This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
And we got Anthony and Ross. And we got Sailor Sisters and Bob in between. There we are. And welcome everyone. That's a tiny little family group. So we are gonna hope for the interaction in between us to make it flow, to make it going. But if it will go quiet too soon for too long, we just do what Bob usually did in small groups like that. Just send people home after an hour. So, yeah, let us know if there is any problem with hearing, with audio. And as usually, invitation is up. Anyone would like to start? Anyone would like to give us a few pointers?
Put a couple of them together? Love you, Kat. Please go ahead. Love you too. How about you, boys? Yes. Yes? No, no, no. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, so, well, basics. Everything runs on autopilot. Nobody does a thing. If there is an energy of soul-kicking in the body, that's the energy of soul-kicking in the body. There is nobody who does that. So there's nobody who can overcome that, nobody who can...stop it, nobody who has started it. The microcosm, which is the human body, works just the same way as the macrocosm, the whole universe. Nobody is moving the sun or the stars, nobody is moving the rivers towards oceans, nobody is creating the tsunami waves or volcanoes or earthquakes or typhoons or hurricanes.
And at the same time, absolutely everything is creating it. The hurricane wouldn't have happened if the butterfly didn't flap the wings somewhere on the other side of the world. Or anything else if there was missing. A hurricane wouldn't have happened if there wasn't enough of the warm air rising towards, or if there wasn't enough of the pressure difference making the whole masses of air moving. It wouldn't have happened if it was too close to the equator and the spin wouldn't be strong enough. None of those things could have existed if not for the whole universe contributing to that particular outcome. So if there is a soaking happening, it wouldn't have happened if the butterfly didn't flap the wings.
If you were born in a different country, in a different family, if you were having different breakfast or better night's sleep. The same way the planet moves around and is held by gravity, which there is no such thing. It's just the explanation of using human terms or human way of understanding.and writing down the laws, they are no laws, they are all questioned, they all over centuries become discarded and something else explains the situation better. So whichever way it works, it works in the unison with the 10,000 things or infinite amount of factors. Contributing together to this particular outcome. The planet moving around the sun, the hurricane, the sadness, all of it.
Nothing, there is no one doing anything. But of course, Kat has something to say about it. But of course, in that incredible human adventure, with that incredible machine that is interpreting everything that's happening and writing down the laws, this happens because of that, there is a karma, there is a cause and effect. I'm offended because this one told me that one, or the planet is moving around the sun because of gravity, or whatever else. All those stories, all those because stories, the justification with logic. Is inherently present because that's the way the machine has been designed, that's the way it has been programmed. So the body is responding to the environment just the same way the body of Hurricane is moving in a particular manner.
This body is like...a hurricane, a whirlpool moving in a particular manner in the universe, moved by all the forces moving together. But because it is a biocomputer, it also has the storytelling equipment there installed, which says, oh no, I'm moving like this because of that. This wouldn't have happened if that. And this is your fault or this shouldn't have happened. And I suffer because it is unfair. It's happening to me. And all that is the psychological suffering coming only from that tendency to tell ourselves a story. About the movement of energy. The energy is moving. Hurricane doesn't have a story. The planet doesn't have a story.
The sun doesn't have a story. But the cat and dog, they don't have a story. But the human pattern does. That's what it does. It tells itself a story that this is happening because. And there it goes. And if the story is believed, well, welcome to hell. Then we suffer. If the story is questioned, there is a liberation from the story. But wait a minute. Who believes who gets liberated? Is there anybody there who does believe in the first place? Or is there anybody there who gets released or liberated? And now this is where the investigation happens. This is where we got to have a look.And Bob's easy, beautiful way of presenting it was, you know, use the seeing, just the way you're using the knowing.
The knowing is happening effortlessly. There is a knowing of the temperature in the room. Is there an intellectual understanding necessary for feeling the temperature? No. It's automatic knowing. Is it me doing it? No. Same with the seeing. The seeing is an automatic function of the machine. And it embraces all that is appearing in the field of seeing. Now the narrative comes and says, oh, I like the pink balloon, I don't like the yellow. I like this person, I don't like the other one. That's just a narrative post-factum, the storytelling capacity. But the seeing itself, is there anyone that does it? You can very easily test it by trying to keep your eyes open and switch it off.
Just not seeing. Doesn't quite work. Okay, I can blur the vision and it seems like this is me, this is I, I am blurring it. But you are not. If you do, how do you do that? It is just a thought arising in the system that is treated as a command and it is followed because it's charged. The same as any idea of any doing ever that is ever happening. The idea of, oh, I want to have another chocolate. That idea, who's thinking that?The idea is discovered in consciousness as already present. If the idea is charged energetically, strongly, emotionally charged, then the body will get up and go and grab a chocolate.
