called universe which is a dream though as the baby is growing it happens to imitate learn through imitation that's a function that has been installed in that little body the so-called brain which nobody can experience but we all agree in agreed upon reality in the skull there is a brain so this within that dream that reality is agreed upon that that brain is growing in that little baby even when the baby is still in the womb There is a prescription or there is an algorithm which makes it develop according to the DNA or RNA or whatever it is.
And it forms the machine, the biocomputer, with such incredible efficiency that throughthe imitation it learns language and this is where the proverbial story of eating the apple the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil that is how it is described in the bible once the apple is eaten the forbidden fruit the innocent the innocence is lost and that little child now is not in paradise of oneness anymore now that little child is this is me and this is not me the rest of the world is not me it's threatening and also that this is a tree of knowledge of good and evil so this is good this is evil what pleases me is good what displeases me is evil so now you can see how the relationship forms with everything because objectively nothing's good or bad it is always good or bad in a relation to a me so now the me become real the sense of me and what is that me the me for a little child is quite vague at this point because the me for a little child is sometimes the body sometimes the emotion sometimes some scrape of some relation you know like the me as a part of the family or the me as a part of a kindergarten class it's a it's quite vague it's not really solidified yet but as the learning process of coding that brilliant biocomputercomes goes along that gets more and more solidified that cage of concepts of what the little me represents what it is what I am becomes more rigid and with that rigidity the lightness of being gets obscured to the point that it's some especially if you look at teenagers all rebellious and all sick and tired of the world and all feeling with the essence of at the core of their being that there is absolutely everything wrong with this world Because they lost the innocence they are now having, they are expected to establish strong identity and strong boundaries and solidify that sense of loss, that dream of oneness, because now it is just a dream.
Though at no point the aliveness has been lost. If not for the aliveness, none of that rigidness of the cage of concepts could have ever been experienced. So what happened really is that with the coding, with the translating, with the rigging up that cage of concepts, the perception got obscured. So now the spontaneity of lifefrom the perspective of the symbolic language, from the perspective of dualistic mind, which always divides and relates, what is it? Nothing. It doesn't, it's invisible, it can't be objectified, you can't grasp it. The fact of aliveness, the radiance, the sentience, It can't be had. So the mindset is taken for granted.
It's nothing. Now the whole of the attention goes to the thinking. What I like, what I don't like. And what I like, I want more of. What I don't like, I want to push away. And the truth of life is that's impossible. Life is constant flux, constant flow. Nothing can stay the same and that sense of trying to wrestle with life and control life and stick to that which I like and push away that which I don't like and that belief in a fact that I am this separate entities this cage of concepts in the body with the body and I have the power to choose my destiny, to live my life the way society or religion or my parents or my rebellious counter archetype.dictates and I will do it and look at any other expression of life the rain doesn't say I will decide when I rain it doesn't even have an eye there's nothing there it's just the water that is moving freely evaporating the oceans going to the sky moving circulating there's no one there that rains and if you look at the waves or tsunamis or volcanoes you look at the animals they are all one with the environment they're one with life Thanks.
Thank you. So there is no separation. And neither there is in here. There is no separation in this body. If you look at the way your body functions, if you look at the way every thought that appears in that body is somehow related to whatever is happening right now in the dream or in the past or in the future, but right in that dream, is always relative either to the immediate environment or to some conceptualized imagined environment like a war on the other side of the world or the supernova exploding somewhere in a grid upon reality. But it is always... Connected is arising co-arising interdependently everything nothing can stand alone nobody can live alone without exchange, constant exchange of stimulation of air, water, temperature with the environment.
No thought can stand alone without constantly being a response or being a stimuli from inside the organism or whatever the environment. There's nothing that could possibly be separate. And that is the fact of life. That's the fact of life. Yes, yes. Total approval. He has no objections whatsoever.So, yeah, like as you're saying, like the environment, what is this environment? So you could also say that, like, all these are just descriptions, and they're describing the way that this dream seems to unfold and play out and appear. And it's an appearance in the sense that... It appears to be real, but it's actually dreamlike because you can see that it's dreamlike, but the emptiness involved in it, like anything that you ever were, anything you ever thought about, in this moment, it's non-existent.
It's just always this. And that's like an insight into the fact that it's a dreamlike. But back to the environment, if this machine is working in a certain way, it's functioning from its genetic code, which is the whole universe produced this genetic code. It wasn't just your mother and father, it was your grandparents and great-grandparents. And then it's also functioning from the up-to-date conditioning, the conditioning that is the universe again. I'm just using the word universe to describe an environment. So there is nothing inside or outside. It is the whole show, the whole one creation, the whole one oneness actually creates influencing or you could say making the machinery function in exactly this manner right now.Always has, always has, to everyone and everything.
So what's sort of been described here is that there's no separation, absolutely nothing is separate. Bob used to talk about like try and separate yourself from space or try and separate yourself from the body from heat or water, try to take the water out of the body. But everything, like the environment, inside and outside of skin boundaries, everything is an idea of dividing. And yet there is just one show going on, one essence, as was always described, patterning, shaping, forming as this life, as people, as plants, as animals, as birth and death and everything else. And as every thought as well, and as every feeling, and as every emotion, it's still the same essence appearing and vibrating in a pattern called an emotion, in a pattern called a thought, in a pattern called a feeling, in a pattern called a sense of a body.
All of it is... That's my little continuation of wherever we were. Where were we? Where have we ever been? Always here, always here. There's nowhere else to go. You can actually see how there is really no other time than now and there is no other place than here. That is always a direct experience. And this is really what the non-duality investigation is about, to involve.everyone to trust your immediate knowing above your third-hand information you know your name your gender your shape your race you were told that this is what you are or this is who you are But the first-hand information, the direct experience, is this current seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, is this current awareness of existence.
