Bob's talk in Connecticut 2004

This talk was given at the Weston Public Library in Weston, Connecticut on August 20th, 2004 in the evening. Thank you. And I can't tell you anything. All I can do is point you towards some of the things that I found to be true. I don't know whether you've read the book or looked at the website, but there's a little thing I've got on there where it says I'm not speaking to anybody. I'm not speaking to any mind. I'm speaking to that I am that I am. That sense of presence or awareness of presence that expresses through the mind as the thought I am. Just this and nothing else.

So, I mean that I'm not speaking to your body. It's no use me speaking to your body. Because your body's worth nothing if that life essence is not in it. Nor am I speaking to your mind. Because your mind has no independent nature. Apart from that life essence. I'm calling that life essence, which is another concept, that sense of presence, that awareness of presence, or putting it around the other way, the presence of awareness. There is nobody sitting here who can say I am not. Each one of us knows I am. And so it's that essence, that sense of presence being expressed as that thought I am.

So when I'm saying I'm speaking to them, I am that I am. That's what I'm speaking to. That sense of presence, that knowingness that you are, just that, nothing else. So I know you should try to listen to me with the mind, because in the mind you'll have certain concepts about me, and about what I'm saying, and all the rest of it, and there will be no communication in that. When there's a you and me, we are not communicating. If I'm talking about presence-awareness or that essence that you are, if you like, we can call it heart to heart. And a heart in that respect is not this heart or some heart on the other side of your chest or anywhere else that I imagine it or postulate it to be.

Using the term heart as the core of your being, the center or the spirit. And then it's just that one spirit resonating with itself. And then there is true communication. I start from the fact that if you're seeking, whatever you are seeking, you already are that. And it's the search itself that becomes the problem. Because very subtly the search implies there is something I have not got, there is something I am going to get. And if you already are that, it's impossible to get something added to what you already are. I base what I talk about on what the ancient traditions have told us down through the ages.

In Advaita, for instance, the Hindu tradition of Advaita, which is nonduality, or as they say, one without a second. They put that added thing on without a second because even one implies that there could be something other than one. In the Dzogchen scriptures, I don't even know whether I pronounced that word correctly or not, but it doesn't matter, of Tibetan Buddhism which is the ultimate nondual teaching of Buddhism. They tell you clearly that it's non-conceptual, self-shining, ever-fresh, presence-awareness. Just this and nothing else. Hebrews say, Hear O Israel, the LORD thy God is one God, there is none other, meaning no one or no thing other than that.

That is all there is. Most of the traditions talking about truth, God or reality, they say it's omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience Total presence total power and total intelligence Does that leave room for you or me or anything else if it total So in other words, there can only be that. I don't like to use the term God because most of us come from different backgrounds and different traditions. There can be atheists here, agnostics, Christians, Buddhists, Hinduists, Hindus or whatever. I like to use the term intelligence energy, which is simpler to understand I think. And I'm not talking about your intellects when I say intelligence. Because a lot of intellects will be far better than what mine ever is.

I'm talking about that natural intelligence energy that functions this universe. That's what's keeping the stars in their orbit, the Earth going around the sun, the seasons coming and going, tides coming in and out. It's beating your heart right now. It's digesting your food, it's growing your hair and your fingernails, it's replacing the cells in the body. There's no me there saying I've got to take my next breath, I've got to take another heartbeat. If that me or that sense of entity were running the show, that's what you'd be doing, making sure you had another breath in you. But we don't even think about that or consider it, it's happening quite naturally, just the same as the Earth is orbiting the Sun quite naturally, the tides are coming in and out quite naturally.

And I don't know whether any of you have read I Am That or not written by Nisargadatta, but that name Nisargadatta means the natural state. And Datta is a so-called primary guru, the primary teacher. So he's put those two together and that's where the name Nisargadatta comes from. The natural state. And that's what we're pointing to here. The natural state, the livingness that is you right now, that's been glossed over by thought. Getting back to that one or nonduality sense of presence, that one without a second, everything can be broken down into that intelligence energy if you look at it closely, Just to point out that everything is that.

Take this body for instance, we call it body. If you have a look at it, what's it made up of? It's made up simply of elements. Air, fire, the digestive heat or the temperature of the body, water, space, and the matter in it, the bones and the rest of it, which is likened to earth. So it's nothing but the Subatomic particles are the elements, and the elements can be broken down into subatomic particles, into pure intelligence energy. That's all it is. And I say intelligence energy, I mean the activity of knowing. Intelligence is the knowing. I'm not talking about what was known or what will be known.

I'm talking about what is actually happening with each of you right now. As I said at the start, there's no one here who can say, I am not. You cannot negate that knowingness. If you say, I don't know, that knowingness has got to be there for you to be able to go. And that knowingness is the intelligence, the natural intelligence that I'm talking about. And because it's happening right now, it's the actuality, it's not the known or will be known, it's something that's actually happening presently. It's an activity or a movement. And any activity or any movement is energy. So that activity of knowing is that intelligence energy.

Or, if you like to call it the supreme duality god, use any of those terms. So, going back to the body again, as I say, the body can be broken down into that intelligence energy. So, there's no space or centre in here, there's no centre in here that I can say, this is where I began. I can trace this body back and say where did it begin? Well, as you can say, it actually started when the sperm and the ovum came together. The sperm, the essence of the food eaten by my father. The essence, or intelligence energy, eaten by my father. And the ovum, the essence of the food eaten by my mother.