If the idea is not, then perhaps the action won't follow. But who thought the thought? Who moves the body? You can see the same as the seeing is happening automatically. Any other movement of energy happens automatically without anyone doing it. So believing the story is just the same activity of energy movement as digesting the food, sweating the skin. Who is sweating the skin? Who is believing the story? It's just the energy of attention going, following the pattern because it has been conditioned this way. So the story is believed. Yes, but this is me. I got trapped. I'm believing a story. Now I feel that I need to liberate.
I need to break it. I need to question it. That's all blah, blah, blah, blah narrative. There is no one there believing it. It's just the story appearing in consciousness already charged. Just like when the deer is getting up on its fore and running away from the lion or the tiger, there isn't an energy of belief telling the deer that there is a danger and it has to run. Running happens automatically, just like everything else. The only conscious, so-called conscious element ofThe whole shebang. It's the witnessing presence. It's the aliveness. It's the knowingness, the cognizing emptiness, the registering. The body is moving the blood around.
It is registered. The body is sensing the temperature. That's registered. The body is sulking. That's registered. That's all that is ever conscious, the registering. This is the sentience. The capacity to know and to register, to notice, to witness, that's the sentience of the body, that's the aliveness of the body. The rest is just the mechanical working according to the conditioning. If the conditioning is to like this particular music, or is to respond with anger when this situation happens, that's it, that's the mechanical conditioning. So the consciousness that is registering the mechanical conditioning and the narrative that translates that mechanical conditioning as a personal story of me.
This what is just happening to me is very personal. This is very painful. This is an I and this I is suffering. I'm suffering because I'm not treated so easy, I'm not treated correctly, I'm not loved the way I need to be. All of that presumes that there is an I, that there is a little someone. And that little someone, if you look closely,It will have some particulars. You can say, oh, that little someone is a little girl or a little boy or is a person or is Australian or is Polish or is German. A lot of things that come from the memory will describe and solidify that theoretical little being, that creature that can't be found in any other place than in the imagination.
You can see that it doesn't exist when there is no thinking. If there is no memory, if for a moment you just push aside every bit of past, Where is it? Who is it? Like Bob would say, what is wrong with right now without thinking? If the thinking is paused, who am I without the thought? Yeah, I am. No, that's already a thought. Without the thought. Well, is it? Who am I? But did the seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, registering temperature, knowing, did anything stop? Did anything get paused without the thought? Obviously not. The animals don't construct the narrative, they don't have symbolic language. They have language, but that's really present moment related language.
Like they warn each other for danger or they call each other, but that's not a symbolic language, which we areusing to include the ideas of what is not present, for example the past, for example the future. We have the constructs, the mental construct that refer to something that's not here. Like we can talk about whatever, the car is not in the room and we all know what we're talking about, or the dog. So this particular capacity, it's a human capacity, it's absolutely wonderful, it's marvelous, it's marvelous. You should all bow down to that amazing capacity of storytelling. But it is a double bind, it has the byproduct of taking for granted that there is a hero of the story, that there is a me, there is an I.and is there, we could still enjoy every single story ever told and see it for what it is.
I remember Bob and I used to watch movies sometimes and he loved the historical movies, war movies, movies in which things that have happened were allegedly true stories, true people, they really existed. But that's just another story. I love the good story, whether it happened in someone's imagination or whether it allegedly happened in real life. Good convincing story, staying up, good juicy emotions. What a show. Like the best dream you've had. Absolutely. Yeah. It was so real. It was so real, that dream. It was so real. You know, I could touch things. I could feel things. It felt so real. I woke up. Yeah, yeah.
You know, that's it. Yeah, so seeing the story for what it is, and seeing the tendency of the mind to relate the story to the I, to the self, to the imagined entity, that is... Called liberation, that's called enlightenment. But who's got liberated? Who's got enlightened? Again, who does the seeing?Seeing happens automatically. Seeing through also happens automatically. Seeing through the illusion of self, seeing through the illusion of the story, seeing in a way that, you know, that way beyond the mind, that sky-like awareness, that pure registering capacity, that pure cognizing emptiness. That even in the midst of drama, in the midst of terror, anxiety, fear, remorse, sulking, there is a peace, there is a silence registering that the body is in a state of distress, that the mind is clouded by the draining.
There is still the sentience that is aware. I mean, ask a person who is depressed, are you depressed? They will usually know. There is a knowing. And that knowing is the knowing itself depressed. Knowing is just knowing. Like, you know, seeing something beautiful is the seeing itself. Beautiful or ugly. It's just seeing. It's just the capacity.So this is where the realization isn't for someone. This is where Bob would say there's no such thing as enlightenment. There is no enlightened person. There is no one who gets enlightened or who does the investigation and sees at the end of the investigation that there is no one that sees.