And if you put this one first, if you really trust your heart first, you put the sense of existence above the interpretation of the sense of existence. There's no questions to be asked. That's it. You are in the heart of aliveness, in that radiance of existence, and there is nothing wrong. It's quite beautiful. It's quite complete. Even if there is a sense of discomfort somewhere, even if there is a sensation arising that may not be desirable from the survival perspective, That sensation is arising in that consciousness, which in that space, in that spaciousness that is here and now. And that spaciousness, that pure knowing of whatever is arising is completely free.
It doesn't judge it. It doesn't push it away. It doesn't try tocontrol it it doesn't do anything at all it just is the isness the the pure isness so this this is what we are prior to the interpretation of the mind prior to the story coming this this algorithm of the of the commentator there in the mind which is a wonderful servant but it's a terrible master so as a servant it will offer you oh look but you are you're a man or you're a woman you're in australia and in melbourne do you think that cat knows anything about being in melbourne absolutely nothing so it is a third-hand information it isn't the experience it is the overlay it is a dream So that whole conceptual reality, so-called reality of the interpretation can be questioned and seen through and can be used, but not believed just the same way as we believed the earth to be flat or we believed Santa Claus to bring gifts.
It can be questioned and it can be seen for what it is. It can be seen that this is a secondary and it is completely conditioned. It needs the interpretation.the mind to be there to exist. So it completely relies on the presence of thinking and a particular thinking. When you pause the thought, where is Melbourne? Where is Australia? Where is your gender? If for a moment, just for a moment, see what is real in direct experience without having it translated to a thought. Do you even have the body? Do you have the face? Do you have any age? You can see that all those information are actually thoughts, they're concepts.
The cat doesn't have that, the little baby doesn't have those information. And yet, even like Bob would say, what's wrong with right now, if you don't think about it, Yes, yes, Bob, of course, I know it's nothing. I've seen it. I've seen it. But how do I stop thinking? Forget about it. Just look again. Just look again. Did you disappear? Did you stop existing? Did seeing sometimes switched off? Did you go blind? Did you stop breathing? No there was nothing wrong aliveness was continuing just as ever even though half a second later the thoughts started rushing back so what but prior to them rushing back the aliveness was perfectly fine so let them rush back who cares If they arejust an addition on top of that aliveness which is there with or without them, the thoughts are not the problem anymore.
Because the pure essence of existence, that radiance of presence, of being, is there regardless, with or without. Yes, yes, but if the thoughts are there, I can't see it. The one who wants to see it is a thought, is just another thought. The one who wants to see it can't ever, ever see it. Because that's a concept, that's a mental image. And what is that one who wants to see it? Who is it? It's another flip on the who am I question. Go on. And the thought, I think, can't think. It can't. It never has. It never will. So it's a thought, I think, can't think.
No one's actually done a thought. No one's actually created a thought. There is no one to create any thought. There is no one. But like these appearances of thoughts describing thinking and my thinking and me, myself and I, and him and her and that and good and bad and all the rest of it are just appearances. No one's created it. No one's controlling it. No one's orchestrating it. And there's no little man behind little middle management again, isn't it? Running it, controlling it, changing it. Like it's so obvious, you know, Bob used to always say about the, if you can do your thoughts, then just have good thoughts.
If you can control them, just only have good thoughts, end of story. And you can't, no one can predict their next thought. No one has ever done one. So no matter what they're doing, so how true or how real, whatever they're describing, usually, you know what a thought's describing? Another thought. How wild is that? Just a thought is describing a thought. I'm not seeing a cat now. There's a thought about a cat. The cat is an...That's Katniss was right there, but the idea is an idea. And no one created it. So whatever the thought is saying, I'm a good guy, I'm a bad guy, this is right, this is wrong, this is the whole, this is a stream of thoughts.
Put together like sentence structure and phrases and paragraphs and all of a sudden together there's a story. I've been born to this world, to this place, to this realm in this time as a good guy, as a bad guy, as a whatever and onwards and on that goes the entanglement. Sorry, I don't want to be carried away. That's beautiful. Thank you. Kat is sitting here. I know you can't take the chocolate, mate. Yeah, that's my little secret stash. Yeah, so the practical part, the investigation. So what can I do? What can I do to get that? Well, simple question, nothing. Again, that I that wants to do something, that I is a projected agency that doesn't have any real existence.
There is no I there. It's just a sense of aliveness. And what can sense of aliveness do? It can't do. It doesn't need to do. It is already there. It is already there, fully present, fully awake, fully aware of its own existence.It is already the ultimate reality, the Sat Chit Ananda, the being, knowing, loving to be. So the I that wants to do something or the other can't because it isn't real. It's hallucination. It's a projection. It's the imagination of a little me that wants to get something that it imagines as bigger or better experience. So now it imagines there is a program, the narrative program, which assumes that there is a little person there.
And part of the program also assumes that that little person, obviously, because it's little, is incomplete and is unlovable. But there is a way out and it can, through some effort, it can become a bigger person, maybe a more complete person, a more enlightened person in the future. So all the wrong assumptions there. Not only there is no one there, not only there is no future, and there is no bigger, better, greater state to be God. Of course, there are different states. You can have a state change when you have chocolate cake, but it is not what the program, software, narrating the little me inside wanting a grand enlightenment, which will make you superior over everyone equal to gods.
That ridiculous dream can be seen true. That aliveness that is right here, already bright, shining, radiant, present.right here right now and the dream the overlay of a dream but no i am not that life essence i am the me so that's the interpretation and that me is incomplete and that me in the future will become bigger me grander me more pleasure to me me in a in a state of ecstasy or bliss so that the one thing that can be done is see from that space-like perspective, see the ridiculousness of that wrong assumptions and that whole dream of the hamster wheel of imagined, projected, hallucinated me trying to get imagined, projected, hallucinated state of pleasure in imagined, hallucinated future.
