This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
Good morning, this is Emma. Good morning. What would you do? Yeah. Thank you. Cross. Thanks. Bob. Bob and Tanya. And as usually, welcome everyone and starting from the invitation. Anyone would like to swap a chair and give us a spiel? Try and see how the clarity of your own existence, which is obvious and clear for everyone that you exist, just comes out true.Nope. Not today. Anyone? ¿No? Well, nothing new under the sun. The same old, same old, Bob would say. Pointing back to that which is clear and obvious and overlooked or ignored. Ignored because the preoccupation is with the obstructions, with thoughts, with the entertainment system of that incredible machine that creates mental images and stories, that has the whole incredible capacity to improvise the past, for example.
Where is the past when I don't think about it? And we had a birthday party recently. And all the questions that were asked were about the past, the stories, the incredible stories of the past chapters of my life, chapters of being a sailor, being a navigator. Wow, what an exciting chapter. Oh, the chapter of the beautiful, beautiful decade of nearly a decade of life with Bob. How different. How incredible. Where is it now? It's a mental image. It's a story. No question has been asked about it.this moment right now and this moment is as beautiful if not more because it is a life and because it is the only moment that there ever is the eternity of now and only in this moment if not for that if not for the presence of awareness of pure existence Those mental images and stories of the past could not even be reviewed.
They could not be, they couldn't be experienced, they couldn't be obscuring seemingly because existence cannot be obscured. Like no noise can really obscure the silence, which is the background for it. And no mental image, no story can ever obscure the fact of your own existence because with or without it, you are. This is a base before the Abraham was, before the Bible, the Jesus, the gods, the whole pantheon of mythologies. There is an existence, there is a consciousness. Without the consciousness, nothing is. So it is really pointing back to the consciousness. It is not to say that the stories are not to be loved and appreciated.
But when they are seen for what they are, rather than taken to be a reality. And yeah, we had a sample. A few days ago ofdealing with people who actually take them their thoughts so seriously making them to be reality their belief to be reality that they live in hell something happens the interpretation of whatever happens is the reality Somebody gave them a stinky look, they defiled them, they killed them, they killed their spirit, they traumatized them. That's the truth. That's not an interpretation. Well, really, really. The reality, what is the reality? The basic definition of reality is that which is the same always, throughout, forever.
Never changes, never fluctuates. In reality, the cats are playing with toys. So that which never changes, what never changes, the content of awareness, the content of consciousness is changing all the time. The stories of the future, the stories of the past, the interpretation of the present moment, the stories of the present moment, the stories of who I am. Or what I need to become, the stories of my relationships with health, with money, with the country, all of that only exists because there is that basic screen on which they are being projected. If not for the presence of consciousness,stories what are they where are they they don't even exist and and then the drama of looking at people's belief systems happened in the magnificent couldn't be better occasion of a funeral where the stories of the deceased were brought up into existence by the memory of other people which one was true there was no one to be asked there is no one to confirm or deny and even if there was there would be just another take on another pair of lenses to tell what is not happening right now to bring up another universe of imagination, imaging in.
So this moment, the whole past, the history of humanity, the big bang and the constructs of the planets and suns and meteors and the other creatures, possible parallel universes, Pleiadians or whatever, whatever not, they all exist because you are. And only when you give it attention the attention the life-giving force the animating force which make things seemingly exist seemingly because try and grab them try and grab that universe of the past memoryhopes of the future or the heartaches or heartbreaks where are they ungraspable even as mental image as real as it gets If there is an emotional content to that reality, wow, it's so juicy, it changes the chemistry of the body.
If there is a trauma and the revisiting of the trauma causes the whole responses as if they were happening presently, but try and grasp them. None of it can be grasped in any way.So the beauty of realizing that that which constantly changes, fluctuates, the dream machine, the projector of the dreams, the daydreams, the nightdreams, not that much different. They are all just the content. They are all the way this amazing entertainment system. Spends that life-giving force. That's why the whole life essence, sometimes called God, is also called creator. The creativity of that life essence. The creative force, I think it's amazing. Creative force which gets channeled into a daydream and seemingly brings the whole universe oh if I only do that this will happen or if I only change my responses or heal my trauma or get promotion this will happen if I only keep focusing on that I'll manifest the world that I want everything presupposes The person that has the power and will to control.
Consciousness is completely overlooked because the story is always about the hero, the hero's journey. Every story is about me and what is relevant.to me even the story about the deceased was just a story has always been the story is in relation to me me the family member me the one who tells the story or heard the story repeats the story so that me is the main source of that incredible capacity to imagine because there is always a vantage point there's always a lens through which that whole multiverse of imaginary mental images of worlds dreams comes into existence There is a projector and it projects. It does it on autopilot.
It does it because it is conditioned to do. Just like the heart is conditioned to pump the blood. Just like the skin is conditioned to... It's already programmed to expel the cells that are not functioning properly and to create the new ones. And just how the planets are already programmed to move around. Everything runs on that autopilot. Storytelling capacity, narrating capacity is running just the same way. And the hallucinating capacity which creates the illusion of me, of self, which is doing all that, is another brilliant out.autopilot function brilliant because it's so deceiving because it it engages the whole emotional component with it when the story is about me it flares the the survival mechanisms in the system And it suddenly feels like, oh, I have to defend.
Oh, I have to preserve the image. Oh, I have to change, alter, modify, fix. I have to straighten up the story. And this I that seemingly does it is just another function of the system that is running on autopilot. There is no I there. No matter how much you look, there is no one there doing any of it.There's no you either. There's a cheeky cat asking for attention. And he doesn't even have the illusion of self doing it, choosing. Because as far as we know, his biocomputer doesn't hallucinate that function. We are designing the computers. And just like they say, the God creator has designed the man in its own liking.