And that food was the essence of something else and something else and some other food way back so it really had no beginning It beginningless And there was intelligence energy in that sperm because it knew where to find its way to There was intelligence energy in the ovum that knew to attach itself to the wall of the uterus. And when those two came together, what happened, that intelligence energy vibrating or functioning doubled that cell and redoubled it. Until the little fetus was formed. And I can go into that a bit further if you want. Or how it's taking the essence, the essence, the prana, the chi, and through the food of your mother and the breath.

And that essence is coming in through the cord. And when it's nine months old, it's born, the cord's cut and it's got to take its first breath itself. And I'll go back to that later on. So I can't find any spot in this body where I can say, this is my reality, this is my truth, this is where I began. Because all those cells, those original cells, have long since gone. And thousands and millions of cells are dying in this body right now. And they've been constantly changing. And there was always, though, in spite of that, that sense of presence, that underlying knowingness that you are.

Well, am I this mind then? No, I'm not nivāni. Am I this primary thought, the first thought? I am. Now we don't need to go around and we don't have to go around all day saying I am, I am, I am, to know that you are. That knowingness is there whether you're translating it as I am or not. If you're in deep sleep there's no I am. If you're unconscious or under anaesthetic there's no thought of I am. And you don't fall apart or disappear without that thought. So that's not the reality either. So, and what is thought? If I look at mind, or thought, is there such a thing as mind if I investigate it?

Can I find anything substantial that I can call mind, apart from thought? And which, what is thought? Thought is a subtle movement, a subtle vibration. At the spoken level it's sound. Sound is a vibration. And a vibration is a movement of energy, vibrating as words into patterns of thought. So it's still that intelligence energy vibrating as patterns of thought. So you can take this whole manifestation, and as I say, it can all be broken down into that pure intelligence energy, no thing. But it vibrates in such a rapid rate as it appears as all these things with substance and seeming independent nature. So where did this sense of separation come from?

Well, a little child when he's first, when he's born for the first two, two and a half years, he's functioning from that natural state. He's got no idea of separation at that stage. He's seeing everything just the same as we are now, hearing everything, and we're certainly aware. And this was beautifully illustrated in the documentary on the human body. This fellow got the little child, about 18 months, and put him in front of a mirror, and dobed his face with all different colours. The child was aware of the face in the mirror, but he didn't know it was him. And he made the statement, the child is not self-aware at that stage.

So, the child is not, he's just going along happily. If he's hungry, he'll cry. He'll cry, if he's happy he'll gurgle. When he's about two and a half years old, that reasoning starts with us, that thought starts to vibrate. And he starts to hear, now he's starting to hear things that his parents are saying and telling him, Johnny you're a good little boy, you're a bad little boy, you're this, that and the other. And with the reasoning he starts to learn certain words and starts to be able to think something. Comes to when he says, they're talking about me. Talking about I or me. If you look at your mind, being a vibration is something you'll see that is constantly vibrating in interrelated opposites.

If it not past which is memory it future which is anticipation and imagination And within that range it constantly vibrating in interrelated opposites it either good it bad it pleasant and painful happy sad positive negative loving hating and somewhere within that range constantly Have a look at your minds and see if they're functioning any other way. So with this reasoning when it comes upon him and he gets this I thought, what is the opposite of I? Isn't it not I or other than I? Now for the first time he's seeing things and he's realizing that's not me, that's not I. And with that sense of not I, he feels separate from that.

And with that sense of separation comes insecurity and vulnerability. And from then on we're insecure and vulnerable. And that's when the search actually starts. It's not a so-called spiritual search as that says, But it's a search to become whole, to become complete. He's lost sight of, because of his conditioning with the parents, he's lost sight of the fact that he was never separate and never could be. So the little child likes a warm loving family around him. He's got a warm and loving family, he feels much more secure and less vulnerable. And in the old days when families would form into tribes, because the bigger and stronger The more secure and less vulnerable I felt.

Today, nations form into nations and nations go to war with nations. Purely and simply because of that insecurity and vulnerability. Always unsure what the next nation is going to do. So if I get in first, I'll take their oil and that'll make me much more secure. Or they might invade me and take me over so I'll get armed up and all the rest of it. So you're more secure in this one way. And so it goes on. And then, if things don't work out then, what do we do? We invent what we call the spiritual. We invent what we call the god who is somewhere out there at some future time, if we're good.

Western religion will go up and sit on his right hand side and maybe at some future time resurrect. Or if we belong to some Eastern religion, at some future time we'll reincarnate. But you see, they're missing what the ancients have continually told them. It's omnipresence, it's omnipotence, it's omniscience. There is no future time. It's omnipresence. They're missing the simple message that's been passed down in all the great traditions. And you can see that quite easily if you ask yourself, is there a past if I don't think about it? In doing that you've got to pause for a moment. In that pause without a thought, you realize that I can't say a thing or even think a thing without a thought.

It's just what is. It's just as it is. Can't even call it presence-awareness without a thought. But I haven't disappeared, I haven't fallen apart, I still am. That knowingness is still there. And the same with the future. Is there a future if I don't think about it? Doing the same thing, I see that I can't anticipate or imagine a future without a thought. So from that I come to understand that time itself is a mental concept. That's all it is, a mental concept. And when am I thinking about the past? Can I think about the past in the past? Can I live the moment ago?

When I'm thinking about the past, it's actually presently that I'm thinking about it. The same with the future. Can I anticipate and imagine the future in the future? Can I go there and live in the future? I can't. I'm anticipating and imagining the future presently. So when people say, oh I was in the past, I was in the future, I was out of presence, I was away from presence. Don't you see that no way in the world can you ever get away from presence. No way in the world. The actuality is always this present moment. Now with that little child, that sense of I coming upon him, that I am is not too bad, but what happens to it?