And as you see that whole joke, from the space-like perspective of the pure aliveness, the pure field of radiant witnessing presence that you are, what can you do if not laugh? That's what the ultimate reality does. It laughs at the joke of it all. But again, if the ultimate reality does not resonate or hear it, If there is still a sense of yes, but, yes, but, what about me? Of course, it's not laughable, it's not funny. It's actually quite uncomfortable, it's quite confronting and unpleasant. Because that me, it still feels like it's caged in a tiny...little tight like like chicken cake the cake chickens that kill themselves they literally bring find a little loose wire they they won't doubt because it's so uncomfortable so if that I hears that is nothing to do just relax and laugh at the joke well that's not funny so there are another ways of investigating that that Bob's offers ultimately leading to the same outcome because there is only one outcome and that one outcome is to recognize that ultimate reality of the presence of your own existence is radiant available right here right now it has never been hidden it has been always in the forever now even if we use the concept of a baby which is in time It is always here.
As you look back when you were a little child, the sense of being here is the same as the sense of being here when you were a teenager or the sense of being here, of being right now, of being, just being right now. It's the same sense. Even though the body of a child is different, the mind of a child is different, the memory of the child is different, the self-image of a child is different. All those things have changed. One thing that never changes is the presence of consciousness, the fact of your own existence. So that is another life.line of looking yet another line of looking is look who is looking look what is looking look focus behind your eyes and see how the seeing arises spontaneously without any doing And the narrative will tell you, no, this is not how it is.
This is I. I do the seeing. I do the thinking. I choose my destiny. I choose to whatever. But see and recognize the spontaneity of seeing. See that seeing is happening even though no one does it. Just like raining is happening even though no one does it. Like sun is shining of its own even though no one is leading it. The heart beats of its own. And the thoughts are arising of its own. And Bob had this beautiful invitation to tell me, if you think your thoughts, what's your next thought going to be? Oh, wait, wait, wait, I'll tell you, I'll tell you in a minute.
Oh, you already told me. Did you know that? You didn't. So the... If you look how with radical honesty, how the life really happens and is being discovered moment to moment, how the next thought is being discovered in that open field of knowing, you discover the thought, you discover that the thought is emotionally charged andthis thought may cause action or you discover that the thought is just merely mind complaining and it doesn't cause action and this is another way of looking at it which bob invited always people to explore Look, watch the mind. See how the whole dream comes into existence. See how the thoughts are arising and taking the energy of belief and creating that overlay of conceptual reality.
Over that pure presence of existence, over this moment now, how the thoughts are bringing the future, the mental images bringing in the past. See how the mind is constantly finding faults, finding problems to solve and complaining. It never engages with what is happening presently. It always relates it to something that could be fixed because it's wrong as it is and to the me that is incomplete and unworthy. Notice how that incredible play comes into existence through those few little algorithms, through few magic tricks that make it seem so real. And so emotionally charged because the thought and the feeling and the emotionThey are just different aspects of the same expression of that same one life.
And James says here, thought is your servant and you are going to let your servant rule who you truly are. Yeah, that's what seems to appear. The thought is telling me, oh, I'm not good enough or I'm too fat or I lost my husband, I should be miserable or whatever the thoughts are going to say.Who cares? I mean, if they spoke Chinese, who cares? Or if there was, I mean, my goodness, if not for the fact of existence, The thoughts couldn't even be there. So they're bonus. The thinking, the imagining is a bonus. The dreaming, the dreaming, the overlay of the world, dreaming within the dreaming.
Thinking about future is dreaming. Thinking about what is not happening presently is dreaming. It's not much different to dreaming at night. The whole dreaming of the whole world, like Dean was saying, you know, you look at the cat, you call it cat, but really there is whole loaded dream projected on it of the whole past of what I've ever learned and observed in that cat. So the whole marvelous expression of that one essence in the form of that multi-layered multiverse of dreams is appearing right here in that essence, in that presence that I am, with or without it, whether it is there or it is not there.
The presence is first. So again, another way of what I can do then, what can I do? Well, depends which eye. The eye which is only hallucinated ofobviously can't do anything. And the eye, which is space-like, it doesn't have to do anything. So what is there to do if not just relax and enjoy the show? But how am I going to enjoy it if those thoughts are constantly complaining, constantly judging me and judging the world and firing that survival instinct? But I don't have this. I don't have that. I need to have safety. I need to have more money. I need to be more healthy.
I need my husband to treat me better. I need, oh, gosh. Yeah, yeah, just recognizing them for what they are. All of them are another expression of that one essence. And Bob would sometimes play. He says that one essence may be called God. And what is God? God is love. So, and Nisargadatta has a beautiful quote, also one of my favorites, in which he brings back the idea of everything being an expression of love. And that includes violence. That includes theft. Hurting others, killing off the species, warming the planet. How? How? He explained the me can be small. If the me is just this little organism, of course, I'll take from you to add to me.
Isn't that obviously?Loving care, I want this if that's me, so I want it for me. So that is a love misguided through the mind filtering the reality. And instead of expressing as that beautiful, shining energy of giving and including, it expresses as the energy of harming and stealing and fear and violence because of the interpretation which comes from that projector, which tells me that I am limited. But in the motivation, the hearts of hearts is always love. There's nothing but love. Anxiety is love for the safety. Greed is love for the abundance. But it is love limited to the me. Recognizing that this is just one essence expressing and experiencing as everything everything anger is love for this to be respected disappointment is love for this one being honored or perhaps even its dreams being honored it's all one one energy, one essence, experience in expressing us everything.