The investigation is just another autopilot function, inspired function. Just like you can go to the place where people are just playing, especially in Brazil, you know, they play beautiful music and just go get up and dance to the music. Inspired action. In the same way going and doing yoga or eating in particular way. There is a resonation with an idea and the body does the inspired action. And that's what Bob was doing for nearly 50 years, showing up and bringing up the pointers, the ideas which might inspire. The response in the body, the resonation in the body, which would be followed by seeing or investigating or looking.
By who? By no one. There is no one there, never have been, never could be, never would be. It's only a story that there is someone here running a show. Moving their fingers or holding their mic. It's just all automatic function.I wouldn't know how to even compress the muscles, even if there was an eye to know it. Nobody knows how anything in the body, yeah, you have descriptions in science or medicine, but really how it works. And it is not necessary. It's such a simple recognition that beyond that complete involvement in the me story, in a drama in which I'm a victim of the world and things that are happening to me are wrong and shouldn't have happened, beyond that there is a field.
Beyond all the ideas like Kavisha used to sing of right doing and all the ideas of wrong doing, there is a field, the pure stillness. Registering field, cognizing emptiness that knows about that ideas, that knows about that contractions, that story of the poor miserable you or me being mistreated or whatever. And in that field there is no separation. And Rumi says, I'll meet you there. Because there's no I and there's no you and there's no meeting, there's no need for meeting. There's a stillness, a space and it is right here. Where is it not? Everything that is happening, every thought, every experience is happening within that space of knowing.
We liken it to physical space, which is nothing.But it's not a nothing, because it has the capacity of registering. It's sentient, it's intelligent. Bob used to call it an energy intelligence, intelligence energy. The energy which has the intelligence to flow and self-organize. To flow and create the stars and the cells and the thoughts, the stories, to be prolific, to experience and express itself through the forms, through the form of an animal, through the form of an emotion of sadness. It is all the same energy, just shaped differently. Like the sound has different frequency than the light or than the matter, the subatomic particle, than the thought.
And the thought has the different energy or different frequency when it is reflected in the body. The loving thought will have different frequency or different vibration than the horrific thought which may create acidosis in the system. And often the whole vibration is neutral. In itself it is just a vibration, but the interpretation of it, the after story taken out from the context, there is a vibration in the body. We had someone with us who just likeat the room, oh maybe the vibration should be interpreted, oh you know, take an offense, feel angry, agitated, or maybe it should be interpreted, oh you know, that person needs a little bit of a quiet time, all good on him, ah wonderful.
And then the same vibration is either positive or negative, and the story will reflect in the body as either relaxation or contraction, stress. But if you see how that whole interpretation comes into existence on autopilot because the body is already wired to interpret according to its tendencies. If the body is predominantly anxious, it will look for danger and will interpret situation as potentially dangerous. If the body is predominantly fun-oriented, very relaxed, it will perhaps interpret it differently. But this is again happening on autopilot. There's no one who does that. The sentient element is the emptiness, the cognition, cognizing factor, which allows it, which doesn't touch it, which doesn't complain about it.
It's like sensing the temperature in a room. It has no judgment about it. It has no preference for anything. It is completely free. And that is the true nature, the Buddha nature, or the unborn mind. And that is the pure presence, the pure cognizing emptiness, the being, knowing, longing to be.It is the presence that you are experiencing right now as the sense of I am. There is no, they even call it omnipresence. There is no boundary from that omnipresence to my presence unless it is imagined in the story. Unless the story says, yes, but I am in this body, I am inside this body, this is where I live, this is where I am.
And outside of this body is not I, it's other than I, it's something else, something dangerous, something that I have to control, manage or relate to. Without that story, without the story of being the body or being in the body or being the mind or being in the mind, The awareness of presence, the experience of presence is clear and undisguised. With the story, it is a bit clouded. It's a little bit contrived. It's a bit toned down. Because the story is alive, it's juicy, it takes attention. The energy goes and it's like amplifying the brightness on your TV screen. You switch on the TV in the daylight and it's just kind of blurry.
But you pull the curtains down and you amplify the light and wow, the story will completely steal the show. And there's nothing wrong with that. The good, beautiful,Juicy story. Wow. Life says wow. The stillness, the space says wow. But if there is the element of suffering, that element of suffering is an invitation to question, to investigate, to look. So thank you, suffering. But why, Kat? Why is life laughing? Yay! Good question! Why not? When you see it clearly without relating it to anything, to anyone, to the poor me who has to suffer, wow, how self-aware you don't know of this. How obvious, you know, when you are free from suffering and you experience the love and the beauty and the joy and the whole expression is just one gorgeous dance, a symphony of colors and shades.