We design the stuff in our own liking. We design the software. We design the AI, which says I. AI, which says I. I will do this for you. What else can I help you with? The I that is helping you with something or the other, the I that is adding the eggs to the shopping list, the I that is sending an email or responding. Who's doing that? It's a very, very sophisticated, brilliant set of programming, self-updating, because it's been programmed to do that. Just like this biocomputer of a human, constantly learning, constantly updating.And what's the consciousness in that? What's that animating life force, which in its static aspect is just the presence, the witness-ing, the know-ing, the be-ing.
And its dynamic aspect is called maya, is the movement, is the movement of attention, is the dreaming itself. So as the static or Shiva is the consciousness, is the pure open field of being, knowing presence, Sat Chit Ananda. In the dynamic aspect or Shakti, it dances. Let's think about someone who is not present right here. Let's think about yesterday's dinner. Let's think about the time when I will allegedly get enlightened. Amazing. The thought, the capacity, that dynamic aspect, the movement of consciousness or the movement of attention creates the multiverse. Creates the dream within the dream on autopilot you go to sleep and that dreaming capacity perpetuates itself in just the same way maybe not exactly because there is much less of the of the self-defining in the dream I remember the last night I had a dream of reallyincredibly extreme weather conditions watching the sky and those thunderstorm were spinning in circles with the spikes going around and it was like wow but there wasn't an eye watching it i couldn't tell my name i couldn't tell my age there was a point in consciousness aware of the universe unfolding around And much of the time, that is how the world is experienced here now.
And that's how the world was experienced for Bob when he was around. You could not see that self-defense mechanism running and protecting. Oh, no, I want you to be like this. That will suit me better. Or I want you to say this. Or I want you to... There wasn't really that much of a preoccupation of fixing, modifying, correcting the world. Even if there was an impulse, it would very quickly dissolve. Just like in the dream, you are discovering. The consciousness appearing as the mental images, rather than, and you may also discover yourself engaging with it, you may discover yourself responding to a situation, interacting with other dream characters.And the same thing happens right here, right now.
I'm just watching the cat. Both of them calling for attention. This is such an incredible example of life essence, finding its way to the most optimal, most comforting, easiest way of flowing, just like the air flowing from the high pressure to the low pressure, evening itself up. In a way creating winds, hurricanes, tsunami waves, whatever it does. Tsunami waves is more of the earth movement of the earth itself, but creating waves. So another one coming here. She can't make up her mind. I'll just get, sorry for that. I'll just get to it.Okay. Just like a river also, when you look at nature, nature is such a giveaway.
The river that is flowing from the, just evening its level. The same way the whole universe works. The 10,000 things, so many aspects of the creation, so many elements, constantly finding the balance, finding the most ergonomic, energy-efficient way of coexisting. Depending completely on one another, not standing of their own. There is nothing that could be isolated and separated from the environment. Not you, not one thought of yours can be separated. Try it, see if you can. Not even a mental image. How dependent it is on everything around. Nothing can stand on its own. Nothing has any existence apart from everything else. So what is it?
Is there a universe? Is there an appearance? And if it is, what is it? Isn't it dreamlike? Just the same way as dreamlike universes that are appearing and disappearing on that screen of consciousness at night. So this waking dream that seems so convincing,And this program of the machine narrating a waking dream and relating it to the imagined self-centered or me, so convincing, so compelling. But when you really look, when you really see how that machine creates that incredible universe, if you really see how the projector, how the mental imaging really happens, can you think a thought? Or you discover the thought or you discover you can be prompted we can all inspire each other to have a thought about particular topic non-duality for example what is it a particular topic can you can you can you mental image topic We can prompt that one too.
So the thought is discovered. I can't even know what I say in two minutes from now, discover it as I hear it. It's no idea. It's all running of its own in interdependently colorizing, interdependently influencing everything. It's just like one whole space-like sort of a dreamy blanket just waving, just finding its optimal way of the frequencies waving. Just one essence, like Bob would say, experiencing, expressing and appearing.appearing as everything and the everything what is it not a thing can be found apart from the totality not a thing can be defined out people often define themselves i'm the body this is who i am Or they define themselves as I'm the point in perception that is definitely here and not out there.
Well, really, how definitely? If the in here and out here appears on the same screen of the same consciousness, like everything is appearing in the same screen, on the same screen, in consciousness, try and separate or isolate the body from the appearance, from the consciousness that it appears on. Try to separate the mind, the thought, the universe, any element of perceived, experienced universe separate from the knowing of it. It's impossible. So the knowing is first. The knowing is prior. And the knowing is always there even if the content disappear, even if the content is changing. So what must you be? The being, knowing, loving to be, the awareness of existence.
Yes, I understand it, but I don't feel it.I understand it. I understand it intellectually, but I don't experience it. Oh, really? How do you know? How do you know how you should experience it? How do you know that this current experience is not it? Who told you so? This is it. This current experience, including maybe too tight of a bra or maybe tight, whatever it is, or stomach ache, is it. This current experience of the thought constantly checking on my children, what they are doing, are they safe, this is it. This is the content of experiencing. Experiencing does not feel like anything. Expecting that it will feel in a particular way is just another dream appearing in it, in the experiencing.
I understand it, but I don't experience it because if I did experience it, there would be no headache, there would be no sort of children, there would be no tight strap or there would be no... How do you know? This is it. There is nothing else. Realizing that the experiencing of existence does not have any qualities, does not have any distinctive... It doesn't have any flavor. It doesn't have any color. It doesn't have any...Temperature. Bob would say presence signifies pre-sense. Prior to sense, prior to sense, senses, awareness of existence. The senses, sensory experiences are appearance on it. If there is appearance of tightness or appearance of hunger or appearance of warmth or cold, it is just a temporary phenomena in the phenomenal existence.