So the one thing that can be done is, and this is why in so many ways Bob would always offer the pointers that they may ring a bell. Because everyone already knows with absolute certainty that they exist.the mind comes and says, this is not it, this is not enough. I know it conceptually, I know it intellectually, but that's not true. Everything else you know intellectually, not this. There is no intellectual knowing of existence, because when the mind stops and intellectual knowing is paused, existence is still evident, is still clear. So you know it experientially. It's just that it is covered up with a thick layer of ideas and is overlooked or ignored.
Even this, because many of you do not have the experience of having it completely covered up and forgotten. And I think it's time to invite everyone to actually bring back and point out or ask questions or question, question, anything that comes up.I don't want to say anything. I mean, you know. The thing is like... I'll put one mic there somewhere. Is there anybody at someone? Keep. Hmm. That's Russ. I had a fairly intense conversation with someone the other day. And it was very hard to accept. It was like a monologue that went on. There wasn't any space between to question or anything. And it was very unpleasant.
And then...Somehow there was a deeper space that eventually opened up. And inside It was just a flash. It was a flash of knowledge and an image of a small boy. And it was full of joy, this image. And all he wanted was the appreciation of hiselder siblings and his parents. And then the The joy just dispersed. Burst open. It was just like a wide expanse of love. And there was an acknowledgement that that's really what's speaking. It wasn't this sort of tense guy that wanted to get his argument across. It was, yeah, the beautiful. Joyful child. Craving that love and appreciation from his family.It was quite a shift.
That's about all, thanks. That's beautiful. And ultimately, he wasn't even a boy. It was the life expressing as the boy, through the boy. Yeah, not the, yeah, it's recognizing that, you know, The moment you recognize there is no one here, that there is no hallucinated little imagined self that is doing things, speaking, getting things wrong, being ashamed. It's nothing. It's just the urges of feelings arising in the space. It's equally everywhere else. There's no one there in anyone. There's no one there in Mother Teresa or Hitler. There's no one there. It's just a set of programs, life moving through that instrument and producing the type of music that the instrument is designed to produce.
So if there is a person who is producing a music of whatever discomfort, There is no one, there is no choice. That's how the instrument has been designed. And then you see it in a different light and you see, oh, the poor little boy. That's how it's been, you know, that's how the whole design, that's how the whole instrument. Came to be the way it is and then heart opens up and there is a compassion and there is that amazementAnd this is the same life that appeared as that, you know, little child looking for the approval, growing up with the siblings. And it's life expressing, experiencing, appearing as everything.
Once the dreamlike nature of it, the dream itself, the dream is empty. The dream is emptiness. And it's just an incredible thing to discover. How can it be real? It's a night dream. Everything, when it's seen as a dream, how can it not be every aspect of it is love because it just exists and it expresses itself in this amazing facet of all the different colours and shapes and forms. And everything is perfect. So the great perfection is not just like a Buddhist word, you know, comment that say, oh, it's just, or the absolute. These aren't just fancy words. They're just pointing to the fact that once a dream is seen as a dream, everything is perfect.
You don't have a night dream and something happens. You say, oh, I didn't like that aspect of the dream. It just, that, it was all a dream. Every bit of the night dream you can see is a dream. And same, this waking.what is called the waking state, is dreamlike. So everything is inclusive. There is nothing out of it. There is nothing that can, there's no better or worse or higher or lower or degrees. But all this stuff about talking in the mind, It's an amazing thing watching this mind because in these thoughts and in this stream of thoughts and in the descriptions and all of a sudden time is created, the appearance of time.
Well, there's now and then there's later and then there's before and then there's after. So all of a sudden that becomes... Infused in and and then there's a me there's a me there's a good me there's a bad me there's a there's a whole stream of of and then there's a doer there's someone with free will and autonomy that can make choices and and then there's another guy that can distinguish and judge and and say this is good and this is bad but all all of that is still is the dreamlike nature. So when that's not believed in any longer, all there is is this and everything is a dream and everything is the love of being in itself, as itself, expressing, experiencing and epivessing, bubbling up as what this is called life.
So how does one see that? It's like Bob said, keep seeing that there is no thing that sees. Just seeing is happening by itself. It's always been happening by itself. You don't wake up in the morning and go, I'm going to see now. Seeing is just always happening.And you don't wake up in the morning, I'm going to have a thought now. You don't wake up in the morning, I'm going to raise my right arm now, or I'm going to beat my heart, or I'm going to grow some more fingernails. It just, more than, you know, it just, the whole show's always happening. And in this whole show, seeing the whole show as this dream is the end of all, there's nothing, it can't be anything but the appearance and the joy of being itself and all the contents of the dream are like a celebration of every part of it, the good, bad and ugly, hey Ross?
The nothing, the nothingness of it is the miraculous part of it, that everything rises from this nothing. This space of nothingness, which isThe womb of everything. Everything rises from this nothing. Shakespeare called it this airy nothing. The poet's pen gives to airy nothing a name and local habitation. I got a question here from Tanya, New Zealand Tanya. She says, how do you see you are not the body and there is no need to improve the appearance? the amount of muscle it has or its shape. See, the one who sees that you are not the body is again not your essential self. There is no space doesn't need to have a concept whether I am or I am not the body.
Space is already free from all concepts, the cognizing emptiness. The one who needs to see it and the one who needs to believe, oh, now I don't need, I don't need to improve it. Is not your true self. You see, the body is already, it's like an instrument and it's already coded. It's like a computer with the hardware and software. So the hardware is as it is with this amount of muscles and the software is that the amount of muscles may, the most comfortable or optimal condition is different. So there will be a drive, there will be an urge. You know, again, I like to bring back Bob and Nisar Gadatta.