If there is a possibility for experiencing that, of course, there's no question, it shows up for its own love of being, for its own beauty. Yeah, loving to be. Absolutely. The mind wants to say, it's just the property of life. It has no properties. It's pure subjectivity. It's just the way we try and communicate it to each other.But to ask why is to ask why dance? Yes. Why sing? Does it need a reason? Just, it is because. Just because. Just because. I mean, just. Why not? And even, I'm sure, ask the question, if you knew the answer. I think that changed. Yeah. And what would be the answer is not just another story.
Every question, everything is arising in this dream. Yeah. This illusion, that too. The searching, the asking, the questioning. Everything is part of that. There's nothing wrong with it at all. And as Kat said, there is just a natural registry. Totally natural without any effort whatsoever required on the behalf of an individual or a person. It's just happening. It's an illusion that there's a person making stuff happen. It's already a knowing of the temperature of the level of comfort of this body, of the leg needs to move. There's no requirement for an I thought to come and say, I need to move that leg. It is superfluous.
But what it does do is give the impression, the illusion of a doer, me as the doer of the decision, you know, the choice maker. But, you know, I was talking to that person this morning, I was talking about... It came down to the why question. Talked about water as a good example. Water, H2O. Because H2O have a preference.or a tsunami wave. Or an icicle, when, you know, water appeared as an iceberg, that some of the Titanic was the iceberg to blame. It just, it was happening as the properties of water under those circumstances. Yielded it to me, totally naturally, all connected, not separate from, never separate.There's water doesn't have a care about how or how destructive it is or how beautiful it is or whether it gives life or drowns millions of people.
And all of this is the same in the screen of life. It's all just happening in life, whether we like it or not. It doesn't have a preference. Yes. In our cultural, moral, loving-to-be dream, there's a preference for life continuing. Yes. And survival of the organism. That's just how... The programming works. And some, you know, it'll vary individually from one to another, just like the snowflake, that we know to the same. Totally. Because nothing is separate. Anthony, question. I'll get you the salt.So the other day, Subject came up. Explosiveness. Mm-hmm. You said, self-regulate. Looked. self-regulated, there was a qualitative difference in my experience within the story and in the harmonic resonance of the space.
Beautiful. It was something that I chose, that I saw based on the catalyst. Of the suggestionoutside of me, from you, So, my point is that within the story, there are qualitative differences that we can make within ourselves acting in the story that change everything. Right? Constantly. All the time. So there's that and goes back to what I had asked last time was around being in the space of great upset, the most meaningful experience. Everyone has their triggers. The most meaningful of upset. Right? What's happening in the space, obviously it's recognition of the upset, which is the indication to do the investigation.I don't know how to link it all together in a question.
You just did. You just did? Yeah. Yeah. But you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. We can go out. I mean, you can, your feet are cold. You put on some socks. Obviously, your quality of life is better. Mm-hmm. So there's things that we do to make our lives better. And even in the space of taking actions, you can see yourself doing something, and then you make a different choice. Mm-hmm. So...The way I see it is that the character is making. Seen something and making a different choice. So within that, even in the space of great upset, you are making a choice to do the investigation.
And once you do the investigation, you may see the story and then have a blissful experience that is already always there. Okay, it certainly appears that way. Yeah. That a choice is being made by an individual person. But then you tell me. Then I did the investigation and I couldn't find me.It's just happening. It's just happening. But of course, within the dream, nothing is consistent, stable. Everything's changing all the time, like a colitis going at, you know, lightly. And when, you know, a seeming person, there's no one behind these eyes, says to you, self-regulate and that causes a pause seemingly and a looking and a delay and then a response, well that's In terms of survival, it's a good thing.
In the dream, it feels more comfortable. It's like regulate, it's mind training. Right? It's all in the dream. That which is registering all of that never changes. Yes. That is still exactly as it's always been. Still and wide awake. 100% aware. All constantly.Yes. They're within the scope of doing the investigation and being in the space. I may not be saying it right because obviously I'm using words that don't communicate as clearly as what you guys are using. Being in that space as nature is.Well, it's still, as you know, it's still a struggle. How can you? And I would like. Not to struggle. Loving to be, of course.
Yeah. And I've had, well, quite a few experiences of how you describe them.state of being, at present, awareness, non-conceptual. I'm just simply making a statement that the story is very strong. Absolutely. What good would it be if it was a B-grade movie? Yeah, it's some movie. Yeah. Jesus. Yeah. No effort required. Choiceless awareness.Choiceless. So, you know, a good example is as Kat was saying, you know, so in one situation, say two lovers meet, the heart races, sort of increasing body temperature, so sensation, there's all these sensations going on in the body and there's an interpretation, right? Of love, connection, longing, oh, the beauty of it, the pleasure, oh, I want to die, it's wonderful.