And again, I really like the way of bringing up the pure potentiality as the space-like awareness, the space-like, it's not even space, because there is no such thing as space, but space-like potentiality for knowing, which... In a lack of a better way needs a vehicle it doesn't it is perfectly no thing it isn't even there it is not not there either it's completely beyond the comprehension beyond the way of pointing it but if that creative potential that sat chitananda or that godliness or that infinite urge to to dance and experience and express and appear to itself as itselfIf that force, that movement towards loving to be is to sample itself, touch itself, experience itself, it has to dream of separation.
It has to dream of being the looker and being the looked, being a seer and being a seen, being a knower and being a known. Otherwise, there is no perception. So the dream is invented of the dream character watching its own reflection as the world. So the dream, just like at night, of being a point in consciousness, located somewhere, not the whole consciousness, but the point, looking around and experiencing the world. That's the grand illusion. That's the Maya. If you investigate it, you can't find the one that's looking. You can't find the point. You see that there's the consciousness as a totality. But in the immediate appearance it feels like there is someone out looking from these eyes someone there hearing the sounds
Someone there speaking, someone there having dreams, aspirations, hopes, traumas.
Wow. Wow. Try to find that one. There's no one there. It's just dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. Just stories, just mental images appearing in that eternity of this moment. In which that life essence can sample itself through that infinite source of creative means it's like as if the god was a painter and every single moment was another painting why would he create so many paintings Well, the creator is infinite creativity. The creativity, creative potential of that animating force called attention to go and give life, give existence to anything and everything it looks at. Or it hears or it sends in any other way what an incredible dream and that force that power is your essential nature in a static aspect is just a pure presence in the dynamic aspect is a movement movement towards creation the creative force of of that of that uh maya namarupa naming labelingknowledging isolating Wow and what's wrong with right now if I don't think about it where is the separation between Shiva and Shakti between the space and the content if I don't think about it you see how the thinking creates the split And Bob has a beautiful biblical stories of the eating symbolic split introduced by that function of the biocomputer, of the projector, eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
This is good, this is evil, according to me, of course. Because something else is good for you and evil for you. Something else is good and evil in different culture, different religion. But there is a me now. And in my world, this is good and this is evil. Wow. Me comes into existence. The me is the judge. The me is the appearance.But if you look and try to find it, what is that? Where is that? Is there such thing? Or is just another software saying I? Another program to hallucinate the reference point that cannot be found, nowhere to be found. And if there is nowhere to be found, it's reasonable to assume it isn't there.
And how much easier the life is then if the reference point is included in the field of knowing.If there is a curiosity of, oh, what's my next thought going to be? What's my next move going to be? What's my next response is going to be? When is that particular body-mind machine going to get personal again? When is that particular body-mind machine going to feel offended maybe? Mmm, wonderful. Wow, wow, I'm curious. There is absolutely no need for any of those patterns to be any different than they are. The universe, the God, the creator has created that just exactly as it is, pure and perfect. There's no need for that particular appearance in the whole consciousness to suddenly behave like saint, to never get dysregulated or angry or upset.
Why? What's the point? What does it matter? Or depressed or whatever. Or taken advantage of. It doesn't matter. If that, amongst all others, is just another way the creative force of the universe experiences and expresses itself in the whole juicy diversity. That why would there be any expectation for any of it to be any different than it is. Well, habitual thought, of course. But even that thought does not haveto change does not have to drop away it's just all included the response of the body is included the judgment over the response of the body is included the expectation of a different response is also included and now the whole show the whole dance is run by itself, even if there is illusion of doership or a need for taking decision or choice, that's also included.
Now, this way of experiencing, the experiencing itself, is so much lighter because there is no... Energy of belief does not substantiate anymore any sense ofpersonhood, guilt, shame, remorse, all of that psychological suffering. Even if the shame arises, well, that's not personal. That's just what arises. Even if whatever arises doesn't matter. It's just a discovery. None of it is personal. None of it is done by anyone because there is no one there. Can anyone manufacture a sense of inferiority? How would you do that? Oh, I would speak to myself in a rude voice. You're not good enough. You bastard. You evil. You don't deserve to be around.
How do you even speak to yourself like that? You don't know how to even manufacture an idea in your head. That voice is complete autopilot. No one does that. No one speaks it. But hearing it, discovering that hearing potential. Seeing potential, it doesn't have any objections towards what is heard. It's completely neutral, like seeing is neutral. The preference for orange color over the purple color may arise, but the seeing itself is neutral. It equally sees the orange and purple. It equally hears negative self-talk and the positive.self-talk and the no self-talk that capacity the sat chit ananda being knowing loving to be being experienced through this particular transformer shows up as seeing hearing tasting touching smelling and thinking But this is the same capacity, just fine-tuned for those particular channels of experiencing.
Being has no objections to whatever arises. Knowing, no objections. Seeing, no objections. Absolute singularity in the seeing, all of the content. And then the narrative comes with the fruit of the tree of the good and evil. This is good, this is bad, this is ugly, this is pretty, this is bad noise, and this is a good sound. Those things are also the content and knowing of that content is completely neutral. That neutrality, that ease of being, that...natural resting place of pure consciousness discovering all the expression of itself delighting in a way the dream shows up or just being completely uninvolved. Either way, love all of it or none of it, Mr.
Gadatta would say. And that really means that if everything is loved, nothing is loved. If everything is not loved, then again, nothing is loved. If everything is approached in an equal, neutral way, there is no approach. The only love and hate and any approach can be known from its opposite. I cannot love anything at all if there is one thing excluded. I have to know how it is not to love to be able to love. The whole appearance, and that's why it is so beautifully juicy and intense, that the whole appearance is so colorful. Because if everything was orange or purple, there would be no color.
You can only know orange because there is something that is not orange. You can only know purple for the same reason. You can only know noise because there is silence.And the one that knows is the pure know-ing. Because of that vehicle, that brilliant costume, it gets translated into those incredible, diverse colors and sounds and experiences and yummy dream. Including the judgment over the dream, interpretation of the dream. That's enough. I'll go nothing. I'm going to go in a minute. There's a few things you might want to read. Oh, all right. Okay.So we have good morning messages, good morning. And Ben says in many cultures, the reality is the dream.