The two beautiful beings they were absolutely wonderfully loving friends to each other and he said that and bob they both cried when they said goodbye uh in 1976 so They had such an incredible profound resonation, so much in common. And yet the body-mind of Nisargadatta was such that he wouldn't be bothered going to gym.He'd be smoking his beedies one after another. And he wouldn't even be bothered to get radiation for his cancer. While Bob, completely different instrument, he absolutely loved studying nutrition. He quit smoking, he quit drinking. I can tell you, he still has a lot of kettlebells and other instruments for the muscle build.
And up until the last couple of weeks of his body being around still, He would do some squats whenever he could. He would exercise his legs whenever he could. That was the software of the body-mind machine. But the body, what we call Bob, the life essence expressing through that filter of conditioned body-mind, through that instrument as that particular music, That had absolutely no doubt and no complaint that nothing needs to be any different than what it is. Whether it is an urge to exercise, whether there is no urge to exercise, whether there is an urge to smoke, smoke, be this or take cancer treatment or not.
In this moment right now, the only thing that makes you believe that things should be different is a thought. And that thought is just appearing and disappearing. So how do you see that you are not the body and you don't need to improve the body? Again.You just see the thought. You just see them as concepts arising in consciousness. If the concepts are loaded and charged, the concepts will create the action. If they are not, they won't. And from ultimate reality or space perspective, it doesn't matter the least. Guess what's going to happen with that body in 50 or 100 years? It's going to rot. I hope that helps.
And if you were the body, sorry, and if you were the body, which part of the body are you? Like, so if you're the body and you chop off your arm, then surely you'd be incomplete. You'd be an incomplete body. You'd feel because, but you wouldn't. You'd feel exactly the same. You'd have, this would be exactly the same presence. If you chopped off another arm, another leg, whatever, you'll still have exactly the same. nowness, the exactly same immediacy will appear. It's exactly the same as when the body is decrepit or broken or when it was first born or the first memory or the first experience.
All of them appear in the same, as the same thing, all the time, as the same no thing all the time, as the immediate knowingness of aliveness. And if you have less muscles, there is no less of sense of presence. So you're talking about muscles and you're talking about Bob's body, but then you say the body doesn't exist and I get stuck on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, that's a perfectly...Wonderful. Yeah, perfect question. Within that reality of this particular dream, the body belongs to a grid upon reality. Just when you go to sleep at night and you are dreaming and you are dreaming that you are flying and you can see from that perspective of that flying person, you can see that you're moving above the object.
So there is a body. There is a dream body in the dream. You may be fighting or may be talking. While your body is lying still with the eyes closed, no words are coming out of its mouth. In the dream, you are arguing, you are fighting, you are eating. There is a dream body within that dream. Within that dream, that body is absolutely real. But you wake up and you see that it's not. You can describe it in all sorts of ways. Yeah, so the body's in the dream. So the body's in the big dream. So we've got the big picture stuff and there is a...
Yeah. That's a dream. The big picture is it's all a dream. All a dream. But in the subset of that... There is. Within the dream, yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Bob would say everything is valid in the appearance. In the appearance, you eat like 10 grams of vitamin C, you get diarrhea. Or you eat arsenic, you die. Within the appearance of that particular dream, those are...are the general rules of the dream. You jump off the building, you probably crash. You go to aboriginal tribes, you'll get bone pointed at you, you probably die. That's agreed upon reality within the dream. In that reality, and so within that particular reality, you are the doer.
There is an appearance of being a doer. It's an appearance of being a doer. But in the dream? No. No. You realize that the appearance of being a speaker, right now there is an appearance of being a speaker. But is there anyone speaking? Is there anyone there that does it? I have no experience of anyone doing the speaking. In my experience, speaking is happening the same way the sensing temperature is happening. There are sensors that sense the temperature. I can say it's a warm day, but I don't do sensing the temperature. Just as I don't do the heartbeat, it's happening. Yet there is an appearance of speaking, of that I speak.
And you're saying that your speaking is the same as the non-sensing. Yes, yes, yes. Seeing is happening and I say I see. Yeah, I get all that. Yeah. It's just you speaking. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And everything's being registered, you could say. It's like... Registered. Everything's...registered and then the thoughts that, ah, I see you. But everything's like being registered anyway. Like there's just, you just, you don't have to think to know that you're, that you are and that you're in this room or this place or, you know, it's all, it's already there. It's already been registered as such. There's no thought needed to describe, now I'm going to put my hand there.
I mean, the hand might just go there, and the hand might go there, and then there. And then we're just the puppets. Did you want to say something? Yeah, I'm just thinking like, okay, so when the dream stops, I mean, the character in the dream, like, one dies, right? What's happening? With the consciousness what the consciousness i need i can see i can answer that because i've had a new death experience and i've been a lot of stories yeah they're great aren't they they're really they're not happening now but yeah go for the story about the experience of what happened in the past as the body was on the on the in the operating theatre.
I'd lost enough blood to actually have a cardiac arrest. I assume it was cardiac arrest because I left the body. And what happened is that sense of self which you've had ever since you were a child that hasn't got a name, it hasn't got a name or form, it's just a sense of livingness. Or sense of self,And I don't mean sense of identity as a female or a male or with a name and form, but just that sense of awareness that we all have, that we all experience, that was the same. There was just no body. It was profound because as I was moving up, all these faces appeared on the ceiling, full of love, love and compassion and beauty.
You know, I don't recognize any of them. I didn't even know what that was. I was moving to love. I was moving up to love. That has made me totally lack of fear of passing.Get this. No, no, we just... No, I just read so many of those experiences, you know. Some people, they have hellish one. Yes. But they're pretty rare. Yeah, yeah. The majority are full of love. But then even, you know, they just feel like they are in the room somewhere, like they can read Akashic records, like, about the past lives, right? Like, is it this imagined? I don't know. What's going on? No, no, no.