Shift to the next scene. There's a breakup. Two lovers separate. One goes and wanders. The heart starts beating. There's a rising temperature. There's a, you know, there's a, oh. And in that circumstance, it's interpreted as loss. Grief. Grief, yeah. But fundamentally, it's actually not a lot of just hugging. Not a lot of change. There's a difference between the responses or what's being experienced. But the interpretation is everything because that's the story, the meaning making.That's, you are individuals who see, you know, the thoughts will continue to appear. Whether they are, we say, seen through or not is What's interesting? So under those two scenarios, the lovers and the parted lovers, you know, watching the thought comes up, you could think what's happening in the body will still occur according to the programming, right?
And the conditioning of the properties. Of the body and what's happening in the circumstances. And thoughts may arise, maybe not, in interpreting it, and whether that's believed or not to be the case. Might be the difference between long-term psychological suffering, which drags the story like a backpack of rocks through life, or just a recognition of watching it play out and letting go.Suffering versus freedom from suffering. But I like what you said actually, you know, you had those experiences of the clear, undisguised presence. So if you look at that experience, what's actually different? The absence of the story. So that experience is there underneath the story always.
It's never far away and it's never gone. The presence, the clear awareness of existence is always there. Sometimes just that incredibly juicy, colorful, engaging 4D entertainment system just steals the show. You forget that there is... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's beautiful. I don't want that to end. No, you just want to see that, you know, it's free. You don't even pay for the entrance. Some of it I'd like to see the end. I'd like to see a lot of it to end, actually. Walk off from the bad one, just by... It's a movie, okay. We have a few messages here. Good morning, Deborah. I just, I'm going to respond to the letter I found you sent after, gosh, 10 months ago.
Yeah, I should have emailed you then, but it was too overwhelmed. Now it came back. So we'll connect. Thank you. And Julia says, no doer or controller, a very liberating realization.All is simply happening spontaneously. Yay! And we have heart and can hardly hear, says Inga. I'm sorry, no one else reporting any issues with the sound. So it is generally poor quality, but it's not poorer than usually. And Julius says basically all thoughts are stories and illusions. Yeah, imagination. Amazing. And Gilbert says that which changes is not real. The actual view of spontaneous seeing never changes and there is no subject, seer or nowhere. Making our lives better is a dream, nothing but a dream.
Are you unaware right now? There is no choice maker. Bob made all this very clear in his pointing. Well put. Yeah, it is very, very, very simple. You know, making the life better is also just a story. It is a beautiful story because you can see how the bird is putting the nest together and it's finding a mate and making its life comfortable. You can see how the cat will crawl in the warmest place or come to your lap, making its life better. But it does not have that story. The cat does not have a story about making his life better. It just moves with life.
It's the movement.of energy in the skin and bones of cat. And Blazenka says, who's there to be enlightened? Search stops right there. Freedom. Beautiful. And Gilbert says, the mic is not working. There is a mic working somewhere, but it's not near anyone speaking. Oh, and Janice is high. Is there a sense of individuality? There is a sense of choice. There you go, the sense. Thank you, Dee. And I'm going to just reset the whole thing here. Yes, there is a light.Well, there's a, you know, I hear a lot of people speaking and making these lovely descriptions of what, of that. But that's... Even though it's helpful.
And I've heard some wonderful, especially from Bob and you in the early days where I was just introduced to it and detaching, relaxing.All those wonderful allowing, feeling the flow. Some things come up. Steal the show for a little while. Some things, you know, don't. But yeah, I always go back to the space of deep. Deep. Torment.And who is the one who goes there? Isn't just a habit of, you know, like the body is conditioned on default to retreat to that dark space. This one. Oh, thank you. Thank you. But really, it's just, you know, when you look at the mistreated dog in a shelter, which always runs in a corner and squeals or barks.
Because it's been conditioned this way, to always go to that place. This is something that is familiar. The space that registers that torment of the dog is untouched by it, but the dog is still tormented. To actually heal that dog, It takes a while of rewiring, of patience, of love, of safety for that whole nervous system to actually start responding in a manner that will be new. But this one is all the mind training stuff. Like Tanya was saying, yes, your life will be better if your mind is trained. If the mind is the servant and not the master. If the mind is obedient. If the mind self-regulates.
But what is the mind? It's just a set of behaviors, set of habits that are trained.conditioned and this training this conditioning is malleable it is it is changeable ultimately the dream character will experience ups and downs and and highs and lows and pleasure and pain But the essence, the space, is untouched even by that. So what Bob would say, first think first. Recognize what you are not. Or seek ye first the kingdom, and the rest will be added upon you, unto you. The first, recognize that even the habit of getting to the place of torment, It's not personal, it's not you doing it, it's the way the machine is conditioned and that's what it does.