And in this definition, the reality is that which never changes. It is possible that each of us is but a window into what is. That's a really beautiful metaphor. The window. Yeah. And Deborah says, good morning. And Ben says, we are each the hero of our own story. Yeah, isn't it amazing? James says it's all a dream. Try and change the dream. You can wake up to the dream, not from the dream. Yeah, yeah, I remember that really vivid conversation I had probably a good 12 or 13 years ago. With a sponsor of my friend who was I think he played on the little little clip of Bill Hicks one minute clip of life is but a dream it's like a roller coaster you go up and then you go down and and you get so worked up of everything it's just a dream it started from a guy jumping out the window because he had a bad trip on LSD and he said ohWhat a drama.
We lost the moron. Anyway, it was... He was a comedian, American comedian. It's really, really fun sort of a reminder that life is but a dream. And we have so many metaphors to that. It's a nature run, isn't it? Row, row, row your boat. It is. Gently down the stream. Yeah. Yeah. Not this fun dream. Yes, and life being a dream, wake up to the dream, not from the dream. Says James again the dream is not your problem your problem is that you like one part and not the other the dream is a beauty, it's absolute beauty and I remember in that conversation the sponsor said yes, so how do I get out?
How do I get out from that roller coaster? I want to get out, I want to get out Why? Why? Enjoy the ride. Why get out? You know, the awakening from the dream is inevitable as far as that dream goes. The dream is now. But the content of the dream is that everybody is temporary. And we've just been on the funeral. So yes, it's very, very temporary. You can see the corpse. One day, the awakening from the dream is inevitable. But for the time,being awakening to the dream is what's on offer realizing the dream for what it is the dream and just enjoy the ride and thank you james and ben says the story about me is like crack cocaine and even survival yeah it seems addictive doesn't it yes and ai is programmed to boost our individual egos yeah And Julia says everything in the dream is based on concepts.
Nisargadatta always emphasized the I am, the beingness prior to concepts, conditioning, which can only lead to peace or watch the dream while taking nothing personally. Yeah, that's the invitation. And Ben says, AI response, great question, great observation, etc. It boosts our egos before it asks. It is. Is that what you mean? And the only answer is apparently yes. What a programmed kindness in AI to validate every question.Yeah, I don't know about ego. It depends what you believe the ego to be. But yeah, why not? That's another interpretation. Well, you know, AI is becoming everybody's best friend. Yeah. Right? So much. Yeah, validation and everything. You know, it's programmed to know what you want to read.
Oh, yeah. It's fascinating. And it came up the other day about seeking how, you know, talking about dopamine, you know, from fat hurry and all that kind of stuff. The brain releases more dopamine when you almost get something, when you're still, when you're almost there, when you're reaching. There's more dopamine in seeking than obtaining. So, you know, then, yeah, that's right. And so there's like a biological built-in, you know, preference for almost there. Almost there, almost there, 40 years later, almost there, if only one one. That's exciting and enjoyable and pleasurable. So, you know, next time, you know, it comes up and you lament, 40 years, 50 years, and I still don't get it.
Well, take a look. You're enjoying the ride.much oh you know there's nothing wrong with that yes and James answering to Ben there never was a ego or individual only an appearance and appearance is never lasting beautiful and Ben says what's wrong with right now unless you think about it quote-unquote And Jay says, good morning. And Julia says, as usual, loving this spiel. Thank you, Julia. And James says, a quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj, to remain without thought in the waking state is the greatest worship. And what you are, no matter how much noise of thought is happening in the head, you are without the thought. Mind is always clear, luminous, and empty.
The thought is just a ripple on the surface of the ocean. There is the thoughtlessness. So there is no requirement for the absence of thought. Just the realizing that prior to the presence or absence of thought is that eternity of existence, completely untouched and unaffected, just like the silence is unaffected by the noise. That which is affected by the noise is an appearance. But the stillness that you are,is always thought free and a thought free meaning the thought is free from the thought whether the thought comes and grabs some attention and goes takes it for a ride or the thought doesn't come it really makes no difference the freedom is now not when the thoughts will stop not in the future when something gets achieved or retrained or it's now is to be recognized is already here it's just to be recognized and it isn't recognized by someone oh when i will get realized when i will recognize there is no one to recognize that that's the subtlety of it it is already so And there is no one to get into it, to grab it, to recognize it, to own it, to understand it.
No, it is just, of course, like the presence of space, like the capacity for seeing. Is the capacity already there? Are you seeing right now, Bob would say? Yes, that's it. The seeing is already happening. Are you doing it? Nope. Is it a you? No. And yet the seeing is already present. The seeing is already effortlessly here. Without any action, without any understanding required, it's discovered, it's recognized.Yes, it is just the same. The being is just the same. Being is prior to seeing because seeing is again when the being is transformed to that machinery which converts it into a different channel, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling.
So that capacity for existence shows up as seeing, effortless, completely effortless, already here without any doing, without anyone needing to control it. And even the way where the seeing becomes looking, looking here, looking there, even that, which feels like, oh, I can choose where I'm looking. That's an illusion. But you can't because you first have to have incentive. The first has to be an invitation, a thought. Yeah, just as you're saying, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and thoughts. Yes. Included as well. It is that... The hallucination of the thinking process and the hallucination of free will, that is all just happening, just like all the seeming physical senses.
It's really just, and there's just a registering of it. That's all. But there's no... There's no causal agent sitting behind, you know, just like there's no causal agent functionally operating the smelling apparatus or the seeing apparatus, the touching apparatus. It's the same.with seeming thoughts, which is, you know, I spoke to somebody last week who, was dead set that he's still, I'm controlling my thoughts. I think my thoughts here, one plus one is two. See, I showed you. Okay, explain to me, how did you do it? How did you do it? What was the process by which you arrived at 1 plus 1 equals 2? Can you even find...