Because with the lived experience of the fact there's no body and that everything happens within awareness, it is the same thing. Where is it now? Exactly. Where is it now? Because then, you know, there are also very experienced guys who leave the body. Yes, it's the out-of-body experience. So they say that there are different rules. When you leave the body, you are somewhere in different dimension. You can create different universes. That's what they say. I just wanted to... Yeah, no, please have it. Yeah, just something about it. We talk about this nothingness and the emptiness of this appearance.The Akashic record is the way it would be explained by the Vedantic tradition.
Advaita Vedanta. Akasha means space. We talk about this space-like awareness. So it's just the same thing. Arising from nothing, arising from this Akashic record, if you like. Yes, there are some kids, they remember past lives, that's what they say. I remember who I was when I was 200 years ago, 1,000 years ago. Like, how can we even verify this? We can't. And so why worry about it? So the nature of the mind is to be able to improvise and answer the questions just like AI. You ask your chat GPT a question and if it doesn't have any information, it will make it up. It will totally make it up.
This is the dream. The main part of it is whatever is not happening right now and even that which is happening right now. It's still the dream. It's still the dream. So what happened in that, Bob had few near-death experiences, I had few near-death experiences. Where are they now? They're completely irrelevant. Going to the story of who had better experiences after which chocolate cake or which drug or which surgery is completely confusing, irrelevant, unnecessary and unhelpful really. Because then you go and bring the statistics who had bad and who had good.It's not right now. And this is a dream. This room is a dream. It disappears as soon as I go to sleep at night.
So even that isn't the reality. Every parallel universe, every Akashic record, every... That's what they say. I don't know. How can you believe in the sacred mark? Everything's included. Everything's included. Everything's included. And it's all dreamlike. Every bit of it. I think Ross is going. I have a couple. Bob said something about belief, didn't he? Unquestioned acceptance of something in the absence of reason. Yeah. Acceptance of an alleged fact. Yes. Very knowledgeable. So beliefs are not really... Yeah, beliefs are not the actual. It's a waste of space. And I've just said that, oh, sorry. I have just a comment from Onion Community. Go on. Just that thing also, like, you know, I've got a big science background as well.
So the... You know, the recent neurosurgeon who says really, he's also a physicist, I think his background, that when you look away, you create, all of this is created through looking, through this brain. And when you look away from it, it stops existing. That's his...And the fact that modern quantum physics shows that at a very superficial level of the subatomic, time disappears. So if there is no time, there's no distance, there's no other. And that can be directly experienced. There is no observer, there's nothing there. That's what they say. It's just observing. Yeah, the observer as an entity is imagined, but the field of knowing, the observing, which sometimes through the, you know, like if you look from the perspective of life itself, the ultimate, the universal energy, right now coming out of your eyes and being the point in consciousness that is observing, that's the direct experience.
You're experiencing it right now. So this observing will be always there. Again, always is a concept of time. I mean, in now, yeah. Now is the eternity. It has no beginning, no end. And it contains all time. It contains the future, the past. All imagined realities of what is not happening right now are included in the now. My childhood is now only when I think about it. But when I don't think about it, it doesn't exist. Poland is now, but only when I think about it. When I don't, it doesn't exist. It can't be experienced. It exists.as a potentiality. And even when I do think about it, it exists as mental image.
That's the fact of it. That's the experience. That's the directness of this dream. I can't understand this. And there is nothing but now. It doesn't have to be understood. It doesn't have to be understood. It's experience. You don't have to understand it. It has to be present now. How can there be anything but now? And you can't get out of it. You can't get before or after it. We just can't stop the training. Sure. We don't have to. We didn't start it.But we're laughing. That's the point. I have a couple of comments here. James says the whole world is your body. Can you separate yourself from the space, the air you can't live without?
There isn't one element you are separate from. You are inseparable. You have just limited yourself to your limited body. I guess this was the response. To the previous question and Tanya says thank you Kat what I got from what you said is the body is just as it is and intelligence energy has no preference with the body is like or what is what it does thank you for sharing about Bob and Nisar Kadata some bodies like to go to the gym and some don't and either of those expressions are neither right nor wrong and it is just thought saying I am the body must look at this more in direct experience not with thoughts Yes, beautiful, Tanya.
And Tanya also says to James, beautiful James, looking in this way, I really see experientially how I am not limited to this body. No separation. Much silence and peace here now. Body, muscle stories gone for a moment. Wonderful. So if you can actually truly investigate time, if you truly investigate time,Investigate where you are in time, where your sense of self is in time. There is only one conclusion, which is now. And that opens the door to many other deeper levels of experiencing and understanding about that point. It cuts out the mind. It's direct experiencing. The mind is useful and you're not trying to do anything, but it has its place and all of that has its place.
But the direct experiencing of now is one of the most profound. That's what it is. That's it. There's nothing else. No. What else could it be? That's it. Yeah. You get it. No time, no play. There's no time. It's beautiful. It's freeing. Trusting the heart knowing rather than narration, interpretation and commentary. This is the, you know, this is what is known directly. This is only the storyteller.Jamie, nothing? Not today, Jamie. Not today, Yekaman. I think if we just bring it all back to basics, the basic message being expressed here today is non-duality. Very simple. One without a second. There is one reality.And, um, Bob left us quite a significant teaching tool.