All the events and experiences and conditioning that he starts to learn and acquire, he adds to that thought, I am. I'm little Johnny and I feel insecure, I'm not too happy, my parents don't like me or they're not treating me well or I'm a good little boy, I'm this, that and the other. All mental concepts are added onto that primary concept, I am. He forms a mental picture about himself and that mental picture being repeated and thought about so often seeming to become a concrete art, real. And so that's what we

They're called the self-centre or the ego, a reference point. And if you look at that closely and see, like I just said, it's only a bunch of concepts that have seemingly been repeated and believed in, that seemingly have some substance.

But those thoughts, any thought, has got no substance. Can you grasp a thought? And above all, and this is the most important part of it, there's no thought that has any independent nature. By that I mean there is no thought that can stand on its own. If that consciousness or awareness or pure intelligence energy or whatever name you like to call it wasn't there, how many thoughts can you have? That life force is out of this body. How many feelings, how many thoughts, how many aches and pains can it have? It's got eyes that won't be able to see, got ears that won't be able to hear, got body that's got no sensation in it, without that vibrating intelligence in it.

None of these things have got any independent nature, they can't stand on their own. But that's the problem. This self-centred or the ego, and this is what the ancients also tell us, you've got to be selfless, you've got to get rid of the self-centred. Selfishness, self-centredness, self-will, this is the cause of all your problems. There's no need to get rid of it because it never existed. It's a phantom. It's a mental creation. It has no substance or independent nature. And in seeing that and understanding that, you can no longer believe in it. When you investigate and see, you'll find that the false cannot stand up to investigation.

I can only point towards these things and it's up to you to take it or leave it, do what you like with it. And that's what will probably happen. So as I say, it's got no substance of independent nature, but that self-centre or reference point is the cause of all our problems. Because everything is relative to that reference point. It's judged from there, oh I see that picture and I've seen it before, I like it. How do you know? It's referred to that reference of past memory, of past, oh I've seen it before and I like it, or I don't like it, this is good or this is bad, I'll call this feeling anger, or this one because I've had it before, or this one fear because it's happened before.

All referred to this past image. We're referring to actuality, the livingness, to a dead image. So no longer we get into, no wonder we get into trouble. And when we get to the third image, well I can't do this, but if I do something, I will become something. Again, instead of being, we're becoming. We're moving down the road, and trying to become something at some future time. Missing out again on the livingness, on the actuality, in that mental erroneous beliefs. So that's why I say it needs to be investigated and seen, to see what we're doing. Everything is relative to that reference point, and it's an invalid reference point.

So that's why we're always in trouble. Because it's only a me that can be fearful, it's only a me that can be anxious, Only I am either can be full of self-pity or resentful or unhappy. If I understand that me is false, where nothing to attach to, can't attach to that false image, that's the cause of all my problems. And the effects are my fear, depression, self-pity or anxiousness. That's what karma is, cause and effect. If I understand and see that the cause is an erroneous belief, a false image that has no substance or independent nature, what must happen to the effects without a cause?

Ask yourself that, can there be an effect without a cause? Then all this energy work that I'm supposed to be doing, looking into my conditioning, peeling it off like an onion skin, one bit here, one bit there, and I realize that none of it can be there without a cause, And I'm not continually giving energy to the cause, the erroneous belief. The energy cannot go in, it's not going into the cause, it can't go into the effects. And the effects on themselves will drop away. Why And that basically what Tathagatam tatham katham All the dramas and traumas that we put ourselves through, when you get the physical knot in the guts, the ache in the heart or the lump in the throat, all through thinking, investigate those too and go into it.

And you'll find they'll dissolve. Seemingly created a physical lump in you, but that physical, when investigated, dissolves because it's only thought-based. So you see the mind affects the body just the same as the body affects the mind. So that's basically as I say what the teaching is roughly about. The relief from that psychological suffering. Doesn't mean to say that I have to stop thought. I can't stop thought. Because there is no thinker as such with any power or independent nature. And I can show you that quite easily. A lot of you might believe that. You know, you're all seeing right now. You're all hearing right now.

Is your eye saying to you, I see? Or is your ear saying to you, I hear? Or is there just a translation coming up through the mind, I see the chair, or I hear that sound? The seeing is happening. Then a translation comes through the mind, the thought, I see, the thought, I hear, the thought, I'm feeling this. Well then if you ask yourself, can that thought I see, your eye doesn't say to you I see, the ear doesn't say to you I hear. The seeing and the hearing are happening, translated by the mind. But if you ask yourself, can that thought I see, see?

Well can it? Can the thought I hear, hear? And the thought I am aware, is that your awareness? Is the thought I choose, is that the choice maker? Is the thought I think, is that the thinking? You see, it hasn't got any power to do any of those things. The thought I see, can't see. But seeing is happening, hearing is happening, thinking is happening, functioning is happening, prior to that thought. I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am, I Am. Stop. Stopping, thought stopped for an instant. Now did you fall apart? Did you disappear? Did you stop seeing? Did you stop hearing? Stop breathing? Without that thought, in that little gap, in that little cessation?

In that instant you were beyond the mind. People spend years trying to go what they call beyond the mind. But it's simply as simple as that. You look around the room quickly and look back and I ask you, what do you see? You'll say, I saw this and that and that. You'll be able to label or name with the mind a few things. But actually you saw everything. Like a camera lens, everything was seen. But very little was labelled. Again, in that instant, you were prized in the mind. And the same with the hearing, and how to function. If you go out, leave here, and walk down the street, and try and not label for a while, you'll realise that pure intelligence knows exactly what's happening.