Seeing it from the position of just impersonal registering already brings the respite, relief, relaxes the system. And now who knows, the maybe inspiration. To do something about it, do neurofeedback or change some change environment or go to support group or whatever. There may be an inspired action for that dream character in the dream to find help, for that dog to get into a place of rewiring. The first thing, see it as completely impaired.personal mechanical behavior of the machine that is not you and is not yours and that already relieves a lot of suffering and it doesn't re-traumatize it And then if you can even see it lightly, oh, look, this dream character is back to sulking again.
Or is back to the torment. Or is telling itself the same story. Wow. Wow. Incredible. It's like Nisargadatta and his habit of smoking. You know, people were telling him, you're killing yourself. And he said, yes, I know. I can't be bothered. I can't be bothered doing anything about it. The body is not moved. There is no incentive. There is no inspiration. And Bob, he was health conscious. Sometimes even on the obsessive level, health conscious. Different conditioning, different machine. Nisar Gadada's machine couldn't be bothered. Yeah, I'll be suffering with cancer. I'll be suffering with pain. Whatever. And Bob's machine, he quit smoking. He's been smoking. He's been drinking.
He quit even eating for some time when there was a high inflammation. All the joints were to be replaced. Quit eating inflammatory foods like gluten or dairy, just for the time being.That was the tendency of the machine. He didn't do a thing. But recognizing that whatever the machine does is not you doing. It's just happening. Oh, wow. Learning the machine. You know, this machine, it has a lot of situation when that one dysregulates or that one responds overly emotionally or abandonment wounds from childhood and other shit like this. And when it does, it's like, yeah. It's all consuming. It's absolutely, it can just, the character can even cry or scream or whatever.
But the stillness underneath. Yum! Intensity, my God! Wow! And that stillness.is above all else. Even though the tantrum may still be playing up, The stillness that is saying wow to the tantrum is above all else. It's first. It's not neglected, ignored, abandoned, down in the bottom. It's never forgotten. It's like the screen, you're watching a movie and the screen is always there, but you never see it because you're so consumed by the movie.I wonder if the mic has improved. Oh, thank you, Jenny. Sometimes it seems... It seems useful to remember the foundational principle that it's all one. And in a family gathering at Christmas,It was a group of people all well known to each other.
So at various times you'd be irritated by this habit or that habit. Understanding that we all have these foibles, all these characters in the dream. But to remember that basic principle, it just just sort of takes the some of the mystery out of it that you can understand Yes, it's just one, just one, just one. All of the different characters in the dream playing their part.Yeah, it just becomes very simple. Takes all the changes the
medium somehow that It's sort of plain that it's all spirit. All this sort of of a vaporous medium that's which is completely empty and yet it seems full of life.And it's quite...
Fairy-like. But it takes all the seriousness out of it. Becomes very sort of light and fun. And you can, one can appreciate the,Thank you. I don't know if we have any new comments. Apart from the mic working. Nope. We're going to sit in silence. So anyone has questions or contributions?Now I was just thinking of, as you were describing, the body's responding to conditions of an automatic way around certain obstacles that we face. So the body's playing out the historical aspect of one's existence. Right? And to see the story.in the expression of the history playing out. Hmm. That is an incredible thing. And in most cases, not a lot of people do it.
Yeah. At all. That's true. Yeah. They think they're doing it. Like the intensity of what you're like. The moments that steal the show. That's really where these conversations.Yes. Can make a huge difference. Make a huge difference. Huge difference. Yes. And that in itself is... What I'm interested in. Yes, you're in the right place. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know. Yes, that's, yeah, that's the invitation. And yes, that's the difference between and wow. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking of, what happened as of late. And if it were a movie that I was watching, Maybe some movie. What an incredible movie. And I remember you talking about even the bad stuff.
Especially. Is good. Especially. Because the good stuff wouldn't be quite as good if we didn't have the bad stuff to relate to.But it's all good because it's all reflective in. one's life experience. And see, you have that movie and you have that beautiful dream character that you are watching since he was a little child. You're looking at Anthony and you see his struggles, you see his heartbreaks and heartaches and his hopes and his dreams and his traumas and his everything. All your life you are that, you know, cognizing emptiness. And that dream is just uncovering. You can't help but love it, the character, even though it's just a character.
But you feel for it, you love it, you... Support it and they say oh you can't love anyone else if you don't love yourself but how can you love yourself if there's no self to love but from the perspective of that witnessing presence seeing that incredible story seeing that incredible character which is absolutely dream character completely fictitious But it is like, wow, you can't help but love it. But who is loving who? It's just life reflecting its own self-love. And now from this perspective, you know, the character will still do whatever this condition to do, will still do whatever in its condition.it considers the best for its survival, even if that means stealing and raping and going to corporations and grab, you know, it's not your character, obviously, but, you know, any character will still behave like this dog in a shelter, will bite if it needs to.