Which is sitting right behind me. And this is a mirror. So we can all... Seen appearance in the mirror. There's so-called separate people in the mirror. There's the appearance of space and the appearance of time moving through time in the appearance. But what is the reality of the mirror?is one without a second. Space is appearing. Individuals with their questions are appearing. But two hours ago, there was no appearance in the mirror. The appearance has come and the appearance has gone. The reality doesn't change. There is no time. You can't reach in and grab anything and alter and modify anything.in the appearance. And this is the basic message that is being expressed, is there is that one reality.
Is that reality different in all of us? Do we all have our own individual awareness? Yes. Well, it's the same. When you separate, yeah, you think what? Well, that's the delusion is that I'm aware, you're aware, and there's all these separate awareness. I'm experiencing my thoughts and you're experiencing.But the ultimate message of non-duality is there is nothing happening. There is no appearance. There is just that one essence. And if we bring it back to that, then all the other questions about astral realms and quantum physics, What does it all mean? It's just nice imagination. Yeah, well, that's, but it's not your imagination. You don't have an imagination.
I think I do. Yeah. Because of how big I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a wonderful delusion. Okay, here we are. I think therefore I am. Yeah, I am, therefore I think. Yeah, that's right. But it really is a simple message and unfortunately as soon as we open our mouth, we're into duality and that's the only way we can express it through, you know, there's awareness, there's non-awareness, there's being, there's non-being. You know, and that's why...Ramanah spent the first 10, 20 years in total silence. People would just sit with him and wasn't until he was forced to speak because, you know, as soon as you open your mouth and then it's the nature of the mind and of language to continue to divide.
And then you can sort of get into debates and arguments about this and that. But if you just bring it back to the simplicity of one without a second, where does that leave room for me or for you or for individual consciousness and awareness? It's a simple message that there is just this. And with that message, you just fall silent. Just keep it basic. It is. It's very simple and very basic. It's like what's wrong with right now unless you're thinking about it. But none of us would be here if it was that simple because there'd be no questions and the mind jumps into the imagination.
And I just had this experience. It's going into a little dream, but I went, I've just been over to Bali and back, but just before I went away, I went in for a scan for this pain that I've been having.They didn't find anything there, but they found this tiny little bean-sized lump in my lung, and suddenly there was this whole thing, well, it could be a malignancy, you've got to do this, do that, and go through more scans. But the mind started jumping into, oh, if I've got cancer, I'll have to cancel the Bali trip, and I'll be in hospital, I'll have to have operations, probably chemo, and it'll keep coming back, and I'm on the way out, and all this sort of stuff.
And then I bring myself back to that what's wrong with me. right now and realise, well, either way it goes, it'll unfold as it unfolds. But the mind had a definite preference for which way it wanted to unfold. And I kept jumping in there and thinking of the complications and trying to come back to right here, right now. But then I realised, well, what was the trap there that was so compelling? It was sort of like I was trying to get rid of it. I was trying to come back to right here, right now, and playing this whole cycle as if I was the controller of the thoughts and where they'd go.
I realised, you know, after a little while, I realised I had no control over where the thoughts went or what the story was. And in trying to get rid of it, you perpetuate the story. The function of the mind of this sense of individuality is to protect the body. So it's natural that no matter what the understanding is, that the thoughts are going to arise that, you know, there's danger. We found this lump or whatever, and the thoughts will reflect that.And that, in my experience, doesn't go away. But what does seem to go away is the attachment to that story, to the thoughts. That there is a self-centered here.
That those thoughts are referring to because when the thought streamgets energized is a feeling that it's the thoughts are referring what Bob called the reference point, this me that it's happening to. There's thoughts happening. And then there's thoughts that are happening to me. And the thoughts happening to me is the belief in that reference point, that self-center, which creates the fear. Otherwise, as the thoughts are there, the thoughts can be there, but without the fear, because you've never left that one essence. That non-dual reality, which isyou know, back into duality here because we're talking about the witness and once it's recognised that those thoughts are an object to what I am, then they're witnessed and they've They come and they go, but they're not.
It's that these thoughts are about a me that is the sense of contraction, the feeling of separation. So the mind's going to mind. The mind's going to do what the mind does. And if there's a sense of danger to the body, then the mind is going to reflect that in the patterns of thinking that arise. But without that reference point, that stickiness, The thoughts will continue and it will resolve or not resolve as it is. Just coming back to that simplicity of just this, that one without a second. Just as the stories arise and come and go in this mirror. The mirror is forever untouched.
Like, you know, there could be a massacre in this room and a bloodbath. And once it's over, you know, there's no...blood stains left on the mirror mirror is totally unaffected and it's it's not touched by whatever is appearing in it as I said there's no space there's no time there's no story there's no thoughts in the appearance and that the seeing of that reality is that you are no longer affected by the appearance. The appearances will keep coming and going. But the sense of being, well, This bit of the mirror is me and that other bit of the mirror is not me. Seems to sort of no longer be there.
But the mind is always, it's the nature of the mind and thoughts that they'll arise. That's the job of the mind is to protect the body. And the mind thinks it's the door. A why and this is like the mirror? Yeah, you could use the mirror or you can use the example of space as well too. The space, these are all sort of metaphors. To what that reality is, is that it is beyond time and space. It's not in time.Time and space are in that reality. But I think the misstep that is often taken, I see in these sort of circles, is it's I'm aware.
There's still a self-centre there that thinks it's aware, it has the spaciousness, it has the emptiness. But this me is in time and space, so therefore it's... What we are as that one without a second isn't in this. This is an appearance. It's kind of like a movie. Another good analogy is the screen. Whatever is appearing on the screen, there can be floods and the screen doesn't get wet, fires, the screen doesn't get burnt. It's like it's said in the Bhagavad Gita, you know, the sword can't cut it, the wind can't dry it, the water can't drown it, fire can't burn it. But it's not of this body.