It won't trip over the gutter, won't run... You'll notice a picket fence, a concrete fence, or trees in the garden, flowers, all registered You can translate and relate if you want. And I thought All it needs to happen is to understand it to see It is a translator basically And it a tool an instrument And it's a wonderful, useful instrument when utilized. This room was an idea in somebody's mind once. The technology that's hooked me up were ideas in somebody's mind once. So being a vibration at that end of the scale, it's all the art and all the Other things and all the rest of it, they're all, at that end of the scale, it's a valuable instrument.

But at the other end of the scale, when it tells us we're no good, in the vibration, we must vibrate into the opposite. We're not good enough, or we can't do this, or I'm fearful, and the worst one we put upon ourselves is, after all, I'm only human. But yet we call God the Supreme Being, and we call ourselves a human being. Take away the labels, see if you can separate the beingness. Now you see it's the labeling, the thinking, that is the problem until it's understood. In understanding, it's freed up, it's no longer a problem. So, have you got any questions or any arguments or any doubts or thoughts?

Get into it. The thought process, if a thought is delivered from who knows where, thought is presented to the mind. It's not thought by the mind. It comes from somewhere. And then you latch onto the thought. That's what troubles. Resisting what is, and resistance is conflict, conflict is disease. We're uncomfortable when we're in conflict. So it's that very latching on to that dead image that is the cause of the problem. But what is means unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected, just as it is. So if it's left unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected, another thought will come up, might be worse than the last one. But if that's left unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected, it gives that thought freedom to flow.

And that freedom to flow, in that conflict there's blockages of energy. And when there are blockages of energy in these meridians in the body, there is disease. And that freedom to flow, the natural state again, you'll see nature itself functioning in the pairs of opposites. They're not in opposition. Tide comes in, it's not fighting the outgoing tide. It takes a turn. Winter is not saying, I wish it was summer. Nature is not in the opposites. With us, we're always interrupting those pairs of opposites. If we learn to be in the natural state like the little child and let them flow, we don't have to learn it, we already innately know that.

Each one of us innately already knows what I'm talking about. That's why some of it will resonate with you. That resonation is a recognition within you of your natural state. One other thing on that. When... thought doesn't do anything, but if I'm walking through this room and I have no thought, I'm registering everything in the room? Yes. But when I focus on something, I can only do one thing at a time. Is that correct? Yes, sir. And to say again, when you're just registering everything, it's all spontaneously one, isn't it? But when you focus, you're focusing from here to there, and you're bringing in a sense of separation.

But just as you're aware right now, spontaneously, you don't have to kickstart awareness. You don't have to kickstart the hearing or seeing or thinking either. It's spontaneously happening. And there's no thought, I think, there's just an overall thing, there's no thought, I see, but you're seeing all around you. When the focus comes upon, the focus again is coming from the reference point somewhere. That's focusing on... To take this idea a step further if I were sensory deprived if I were deaf and blind or I were in a room with no access to my senses how would I know that I exist Since we use our senses as reference points.

There would be existence there, but probably wouldn't be, you know, the knowing would be just pure knowing. What happens when you don't have a body anymore? Where is the awareness? Pure, functioning, intelligent energy. It has no beginning and no end. Like space, it has no center, no circumference. It's everywhere and everywhere, if you like to use those terms. When you haven't got a body, what happens? Intrication stops, instead of cells being added to it, it stops and it turns around and being a vibration it starts to move the other way. Disintrication starts, enzymes and things will start to devour or eat up this body. That's myriads of life getting life out of this body as they devour it.

Then the maggots or the worms or whatever will come in, get a feed, till it gets down into the ash or the earth, whatever it is, and in that earth there might be a seed, well, you know, with a bit of sun on it, a bit of water and a bit of air, will take its nourishment from what's left over, and that seed might be a blade of grass or something, something will come and eat the blade of grass, and something will come and get the thing that's eaten the blade of grass, and so on. Life continually lives on life. It doesn't know death. Can't no doubt.

Patterns of energy fall, patterns of energy break down. There's no energy ever lost. Nothing can be added to it, nothing taken away. If this earth were to blow up into atoms tonight, you know, a whole lot, and it'd all be there in space, there wouldn't be one atom of it lost anywhere. But you couldn't call it an earth. The sense of I am, though, doesn't continue. That sense of presence? Yeah. It hasn't got a pattern to express truth. It's just pure presence-awareness, omnipresence. It's total presence, total intelligence. There's no pattern through which it's expressing truth that's seemingly dividing it up or limiting it. It's the unlimited potential.

What's your relationship between the individual body-mind and this intelligence? Wow, it's all the one intelligence energy. There's no individual body-mind of such, in essence. Where did they get the name individual from? Individable. Though it's seemingly so. So what really makes us feel we're individual is really simply that concept of self, And when the body-mind goes, that concept of self goes, we're just pure awareness. Which you always were anyway. Even with the... That's what I was saying, understanding it. Even with the concept. It's just that pure awareness. And understanding a concept is a concept. A concept is not the thing. That's another saying in the Dzogchen scriptures of Buddhism.

Dzogchen, when translated, means the great perfection. They put it simply in one sentence. The great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. Now that doesn't mean to say you've got to stop conceptualising, but it's simply understanding a concept as a concept. Concept is not the thing. And taking that, everybody in this room would have a concept about you. You have a concept about yourself. Which concept would be correct? Which concept would be correct? There would be no concept would be correct, would there? So then, if you know that the concept you have about yourself is not correct, you know that the concept other people have got you is not correct, what could you care what the other person thinks about you?