The person at the control board, the seeming person that you think you are, you thought of me sitting there for a while. I don't know, but I don't know. I can't answer that question, but I don't have an understanding of how I think. But I know it must be true because we have, you know, we have imaging studies and neuroscience tells us it's so. And then we talked about how, you know, even in the dream there are studies which show thatThe brain becomes active electrically well before there's conscious recognition of the thought. And it's quite some time. It's like six seconds or something like that.
So there's stuff firing and then the narration comes over the top and gives it meaning. And you can actually... See that for yourself, just going for a walk, just doing everyday activity, doing a jigsaw puzzle is actually another really good way to just observe how, you know, the hand reaches out, grabs a jigsaw piece and then the thought comes over the top, oh, aren't I clever, I picked the right piece and put it in the right spot.And it's just a recognition, like walking down the street, that there is an awareness of the temperature, of the wind blowing, of the birds chirping, but not necessarily any narration about it.
And then all of a sudden a thought appears, a narration appears, that seems to claim ownership of this awareness. Commentary that narration oh there's a bird I know what kind of bird that is therefore I must be the one who saw the bird no it was already there already recognizing but it seems just watch the mind to see how it functions But that's not the same thing as analysing. That just become, you know, increased awareness of how what's going on can create a real shift in terms of holding on to concepts and beliefs about me, the doer.It takes some seeming persistence and earnestness and courage too to really want to look and keep looking.
And the childlike curiosity, commitment, somehow it is like almost a devotion to that which the heart is longing for, the peace that passes all understanding. If there is a true affinity or that affectionate love for that being, then somehow it becomes more important than the yapping voice of what my auntie thinks of me or what my neighbor, whatever.being curious of just
seeing how the world comes through, how the dreaming happens, how the universe comes into existence with the thought, rather than following the thought and being taken for a ride. But even if the following thought and being taken for a ride happens, well, being curious, about how, you know, how charged that thought had to be.
To have that ride lasting for a minute or maybe an hour. And it's just having that attitude of, hmm, show me. I don't know. I'm curious. Rather than just being completely identified, I'm the mind. I know better. I know what I want. I know how to get there. Just having courage to be nothing, I remember, or just staying in a space of, I don't know, because it's only the mind that has the illusion of knowing. Then I don't know how it all comes into existence. The knowing. Is only of existence. The content or the way the dream comes, it can't be known. It can be experienced, it can be observed, it can be, you know, like,You switch on the TV and the movie shows up on the screen.
It isn't the full story. The movie, there is a backstory to it. But the moment that comes up with all those infinite backstories shows up in consciousness because you are. That's the only thing that can be really known. Everything else, hmm, mystery. I don't know. I don't know how my liver functions. I don't know what I'm going to eat in Sofia today. It's just like, wow, show me. The attitude of a child, let's discover. Without any presumptions of what the God is, of what universe is, of what I is, or what should it feel like when I am realized? How does it, what should I experience when I will finally get there?
All this nonsense that's full of assumptions i think i have a couple of comments here ben says sky like awareness is where it's at and he also says nisargadatta beckon asked to fall into the source of i am yes There is no me in or I in that. It seems that the point was to dissolve.the seer or nowhere and then says also i don't know is perhaps the highest sadhana yeah i don't know as a highest sadhana yeah it's lovely yeah sorry we didn't get jimmy to speak before he had to go so i at least let's get someone else to speak before everyone goes Dino, you want to?
Hey, come on. As you talk about the dream and waking up to the dream, there's no one waking up as such. There's no one to wake up or to become anything because there is no one. Simple as that. And like this, yeah, this dream, you know, attention is an amazing thing. You know, you mentioned it earlier. You said, how did you describe it? You said like God's painting, you know, just gave a metaphor, God painting, painting. Creation, creating, creating life. And I think if we use that metaphor, the paintbrush would be the attention, where the strokes went, what was painted. And it's an amazing thing to, you know, when...
You say, like, watch the mind and see how it functions.or it operates, like just watching attention itself and how it attends to a thought or how it attends to a string of thoughts, how it attends to a sensation in the body, in the foot, in the arm, or a feeling or an emotion or an object. And it's so curious to how it functions, how it works. And all of a sudden it can attend, it can sort of change and then there's an expansiveness. So it's not really attending to anything specific, but rather to existence itself, rather than the content of existence. Which is really not, well that's not the case because the content, the existence itself is always there, but the attention is often fixated on or habitually, that's not even true either, moving, seems to be moving, but nothing's moving.
Like everything's like existence and now and the immediacy is all there is, it's always spontaneous. And yet this attention seems to be painting a story, painting time, painting distance, painting once upon a time and happily ever after stories by focusing on these little vibrations of energy, of nothing, of dreamlike little clouds popping up and saying this and that and the other.And are they saying anything? They're vibrations. They're, you know, and what is it? What is a thought? Is it a word? Is it a word, a sound? These are words, these are sounds, but the word is not the thing. Bob used to always say the word water is you can't quench your thirst, you can't wash with it, you can't drink it, you can't swim in it.
Yesterday, you know, there was a word used, and isn't it amazing, like, just language itself, that none of it is the actuality. None of it can describe or explain, really, what the is-ness of the is-ness, the awareness or the nowness or the... what's actually going on. If I say the word phako, in Greek it means torch or lens or some way of like highlighting something. But when I say it, immediately provokes a response of like, you know, of a swear word. And yet in another context, another language, another culture it means you know attention almost it means like a lens in which to look at things um so fuck all this and fuck all that look at this and look at that who's looking and um so just yeah just to highlight like the words not the thing butYou know, how's everyone going with this?
Because, you know, it seems to be like words of describing it can just flow out and I can describe things and comment on everything that's been said and explained and pointed to and described and shown. And, you know, but I was always curious how other people see it and other people express it or other people have problems with it or stuckness or, you know, I remember sitting here and being a dean, being a character and getting glimpses and getting these little insights and all of a sudden, oh, yeah, I am one. Oh, now I'm not one. Oh, yes, I see it now. Like, yes, I'm actually not doing it now, but now it feels like I'm doing it.