But again, the presence, seeing and understanding that this is love of being, playing up in this shape, perhaps a little bit maybe immature, a little bit dysregulated, traumatized, is still the love of being equally. Wow. Whether it is a response which modern psychology would find healthy or unhealthy, is equally the response if you see and you intimately know this particular dream character more than anyone, then you can access the so-called memory, which is just the improvising capacity of that dreaming machine. And see that every point of the dream, the character acting out of loving to be, did the very, very best to its survival and its comfort.
Is always and forever innocent in following the program of surviving and finding comfort. Even if there was people who were harmed in the way, in the hearts of heart, there was just love of being and love for comfort and survival playing up as programmed. No doubt.So sense of guilt, sense of shame is just part of the social conditioning, part of the story, because nothing could have unfolded in any other way. Because moment to moment, that basic program in that machine did everything it could to express love of being, survival and thriving. And the dream it is. And the notion of good or bad?wanted, don't wanted, all of this stuff, anything, you know, anything with words, all of this is the interpretation, the meaning making, seeming capacity of these fleeting phenomena.
You can't even say there's nothing wrong with that. It just is. Because all these things, good, bad, it's all judgment based on the concept fundamentally of separation.but ultimately there is none, we say, and you go, yeah, but, you know, in the dream, there's suffering and I'm, you know, blah, blah, blah. Okay, well, I'm here to tell you again that... It's choiceless. It's just happening. Fighting against it with all your might or trying to dodge it or run away, none of that is any good in terms of a concept. It might come up, but where are you going to go? Where are you going to go?You can't get out of the dream.
You can't get out. You can't figure it out. It's a rollercoaster ride. You are locked in. You're perfectly safe. Nothing is ever really ever going to happen to you. But there are going to be ups and downs and terror and thrill and joy and laughing and it's all going to happen because that's part of, that's experiencing, that's what we are, we're the ride.You can't get out. You can't figure it out. What can you do? Who's doing anything? Nobody. Nothing can be done by anybody. It's just me. And when there seems to be a being lost in the trauma or the tragedy or the torment, Well, that's just imagination.And still always, no matter what comes in the dream, there's that being, it's not changed, it's still there, just as it was.
Always has been. That's not altered in any way. And some people describe it as, you know, cognizing emptiness, presence awareness, sense of being, I am, I am that I am, stillness, silence, whatever. It doesn't matter what the word is. You know what it is. You don't have to be told what it is. It's known intrinsically because it's not a matter of understanding, it's knowing. It's already there, it never went away, it will never go away.It's the habit, as Gilbert likes to say, this very sticky habit of believing I'm a me, a doer, an I, an individual who makes decisions, makes stuff happen. But in the recognition of the story, we release ourselves from the history.
Right? Maybe. Isn't that what we've been saying? Might still, who knows? The thought could still come up. There still could be a rage about something, depending on the circumstances, what's happening. I'll tell you. I'll tell you when I get there.No guarantees. You're trying to lock it in. You're trying to tell me it's going to be perfect and everything's going to be okay and it's already okay. Look at the bull at the Spanish Corida. It is conditioned to respond to a red blanket being waved. And it just... And it charges. And there is no self there. Complete freedom from the history. Complete freedom from any sort of association with being a doer.
And it still has those responses. Responses are innocent. And we have, Gilbert says here, squirming around trying to establish a platform for me is useless. The dreamer cannot wake up. All the stories about me are empty. There is no becoming. All the talk about things becoming better or worse are a dream. The witness is formless. The idea of being a witness is the springboard for the dream character. Naked awareness is not a person. Yeah, beautifully put. That's why we never use the word witness. We say witnessing. Witnessing. Witnessing presence is not a person, it's not a personal witness. But thank you, Gilbert. And Ben says...
Good or bad would require a self.who could judge brilliant give up the self and all is solved and Jenny says the isness of isness just is and I love how you know Tanya made the clear distinction between knowing and understanding understanding feels like there is something to grasp or I get it to lock it down now I have prescription if I follow the prescription then in the right moment I'll apply it and I'll be liberated nah that doesn't work this way the knowing the knowing that you are the existence is already here and it's just Yes, it's here. It's always here. And now suddenly the attention is withdrawn from all that entertainment and it's resting here.
No one does that. There is no prescription. Okay, I'll have to just remember to take the deep breath and rest. No, the I that is to remember. It's not your true self. It's the dream character. It doesn't matter what it remembers. It doesn't matter what it understands. It doesn't matter what it thinks it understands. If it devised the formula, that formula doesn't matter. It all belongs to the dream. It is dead. It is the matter of releasing the attention, giving up on that dream character and its turmoil and its suffering.It's just abandoning that dream for a moment and realizing that, hey, aliveness breathing is happening right now there is nothing wrong in this moment apart from the imagination going on going crazy And it's always like that.