Takes away all that hassle. You don't have to put up an idea or image, I am the image, I've got to be like this, or what will they think of me? Or how will they do this or that about me? It just goes through to the keeper because there's nothing near for it to touch to without a concept. It's free. How many concepts have we wondered what concept they've got, what they think of me, but you don't know what concept they've got, they mightn't be thinking that at all. And the concept about yourself. The body is just a manifestation of this creative intelligence. Just a pattern, vibrating, formed.

Like everything else. And no need to have the body for that creative intelligence or presence to be there. It contains the body. The body can never contain it. That's why you can never grasp it in the mind. The body is arising within it. Just like a reflection in the mirror. You can't say the reflection of the mirror is not there. You look at it, you see the reflection. But go up and try and pull the reflection out of the mirror. You can't say it is there. Because all there is is the mirroring. The image, you know. It's only pure mirroring. Can you speak up please?

It would be hard to word this in a way that's concise, so I'm going to try and just spit it out. So for a while I realized that I was constantly resisting every Monday. Oh, it's Monday again. Oh no, it's Tuesday. Oh no, now it's near the end of the month. And I realized that that was exhausting. So I thought, the squirrels don't know what day of the week it is. and that works for a little while, and on the one extreme which is the way I understand Veda is if I'm not the doer because there's a greater intelligence doing then there should be no shoulds that I act on, But when I try and not act on the shoulds, then I feel remiss, and then what will make me do the thing that has a deadline or that looks like something I should do?

Can I trust that if I just sat in my chair? Well you can't do anything, because that you you're talking about is the conceptual entity. But what happens is, all that can happen is the recognition of your resistance. You say you're recognizing that you're resisting, that recognition must come from a point of non-resistance. Because if you're totally resistant you don't recognize, you don't realize you're in it. Totally fearful, totally angry, you know. But when you recognize that that resistance is there, it's from the point of non-resistance. And that point of non-resistance, you're there. It might only last, because of our habit patterns, it might only last a couple of seconds.

But the very recognition of it and seeing it, you know, it'll come up again and again from that pure intelligence and it's the recognition of it. Because now you've been pointed to what's going on, you know, and that will become up more and more. And in that you'll sense a very, very subtle relaxation in that non-resistance, a sort of dropping away or letting go, where there's nothing to drop away or no one to let go, but it just happens naturally. Functioning intelligence recognising itself, that's all that needs to happen, you know. You see that intelligence energy, when the reasoning started, the reasoning was like a cloud that formed over the sun.

And from that time on, two and a half, everything is a quiet mind from then on. It's all learned stuff. And the focus goes into that learned stuff. And we miss out, it's seemingly like the cloud, it's seemingly hidden, the natural functioning, which is still going on, the breathing and the heart beating and the cells growing in the body, it's still happening, all effortlessly. But it's forgotten, not recognised. But you see, going back and seeing this all as a cloud, have a look at those thoughts that come up. We'll use the analogy of the sun. The sun is constantly shining in the sky, or the metaphor of the sun, isn't it?

It's in space. Now, the sun never leaves space, no matter how thick the cloud is, does it? Understand that there's no cloud that's ever attached to the sky. No cloud ever attached to space. Look within yourself and you'll see that there is no thought that's ever attached anywhere inside of you. That other thought seemingly attaches to it or fixates on it. You know the thought I am seemingly fixates on it and causes that conflict. But it's not attached anywhere. Have a look and see where yesterday's thoughts are now. Where did they come from? They came up like a cloud coming into the sky. Where have they gone now?

What did you think five minutes or ten minutes ago? What were you thinking? Or last week or yesterday? They're gone. They're allowed to flow. When the clouds flow freely in the sky, the sun reappears again. So the practice is to... Well, there is no practice, but eventually, if there is an eventually, You're aware of presence right now? Aware of what's going on? Not focusing on anything particular You recognize when the resistance comes There won be any practice It be just a knowing You sitting on that chair now You know when you uncomfortable and you move spontaneously The same thing with the mind You recognize resistance When you focus on a particular thing, then you're creating a false self.

Yeah, a sense of separation coming in. Right, subject-object. And that's the illusion. We're seeing right now, aren't we? The thought comes up, I see. The thought comes up, I see the wall or whatever it is we're seeing. The thought I see is the pseudo-subject. And the thought, the wall, is the object. So they're both thoughts. They're both contained in seeing. When you ask yourself, can there be a seer without seeing? Can there be? A seer without seeing. Can there be a seeing without seeing? You see that seeing is the base, seeing is the actuality. The seer and the seeing are formulated things on that seeing that are seemingly divided.

But it's still the one unseeing. Pure perception. And you don't have to start that, nor can you stop it. When you close your eyes, you're still seeing the darkness behind your eyes. So it's just everything that's added onto that that causes all the problems. And you don't have to stop adding on. Get a good grasp or understanding by investigating of your essence and realise you can't escape from it. The sun can never fall out of the sky. In doing that, everything can become all-inclusive again. All the words, all the thinking, just living. Everything is that. No matter how it appears, it has always never been that.

And that investigation, can that take the form of looking to try to find that place? Yes. Where the individual is, you can never find that place. Yes, it'll take what it, you know, you see, you understand that there is no centre now. When was there ever a centre? If it's not there now, could there ever been a centre with any substance or any independent nature? And that you must realize that from the time you can first remember, and even before that, that pattern of energy which you call you has been lived. There hasn't been any entity capable of doing anything. So all the fears and dramas and traumas have happened, have happened through that entity.