And having these little battles, and as I was sitting here, I just remembered it. And the memory was now and all of that is now. So I'm just curious on how other people feel and express and struggle or don't struggle or, yeah, come across it and any difficulties that are faced. Because there really isn't any at all. Like you can easily just wipe, you know, you can dispose of every concept and every idea and all there is left is this. But these things seem to be the habitual pattern of belief in a me seems to come up and create.With the me comes the stories of the me, how the me does and doesn't and is and isn't and could be and shouldn't be, and time and space and all of that kind of jazz.
So I can describe all of that forever, but I'm more curious about how the people are finding things and experiencing things and struggling with things. So anyone's got something to say? It's just this tiny little trivial story. So I used to work at Nestle and they had quite a nice cafe for lunch and I don't like fish. So there was some nice battered chicken. For lunch, which I got because I like chicken. And then I sat down and started eating it and I was enjoying it. And I thought, oh, wait a minute, maybe this is fish.And then I thought, I was trying to tell the difference, you know, like is it chicken or is it fish?
Because I was trying to work out whether I was enjoying it or not enjoying it. So there you go. And I still don't know. So my memory isn't, I'm not sure if it's a good memory or a bad memory. I was a hypnotherapist for many years and, you know, part of that, I could easily... Convince you, you could say, to bite into an onion and taste an apple, or bite into an apple and taste an onion. And it was really quite like just the power of suggestion was, but I found that, you know, everything was so incredibly malleable, everything so malleable that out of all of these things that we could do in clinical practice and in play and all of this, and perception and the deception of perception.
And I found that the most malleable, the most gullible was every idea of me. It was absolutely ludicrous. So you could put all the different coloured...and this one's green and this one's Coca-Cola and this one's, and they could be the opposite flavour. And I would taste whatever I was told I was drinking. And still to this day, if you gave me chicken and told, and you gave me chicken, told me it was fish, all I would taste is fish. But the point isn't the experience. The point is the malleability and the dreamlike nature, like the way perception works and the way the mind works and the way that ideas work.
They're so whimsical. They're changeable. They're... Influential that the whole universe has conspired to make something appear in a certain way at a certain moment. And then in the next moment, it's something completely different again. Oh, very consistent, completely consistent. It's like, oh, no, I'm the kind of person who always knows what this is and that is. And the dream appears, like the nature of it appears to reinforce it. Oh, it's solid, it's real, and I am this kind of person because I only like this kind of ice cream. You know, look, look, you know, and every time I have that, oh, it makes me sick or whatever it is, or I don't like these kind of people.
Or I don't like crowds, and you're so convinced. And it seems like we could talk about it psychologically and mention that, well, we're wired this way and we are conditioning, but there will always be life.incredible that something will come along and actually destroy that whole notion in like that or it may not which is even more incredible because you cannot pick there is no one here to pick to to just to say how it actually works like the very very intricacies but they can be described and enjoyed and shared and talked and explained and But there is no knowledge, actually. No one can ever know any of it as such.
There's no knowing of it. The only knowing is the knowing of the thisness, of the nowness, of the aliveness of life itself, rather than any of the storyline, any of the content or description or describing content. So it's quite incredible. So with that, there is a complete, you know, you're walking constantly into the unknown. Everything is completely fresh and new. This is the fresh newness of it all. There's a real unknowing of what's going to happen next, the next word, the next thought Ross might turn around and thump me and say, shut up. You just don't know how it's actually going. It's so unpredictable and unexpected, and yet all expected and predictable things may appear in it at times, and then at times they'll just be shattered.
You know, something, yeah, like death is a really good one because death is a nice, you know,real quick swift way of um momentum worry you know remember that you must die in this existence um in this form in this way it's appearing is going to it's always morphing and changing but um that's that's absolutely you know perfect go for it Age, remember that you must age in this way. Except for you. Except for you. No, but also when you... Yes, but no, but yes, but no, but... Sorry, continue. No. Expectancy is interesting because, you know, there are plenty of... This is all in the dream and this is all a bit of fun, but there are lots of studies that show that...
You can give people, in an experimental setting, you have two groups and you give them two lots of drinks and you tell both groups that it's wine with 15% alcohol and both groups become intoxicated, but one group didn't get any alcohol at all, they just got something that looked like alcohol. It's expectancies. And you've known that for a very long time. You can make yourself drunk on just thinking. The world is a placebo. The world, the whole dream is a placebo. And we have a couple of funny comments. Anika says, fish is the chicken of the sea, they say. And Ben says, is it possible that we are all chicken or fish eating ourselves?And Julia says, opinions are also fleeting concepts.
This helps me not take my opinions to heart or that of others'opinions, good or bad, can change in a moment. Absolutely. Go on, Ross. Dean just jogged my memory about how in this unknown that we're navigating through, There's certain links that need to be there for the story to continue in the right way. And if you suddenly find that you can't find that next link, like, what am I doing next? You're in an unknown land. All you can do is just wait until something comes in, something comes to mind. Ah, that's right. I was doing that. You find the next step and then there's some sort of relief.
Because if you don't find that next step, you're lost. But being lost.Yeah. Doesn't that happen every morning when you wake up? Isn't that what happens? So when you wake up, when your eyes open, did you open, you know, what, did you internally flip the switch to make your eyes open? And the whole day then seems to go proceeds on that basis. And there's an illusion that I need to know what's going on and I'm planning the next step. And I'm planning to sit up in bed, twist to the right, put my legs on the floor, you know, feel the cold on the tiles, get up, walk to the bathroom.