It's not ours. It's not a personal. We don't all each have our individual awareness. There's just one. Thing happening and in that happening is the appearanceAnd just as you are an object to me, this is an object to me as well too. The thoughts are that somehow that reality has become entangled in the appearance and has taken it to be one part of the appearance. One part of the thoughts and created this sense of me. Does that make sense? Well, it never will. It can't. A letter. It's the beginning. So the reason actually why is it undifferentiated is because it's prior to senses. It's not a sensory awareness.
It's not like, oh yes, but my awareness feels cold and your awareness may feel warm. No, it doesn't have any sort of sensory component which would make it even possible to differentiate it between one object or one animal or one tree to another or person. Because it is prior to any sensory. Sensory expressions or stimuli arises on it, in it, as a passing phenomena. So warmth, cold, comfort, discomfort, all of it is content of the dream. And the screen or the mirror or the space is undifferentiated so it can't say that myawareness is bigger, better, greater, grander than yours or his or anyone's because Okay, so this is, I have another comment here from James who says, the individual can observe in himself that when a memory appears, it appears only in the now and you can't have more than one memory in the now.
Witness for yourself. Now is all.And I think this one I've read already. So thoughts, this is from Tanya, New Zealand Tanya. So thoughts are just happening, coming from nowhere and going nowhere. It is only thought that just appears that says the thoughts have something to do with you, but they have nothing to do with you. Absolutely. And JB says, yeah, absolutely. It's just appearing. The you is just another thought. It is totally unrelated. It's just it might be it might seem to be related, but it's just another thought. And one at the time, like like James was saying, one thought, one dream at the time, one memory at the time, one mental image at the time.
And JB says the body and all objects appear within the seeing of awareness. Identification with the mind, body or me seems to be the culprit. Nisargadatta says that the identification on the separate self is what is preventing full clarity. Yeah, the identification is basically the veil of ignorance, it's the suffering. The assuming that I am something or the other rather than I am just pure existence is the source of suffering, is the source of separation, is the source of the turmoil in the dream, the animals.They don't have that concept that I end here and outside of my skin there is something that is not I.
It's a world and it's hostile. So even if the animal is being hunted to be eaten, it doesn't have any psychological suffering which basically comes from objecting to whatever is happening. It is fully with the reality, just like a river fully being the flow. There is no such thing as a river that is doing the flow. No, it's just the flow. It's one. It's one reality. It's not two. So the objections, arguing with whatever is happening, that causes the mental turmoil, that causes the suffering. Being one with life. There is no objection, even if there is discomfort. That discomfort is, wow, you know, if not for the aliveness, it couldn't have been experienced.
And if not for the discomfort being known, comfort wouldn't be experienced either because they're interrelated. There is no day without night. There is no comfort without discomfort. Everything that appears within the dream is only known from the from its opposite that's that's the only way the dream can even exist so there is an appreciation even when the discomfort arises because without that The opposite can't be experienced. So the experiencing itself.It's wow. It is wow. It could have been nothing, but it couldn't have because there we are. The other way to come into the now. The creative self, paint or play music or listen to fine music, it brings you straight into the present.
There's an activity apparently occurring, but there's no before or after that. You're just here doing it. That is another thing I think that, you know, that doesn't deny creative capacity within the, in this form, to bring you straight into the now. Actually, apparently pottery is really good at that as well. But any activity, even the activity of breathing. Yes. It is just whatever is happening, just like the creation is happening. And yes, the renowned musicians or even actors or painters, if they're completely honest, they get into the state of flow where the narrative is absent and that creative flow just completely takes over. And they say, I didn't do it.
It just happened. Just like a little child, which brings up the first creation and it shows to the parents or caregivers, look. And it's a maze. Look at this.parents straight away give them a credit oh what did you do johnny oh you're such a talented little boy you're so good little boy and then it gets so much recognition so much appreciation and the next moment you're gonna have that little johnny bringing you piles of junk just to get more of that recognition and more of that appreciation and that's how the credit taking pattern starts it's been programmed also it's been programmed to that biocomputer and now it solidifies it is the it is the essence is the core and it later on solidifies that sense of me that sense of identity which causes the suffering causes the separation and constantly causes the objections this is no good this is no good i want some other now i want some more pleasure because that's that's the function of the of the survival pattern in the mind find optimize prevent protect So if I am the mind, I'm constantly unhappy.
I'm constantly objecting. That is what the mind is for.The nature of the mind is separation. Yeah, and if I'm only the mind, if I'm only the mind. Yeah, why do we have the mind? Now, if you think I am only the mind, if you have that belief, this is not denied. This is not denied or rejected. It's just the identification with it, ships. It's the servant, not the master. Yeah, that's right. Jamie.What was the question again? Yeah, why this mind is arising as well, like the body. Is it? I don't know. We're going to investigate. Okay. Okay, I will. It is a parallel. Yeah. To who?
Who is it arising to? What is the mind apart from thought? The reason why we obsessively think is to keep the delusion alive. requires, it's like something spinning, it requires constant reference to this so-called me to create, to keep the illusion alive. Once it's seen, through that the me is just another appearance, there has no reality or independent existence, then the thoughts actually It's like unplugging the fan. It's the thinking.slows down to almost nothing because it's the thinking that is constantly generating this sense of me. Without the thinking, without a thought, that's why Bob uses the pointer of what's wrong with right now unless you think about it.
That thinking is creating time, it's creating space, it's creating this sense of I, this contraction. So in awareness thoughts appear, that's all? Yes. In appearance, yeah. That's beautiful. That's, yeah. Yeah. In the awareness the thoughts appear. That's a fantastic, actually, final word for the meeting. And thank you, everyone. We says words from... I have words from Catherine that truly resonates today. Yeah, thank you.