It seems like the mind is the entity, but then when you look for that mind, there's nothing there. No substance or no independent nature. You can't. There's just nothing. It's just thought coming and going. That's why you realize you'll never find the answer in the mind. The nature of the mind being a vibration is to divide. And all division takes you away from the non-dual. So is it worthwhile to make that investigation to try to look into the mind and see what the nature of that is? It will take it there itself. It brings you to a place like this and you're reading books on it.

You hear what resonates with you and you'll do it. You'll look in that direction. It won't be you doing it. Just as long as it turns you to this sort of thing, it will do the job for you. Just be open to it and allow it to happen. When the intelligence energy is operating here without interference of thinking, which was happening while we were talking from time to time, that was happening while we were talking from time to time, but then very quickly there's an anxiety that comes in to get back into the world, I guess. So it never lasted very long before the thought is there being grasped at as a source of security.

But it's good you've had a taste of it. It won't last long initially, purely and simply because that belief in the mind can't abide no thing. Being a thing itself, it can't even abide, and I think so, when the silence and stillness comes about, it's used to the gross sensations out there, that's what we've been conditioned to do. It can't sit with the subtleness of emptiness or pure awareness. So, it'll come back again and again, you'll get glimpses of it more and more frequently. Just keep looking. But you can't really practice that. No. No. But whatever has resonated here will come up in your thoughts sometime.

I feeling this and then you might say well that idiot up there was telling me there no me is he right or is he wrong That might be the way I have a look and see and I direct you to look at that you see and you have a look and investigate and see for yourself In hearing it and reading it, you know, the practice comes about. The mind sort of wants to reason it out, but it's really a direct knowing that there's nothing there. What is the difference between the two? We grasp in the mind because it contains the mind. The mind can never contain it.

That's why they say in the Gita, the sword can't cut it, the fire can't burn it, the wind can't dry it, the water can't dry it. Because none of those things can contain it, it contains all of those things, so they can never touch it. The same as, you know, silence will always overwhelm sound, no matter how loud the sound is. It can take long for silence to come back in. And it's that same knowing that we have all the time that sees there's nothing to believe there. Yeah. Well, have a look at it, you know, from the time you can first remember. That knowingness has constantly been there.

Has that ever suffered any dramas or traumas? Any fear or any anxiety, the knowingness itself? People say to me, I ask you, what happened to you when you were a little child? Or so and so, this and that. I say, how do you know? I was there, it happened to me. I say, did you have the same body as you've got now? No. Did you have the same image about yourself as you've got now? No. I know, I certainly different, that's certainly changed, the body's changed, the image about myself changed, everything has changed except that sense of knowing. Where that... And it's just like, another term they use for it is wakefulness.

And they use that in Buddhism I think, wakefulness. Just to illustrate it again, you wake up in the morning, just there, in an ordinary, everyday, commonplace wakefulness. You're open your eyes, you're awake. You might stretch in bed, or you might get up, you might go to the toilet, the bathroom, have a shower, shave, get dressed, go out, have your breakfast, go about your business, all sorts of activities taking place. But has that wakefulness, that you started out with this morning, has that changed? It's all taken place in that wakefulness. And the wakefulness hasn't been contaminated or touched by anything. All the rest is conceptual happening.

But your essence, that constant knowingness, is not changed. And that's what you really are. Know things. What's the purpose of our existence here? Is there a purpose? And if there's no purpose, then what to do with our time? Every nature's livingness expressing, you know, that can tell the patterns of energy expressing itself. And it's, you see there, it's there in all the rest of the nature, you know, the old stuff, hasn't it? Like, oh, I can give you plenty of stories, conceptual stories about the play of consciousness, the dance of shaver, and anything like that. It's as they call it, Sat Chittananda, existence, consciousness, bliss.

Existence is being, consciousness is knowing, and bliss is loving to be. Every one of us loves to be. We'll do anything to keep alive. That its purpose So we eat and procreate to carry on that livingness or beingness what we think. It's a nightly withinness. So the purpose is just that it is? Yes. And then we create all these reasons for being. Is it its purpose just that it is, or is it its purpose to sustain itself and continually sustain itself in some sort of existence? Nothing really ever happened. Patterns of energy have appeared, like in the mirror again. None of those reflections have been nothing but reflections in the mirror.

All this diversity and all this wonderment and all the rest of it, there's still that intelligence energy appearing as different. And we've taken the appearance to be real rather than seeing, like you go to sleep at night and you dream. In your dream you'll find yourself taking active parts, you can be in the city, you can be in a car, you can be in all sorts of situations in the dream. And you can find yourself speaking, hearing and seeing. But is that dream body seeing or hearing? Is it? The dream body? Take an active part. You know it's running around? Your body hasn't moved off the bed.

That dreaming is going on. When you wake up in the morning, what happens to the dream? Gone. And the dream is contained in sleep. You don't dream when you're awake, you know, it's contained in sleep. Without sleep, the dream doesn't take place. The same as the waking dream, if you like. It's all taking place in awareness or wakefulness, which they call wakefulness. Would you have any speculation on the unique condition that a human being has, Having to, unlike for a volcano, a human being has the delight of obscuration and going through the process which is so elegantly described, going through that. It has the singular, it appears to be, to have the singular distinction of going through that process of separation, the apparent process of separation and the apparent rediscovery of the invisible.