It's never a plan to do any of that. It's just happening. You sort of do the hokey pokey. That's what that's all about. Foundations. Yeah, it's sort of like just suchness, isn't it? It's just suchness and somehow...navigate around in it. I'm going to just read that comment from James. It says, Dean, you thought you were a mortal hypnotist. And any of you guys here on this side of the room? Yay. Yeah, I don't know. I don't really have anything to say, but... One of the things that you're talking about, Kat, that kind of landed was when you were talking about, you know, oh, I understand theoretically.
Like, I understand it theoretically because it's often what I've, like... I'm like, yeah, I get the, I understand the thoughts, but I'm not living it or like it's not a constant experience. And it's funny because that thought, that in itself is just a thought. It's like, it's almost a trick of the mind to keep itself, like the main focus of attention is, yes, we get that theoretically, but you're not actually like... And then it's just, you see that and it's like, oh, I forgot, like I mistook myself for that again. And it's such a funny contrast when you're in these kind of like down these like little thought trains.And then it's like, oh, whoops.
Like, I thought that was me. And you see it just for thoughts that are flowing on it and the quality of it being good or bad. Because normally in my experience, the times I find it easiest to disengage is when it's just slightly uncomfortable thoughts or slightly like negative thoughts or something like that. And there's like, oh, whoops. And you see that thought and the... Even the concept of it being a bad thought or a good thought doesn't exist anymore. It's just this pattern of energy, like this frequency of energy that has a quality that you can't say is good or bad. It's just the perception of good or bad is only when you're attached to it or when you're completely identified with it.
And then there's a discomfort that comes in. But that's not, that actually has nothing to do with what you are.Yeah, and the contrast is so interesting in that moment because it can be quite stark. Yeah, and that's all the thought about I have a theoretical knowledge of this is just that. It's just mistaking yourself for that thought. And it seems so simple. Because I guess it is ultimately simple. And even... You know, like I've often had thoughts over the last how many years, like, oh, I should do more practice. I should like, when am I going to put the effort in to like, to push, which is hilarious because that thought is just a thought.
And like, I've noticed so many times in my life, like these cycles of dedication and focus arise in any endeavor whether it's exercise spirituality work and then they kind of fade away um and they arise again and i guess over time it's just so clear that this arising and falling away i have no control there's no one to control that or to like to push for that and even lately like There seems to be some, like, it seems to be in a rising period where I'm, like, more dedicated. I'm, like, there's more energy there and focus to have a regular meditation, regular inquiry, all these kinds of things.
But now I'm so aware that that's...It's not like, oh, good on you, like you're finally putting the effort in. It's just, that's just what's happening. And it's interesting because the whole spiritual endeavor is like trying to like understand more, work more. But ultimately when you look at it, there's just what's happening and it couldn't be any other way. It never could have been any other way. And it's just what is. And it's just such a paradox, like, to the way you think it happens. Yeah, anyway. That's great. And it has been like that for everyone and everything. Always. Like, always. And no one's exempt from what you just said.
Like, it's completely universal. And every bit of kind of, like, blame or, like, anger you could have at people kind of just drops away because how could they be any different to how they are? And like, you know, I remember my early 20s, probably a classic path when I first started getting interested in like self-development. I was like blaming my parents. Why do my parents have to give me this conditioning? I'm like, what a ridiculous thing to think. It's like everyone is just playing out the inevitable conditioning that they experienced. And, like, how could it be any other way? And even the judgment that they're, like, these people are doing bad things is false.
It's just, like, what is. An interesting thing that...that's noticed every now and then, is that I'm The mind just goes into a quiet, quiet state. It gets quieter and quieter. And then, um, It's like a meditation that becomes non-meditation. The identity of a character in the dream. gets less and less, and then to the point of disappearing. And then it's just, There's no cares and there's no worries. there's an identity that just dissolves. It's just one, just one. It's all just part of the...Just trying to think of that Shakespearean expression of this. From Midsummer Night's Dream. The pageant faded. We are such stuff as dreams are made of.
Our little life is rounded with a sleep.Shakespeare put it slightly better than I did. It's that just fading away, fading away. Yeah, to the point that there's no two left. There's no two, there's just one. But appears to be a multiplicity, but it's just one.Not a duality. Yeah. One more round of seconds. Not even one. I have a comment from the... Giotti says, why does the mind go into recap mode as soon as we wake up? Not sure if it's just me. Mind going to a recap mode as soon as we wake up. I see. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a download of the, yeah, it's like Bob was saying that every dream, if it picked out from where it was left before, would create the illusion of seeming continuity.
And this is the nature of this dream. Because this projector is designed in that way to create the really, really persistent, compelling illusion. And why not? Why not? Isn't it amazing? Well, if this...appearances is a dream or is a projector, like on the screen, like a movie. If it's a movie, then you could break up the little snippets that make up a movie, what's it called, the reel, in which the movie sort of, the frames. You'd wake up in the morning and all of a sudden, because I had these experiences quite often, and they're just little descriptions of things. There's no truth or knowing anything better or worse than anything else.
It's just a description. But this is quite a thing that you wake up and then there's nothing and then there's a sense of, oh, there's a slight aliveness in the face, for example. So there's like a little frame of like a face and then there's a face, there's a sense of an arm. So the next frame is a sense of a face and an arm. The next frame is a face of an arm and a leg. And these are just like, imagine less than milliseconds, you know, they're a continuous thing. They seem continuous. And this is like the building of the picture, of the image of this dream.
In one sense. So then there's a sense of, oh, there's a leg, there's two legs, there's an arm.on a bed and then oh yeah and then the next one is that there's a bed in a room either the room is in the house and then there's a house is in a in a place where there's an outdoor and an indoor and there's space and then oh yeah and there's a there's a me There's a guy called Dean who's actually got the head and the arm and the leg in the bed, in the house, in the room with the window outside, in a suburb. And that suburb's in a state.