And I'm just interested to hear your speculations. It displays in all appearances and possibilities. This is a wonderful possibility that the so-called human appearance is able to display in a marvellous way. Just the same as certain insects and things like that with several different thousands of lenses in the eye and other ways. The miracle of it all is an amazing display of appearance and possibilities which it can appear in and display in. But there seems to be, again an emphasis on the word seems, seems to be the particular, this particular, Nisargadatta was given the name Nisargadatta, right? I am not a natural state. I still don't see from what you said just now about the insects and the delight of that, of the peculiarity of insect-ness, how that, why, I'm just, I'm still just curious.

It's a curiosity, it's not a, it's really not a burning question for me. It's an interest, and I just wondered what your fantasy was on that. I fight with that, I mean that. Because people say that consciousness is delighting in the study itself. So, okay. That's another concept. Exactly. So, there's another concept. We place so much importance on ourselves, you see. That's the reference point. Everything is evaluated from our reference point here. But our reference point is an invalid one. Just to say that any other reference point is invalid. And that brings about the time-space concept and everything else along with it. But take this, you know, go out a few thousand miles out the other side of the moon in space and look down on this earth.

The earth would be about that size from there. Where would we be on that? We'd be just like the microbes that you call them around your face right now, you see. And I've killed a few thousand of them just by doing that. And they're just as important in the scheme of things as everything else. Just delight in the fact that you have these capacities of intelligence and reasoning and all that, and utilize them rather than let them destroy ourselves and tell us we're not good at it. Just the being. Is there something that underlies, that is more fundamental than the I am, the I am-ness?

Is there an absolute which is more fundamental than I am? Is that possible to grasp? Even set aside the grasping, because that denotes a subject-object, but let's... Is this to be more fundamental than the I am, I am-ness? Emptiness. They call it, another term they use for it is cognising emptiness with the capacity of knowing. That's pure intelligence. So, have a look here, when you look in here and you can't find a centre here, what must be there? There's no centre, it must be empty, mustn't it? But there's still seeing happening, hearing happening, till the functioning happening, so it's that emptiness itself that has that capacity of knowing.

And that's the basis, no-thing, emptiness. It's not a void, because it's infused with that intelligence. That's emptiness. And we know that in our language. They call this a phenomenal universe, don't we? Have a look in your dictionary, look up the word phenomena. It means that which appears to be. That's the manifestation, that's the phenomenal universe. The unmanifest is the opposite of phenomena which is noumenon. Look in your dictionary, look up the word noumenon, and the definition of that is that which is. So it's the unmanifest, or the emptiness, or the no-thingness, That is the reality. And the phenomena is appearance. That's been known for ages, ever since those words were formulated.

So that's the fundamental base of emptiness, but that emptiness is not a void or a vacuum. It has that capacity of knowing or pure intelligence. And as I say, you see there's no centre of reference point there. That's what's happening with you right now. You are knowing. You can't negate that intelligence or knowing. and do away with their physical body. From what we talk about, they really haven't done anything except resist the infinite intelligence which had them wake up that morning, or are they following the infinite intelligence which moves them to take their life? Or can you not answer that? Maybe I don't need to know.

But it's... I wonder. That's the way the functioning happens, you know, the pain is such that they've got this belief that they can find a way out by suiciding. So technically, you know, we judge that, we judge that that's awful, but that's a judgement, isn't it? Because we don't know... There's nobody doing it. Nothing. They're only getting rid of the mind. You can die right now to that sense of I Am. That is what was born. A little child prior to that was just that knowingness. They didn't know I Am. And you can die right now to that, you know. Because it's a derogative belief.

That's why, I don't know whether you know St Francis' prayer or not, Dhanusha Dharam I Am the One eternal life He not talking about dying or bumping himself off He talking about dying to that sense of self That only then you can become an instrument of peace That death of self St Paul says the same thing He says, I die daily. Again, he's not going to knock himself off every day. He's just dying to that self. And that allows the sunlight of the spirit to shine through, if you like. The living. The causing of one's physical death by oneself would almost disallow the dying in the life to be the instrument.

I mean killing off the body doesn't get you there. Who does it? Is there an entity there that can really do it? As I say, life lives on life. We think it's so important because of our so-called humanness. Take where you started. How many sperms died and one sperm made it? The rest were alive. But they were expendable. A pine cone can fall off a tree with a thousand seeds in it. I Nisargad tatham, A few of them might sprout, not all of them, some of them won't reach maturity, they'll be eaten or chopped off or something like that. But the amount is, nature is prolific in allowing that life to continue in all its diversity.

It has ways of breaking it up too if it gets too overwhelming or something like that. Civilisations rise, reach their zenith, then they fall, other civilisations come up and take over. There's places down in South America, I don't know what they call them there, what is the picture, something like that? Those big cities that were all covered for years, they were all cleared, they'd cleaned the foliage and the land I am a man of the earth. And we think we're the most important part of it because it's us. When the body dies, Bob, then knowingness is there without an object. The knowingness is still there.

It's omnipresent, yes, it's always there. It's just knowing the void, the emptiness. Well, there's a story, but it can't know itself in that unicity. In that unicity it can't know itself. So, space, we use the metaphor space. Space can't know itself, can it? It's got no centre or no circumference. It's got no reference point in which it can see itself. What's the very first thing you're seeing? You're seeing right now, what's the very first thing you're seeing from where you're sitting? What's the very first thing you're seeing from where you're sitting? You're seeing? Now simple question, not a trick question. Just objects. Just all that's arising.

Yeah. Yeah, but what's the first, the very first thing you see? You. No. The very first thing you see is me. No. The very first thing you see is space. Oh, I see. And what are you seeing out of, how many eyes are you seeing out of? Actually seeing. Hmm? Two eyes. And your presence-awareness is what you can actually see, not what you've been told, not what you've seen in the mirror. Can you see two eyes? Can you see? No. There's just a space there, isn't there? Open and empty. Any thoughts in it? No. It's a vacuum, it's clear, it's empty. So, space can't see itself.

So what it does, it vibrates, and it vibrates into a pattern, a frame, from which it's able to see itself. Not only says itself but everything else that's appearing in it. That a story Though in its unicity it can know itself there nothing to know Just pure knowing which nothing can be added to nothing can be taken away And you are that. And just as there's only space when we look out, there's only space when we look in. Yes, there's that emptiness there. That emptiness of dying. You talked a few moments ago about dying to the sense of self. And earlier you talked about presence-awareness, I Am.

So when I look inside I think I'm getting them confused. They're sort of like intertwined. You know, the awareness of presence, awareness that I am and the sense of self. So I'm wondering how to get them unentwined. What is your sense of self? Well, part of it is just sort of a kinesthetic sense of my body. You know, I can feel the air on my skin, on my butt, under the chair, and that's part of it. Is it just is-ness? Is it that sense just is-ness, a sense of is-ness, of being? There is a sense of just isness. Well there's something that notices that. Yeah, it knows it, but prior to noticing that, it's just that is-ness, isn't it?

Yeah, but it's not... Yeah, yeah, there's not... I can't grasp it. Oh, well you never will. You try to grasp it with the concept and you can't. But that, you know... So there's no confusion in that, when you see that, you know. Confused is when you get material mixed up. Don't have to negate the sense of self or the beingness or whatever. Just, as I say, seeing it and understanding it. Carry on with all the doings of the body, which you will do. Let the livingness happen, express. So in regards to the livingness that happens, that we're not doing, it's just doing us, Is there a certain, I don't want to use the word destiny, but is there a certain story that at some point gets stamped on us?

I've read some Ramash and he refers to some kind of, you know, there's a destiny when the body is created that it has a certain story, an event, an adventure, you know, a happening, a livingness that will occur for that. And through that, it's not us, but it's life expressing. Have a look at that. What does that imply? What does the word destiny imply? Time. Time for just this, this body-mind. That's it. How many times is there any such thing as time? Can there be? It's all now. So it's always been now from the time of your little child to growing up, seemingly time, but it's now.

Actuality is always now. So that doesn't leave room for a future destiny, does it? It'll be now all the time. However it changes or whatever in the now, you know. So even the thought I am is an addition, it's an added on to the pure perception. Exactly, that's why it's translated. You know that you are without I am. And then you just add that thought on. Yeah, that's the thing. So it translates through the mind. It's unnecessary. There is a certain play that goes on, a certain dance of life or lila, whether we want to actively participate in it or not, it goes on choiceless really by us.

We're just the observers of the whole dance going on. There's really nothing to do except to get back and enjoy it. I mean we can actively participate, but it's still the play. And you have no choice in that whether you're active or participate or don't, have you? It's going on. Right we were participating in it whether we more active or passive But you can be more active or passive you just have to be with you are And there no we to do it you see It all it appearing as we So the appearance of realizing this or not realizing this... Doesn't really matter. Because the only thing is to know that you are that anyway.

You're already there. What would the realization be? A thought, I'm it, I've got it. More problems. More problems. You got it, you could lose it. It starts from that fact, the fact that what you're seeking you already are that. And then all that's necessary instead of trying to acquire something is to drop the rubbish that comes up and tries to make you think, I believe otherwise. You can get caught in the illusion. The nihilistic part of it, these people that tell those stories are trying to make a point in some way. So how does it square if somebody says destiny, which in some part comes to the nihilistic point of view, but there's a destiny for everyone.

And you've just explained or I inferred from what you said that there really is no destiny because it's all now, it's happening now. What would be the point of the stories that people tell? Is there a reason for them telling those stories? You know what I was going to ask? Good. Who? I had an experience last week, this was the other thing I wanted to ask you about. I was taking a walk at night by the water and in a really pretty lousy place, mentally, emotionally. And all of a sudden I stopped and I observed a house that was on the water. And it was totally lit up.

I mean, all you could see was light and open windows. All of a sudden I thought, what is that house but space? And so then I kind of thought, well, things happen in that space, you know, fights and happy times and dinners and parties and furniture moving and stuff. And then I thought, is that what I am? Just the space within which things happen, emotions, actions. And could I just be that? And so when the structure of the house ends up coming apart, the space that is the house is still maybe a space that is merging with the rest of space, which means it hasn't gone anywhere and done anything.

And that gave me such a sense of peace until I tried to figure it out if that could really be so. And oh my goodness, is that what they would, you know, and so could you just comment at all on that one? It came up by itself. You didn't think that. It came up by itself. But then you see it, that's the only story, then the thought come in, try to conceptualize it, grab it with a concept and all the rest of it. The peace was seemingly covered, the cloud had come over the sky again. But let the cloud be and realize that's not attached either.

So that's what happens, insights like that come up on their own accord. In your words, in your understanding that you can grasp, where I might be trying to explain it, you won't understand what I'm saying. And I've seen many houses with their lights on tonight. Yeah. But they'd never have... yeah. I never had that knowing. I never had knowing about it the way it arose. Well, you know it's there now. That essence is there. Don't go chasing it with the mind. Because you'll never find it. And allow it to come. Thank you very much.