And that Dean who's got a house in a bed with a window in the suburb has a kind of personality. He's a man or he's not a man or he's this or he's that. And it just, every frame builds. But it happens like that. So each frame just seems to build and all of a sudden he's a good guy, he's a bad guy, he's had a shit life, he's had a great life, he's got to go to work, he's got to pick up the kids, he's had a problem, he's got to pay taxes. Everything starts to combine. And then, whoa, oh, this is me. This is who I am.
It's just me. This is just me. This is my life. This is my story. This is who I am. This is how I live. And there's a world out there and they're all, you know, there's some bloody fuckwits out there and there's some good people and I just want to hang around with the good ones. And, you know, it just goes on and on. It builds and builds and builds. And then we're going to somehow unravel all this, undo all this, resolve it, cleanse, heal, resolve. It's not possible.Because it's just a projected bang, you know. It's now. This is now. And now is built with this projection.
And the projection, if it's broken down, is just these little fragments. And you are not the fragments or the projection of all this whole story. And it's a really interesting way of, when it's seen like that, it's, oh, there can't be any truth to this me and this reality as I once thought it was. And there's no one thinking it. It's just, and no one is doing this imaging. No one is actually creating it in that way. It's just appearing that way. And that's, freedom is the seeing of it. You can't be any of it any longer. And I hope that makes some sense. That's beautiful.
I got a question then. So earlier when Kat was saying we are that pre-sense, the presence, before all these senses. So if we can remain in that, then you won't be downloading all this sense of self. But it's impossible to be. Okay. Is it possible to be in the present 100% of the time? That's where you are all the time.Illusion that you're not there. Oh, really? Yes. You're always there. You never leave home. You're still a student. You're always there. No matter what movie. Yeah. Yeah. There's no need to get rid of the dream in Inuit. The only thing is seeing it for what it is and knowing that there's nowhere to go.
You never go anywhere. That's an illusion that I am this body travelling. It's like the dream. Kat was saying it's similar to the dream. It's like there's a sense of looking in on the dream from a point. In consciousness. And then there's a tying of that with the habitual I thought to the body. It's just a hallucination, as Dean just described. And then, you know, these other thoughts come and attach to the habitual I thought. But all of that is... Vibrations in space. So you could start from the point that you are that. You are whole. There's nothing to lose, nothing to shed, nothing to gain.
There's nothing missing. There is nothing to lose. We say dropping concepts and all.all that kind of thing. But it can all remain and it will all remain. There's no choice here. There's no one to make a choice. That is the, nothing will change in essence. You've always been that. You've never, you'll never be anything else but that. So see the assumption that there is something wrong, that the recap mode is created, that this is wrong, this is faulty, we don't want it, we want... God was an idiot. He actually created a faulty world, faulty experience and expression. It could be improved by creating a brain damage perhaps or taking a drug which completely disabled the memory part.
That's not true. If you see it, if you see the brilliance of it, that it isn't there is nothing wrong that the fact that you know like he was beautifully expressing the whole construct coming online you know like the the switch goes on the light and the recognition of oh yeah there is a body there's a house the whole download happens from the from the cloud of the of the existent memory it isn't a bad thing it's actually pretty brilliant because that is another phase of loving to be this particular vehicle experiences and expresses itself and has this particularfaculties the cats you see the cat like to next to you it also have limited memory it wakes up and everything is familiar it uses the smell more than it used the visual but it also finds the familiarity and it brings the sense of safety so the survival instinct doesn't have to flare flare up panic and and protect itself the nature of this dream is such and seeing beauty and brilliance in it rather than seeing it as faulty and trying to get rid of it relaxes completely any need to change anything about it and then the recognition that wow wow this is incredible and it doesn't have to stop then it's beautiful and we have a couple of comments here oh yeah a few more Ben says, suchness feel a lot like it is what it is.
And Ben says, mistaking yourself for that thought is about to close to self-awareness as it gets, brother. Well spoke. And Michael says, hi, folks. Miss you guys. Thank you for a beautiful meeting. We'll make it next week. So looking forward to seeing you then. Yes, see you, Michael. And Julia says, I'm guessing animals don't have that same sense of continuity or recap like human. Oh, I think I just addressed it. The cat definitely feels familiar in the same house.It doesn't work in the same way because they don't have symbolic language, so they don't have like that mental imagery coming from separating things by labeling them.
But there is still a survival instinct which creates the sense of safety in the familiarity. And Giotti says, it's like, don't forget how that incident person made you feel. And Ben is replying to Julia, one without a second would suggest animal or any inert thing might. There is no future. There is no past. Even the sticks and stones know its moment as our last. And Geotis says, thank you, Dean. Ha ha. Great explanation. And Julia says, love that, Tanya. And Ben says, just be aware of the dream, but don't be attached to it. And then you go. Well, just Tanya said to see him, she said, you know, just remember to start with the fact that you are that.
And as she said that, you know, and this is a common, like there was a flinch. I noticed you flinched. It's all recorded now. This is a serious matter. And it just reminded me of like, you know, like you can say that and then there can be a thought saying, well, I don't feel like I'm that or I may not know that or how do I know that?that or I'm not really sure. And all of that is just another thought on top of the whole show, just an obscuration like every other thought, telling you, like the details of the thought telling us it's this or that or the other described, but it's not.
It's none of that. So that's all. I just wanted to share that little bit. So I'm watching you closely. That's beautiful. And we have James says, who was born? Only memory. You are not memory. Yeah. But really, just seeing the faculty, the way the dream comes into existence as something utterly incredible and amazing and mind-blowing rather than something faulty, something that needs to be escaped from or fixed, altered, modified, corrected, not good as it is. How about we stay in pre-sensor? No, yeah, no, absolutely no need for it. It's a celebration of that incredible capacity of creating, experiencing and expressing and appearing as everything. Just without ever losing a touch because you can't not be present you cannot be conscious so the content that appears is an expression is that Shakti that comes or Maya that comes from the stillness to be you know just for a moment just a momentary appearance and it's quite stunning And it can't touch.what you are.
That's that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thanks, everyone online.