There's not one moment in which there is something wrong unless the thought says so and is believed. It's just the attention being following that entertainment system, that imagination. And what is imagination? Story. It's not real. But it's an evocative expression of life. What is it? But what is it really?What do you mean? What is it really? Can you grab it? No, no, no. Is it just a vibration in space that comes and goes, that is fresh and new every moment, really? It's not something that has its own sustaining existence. It's self-reifying in a way by the energy of attention, we like to say, is put into it.
But it's nothing.It's nothing. It doesn't have power of its own. Do you think there's a link between just pure imagination and being in the space? The resonant physical experience of practicing gratitude. A link between. And its link between present awareness. You know, because it... Are you asking in terms of a mind training? You know, looking at the positive side of things? I think we're talking here basically about psychology, right? Not necessarily. You're asking around imagination, and I'm thinking, well, you know, usually... Anyway, I'm sorry. Well, there's nothing. Well, that's just also happening in the story, the practicing of cognitive behavioral therapy or, you know, focusing on positive thoughts or whatever or reminding, you know, putting yellow post-it notes all around the house that say self-regulate.
Every time you see one, you self-regulate. It's just stuff that's happening in the story. I mean... Bob in his book, his little white book, Beyond Words, Beyond Mind, you know,The best things that can be done by no doer, no one's doing it, is to do what you described before. Take a look. Do the investigation. Can you find the little mini me, the puller of the levers, the pusher of the buttons, the eater of the switches? Where are they? Where are they? Can't find it. Can't find it. What is actually really, truly your experience right now?holding the mic, breathing, feeling the floor. Feeling the air in my lungs.
Feeling the vibration of my voice. Seeing the screen before me. Yeah. Lovely ladies. Guy, orange chair, et cetera. And you knew all of that before you had to label it. Yes. There was already that recognition, that registering. Then I asked you to describe it.But it was already known. Yes. It's knowing. And notice how as soon as you're describing it, and I've asked you to describe it, well, it's already gone. Bang. It's gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. Fresh and new. We don't even have a word for now that is our actual experience. So when we say I got lost in the imagination, I got lost in my imagination.
It's a joke. It's like, you know, the fable of God pretending he's not God. To fooling himself and pretending he's a pig with a little family of piglets in a sty somewhere and forgot he was actually God and started to really believe he was a pig with a family of piglets and a piggy wife and living in mud.Just imagined. What is it? And we use the word imagined. What the? I can't even describe to you what imagination is. Yeah. Bob has a good one. Go ahead. Bob says imagination is imagining in. So creating mental images about what's happening. His favorite quote of Nisargadatta, nothing can trouble you except if you're in your own imagination.
And imagining is imagining in or imagination, imagining image in, creating mental images. So they happen on autopilot. Of course, you can't really fire the electrical impulses in the brain to create the image. You don't know how to do that. But for some reason, you know, when we say moon, there is an image. It's not visual, but there is an image. This language causes the image to form. And the moon is in imagination, it's not in the present. It's not in the room. And yet we can still talk about it. Imagination is making mental images. It's a capacity that this human creature has. The other creatures may not have the same capacity.
And this capacity, as wonderful as it is, with creating art, wonderful science fiction movies or music, all comes from imagination. Art, paintings,anything, any invention is using that capacity. But when the capacity is using the whole stream of energy, leaving nothing else, nothing left for the cognizing emptiness, then of course, you know, suddenly that God seemingly enslaved by it, but only seemingly so. Because it's just a dream. Whatever happens in the dream, it doesn't really matter. But I think we have a couple of comments. Blazanka says, there is so much misconception about holding high frequency and manifesting. Can you please say something about that? And I think it kind of corresponds with what you were saying, you know, practicing gratitude and all that.
And I think Tanya answered that brilliantly. It's not very much to add to it. It's really, and thank you, Blazanka, it's really about, you know, how the dream unfolds, you know. And Tanya was alluding to it earlier, and I really liked it too. You know, the space has no preferences or no choices. It doesn't even prefer pleasure from pain. Why would it if it has it all? Life essence or God has it all. It has people with manifested millions of dollars and have people who wasted 30 years of their life trying to do so and being ineffective. And it has dogs and it has whales.as birds and some birds are extinct and some birds are wounded and some dogs are mistreated.
It has it all. Space-like, pure life essence, that dreaming capacity, it has it all. It doesn't need to be focused on, oh, but I want. Yes, as an individual, it wants pleasure. Every single individual will follow the pattern of survival, which means eat sweet and not bitter, because the likelihood of sweet killing you is lower than others. So this is just a very, very, very simple algorithm that keeps the vehicles of life experiences and expresses itself. But the whole idea that holding high frequency or practicing gratitude or loving kindness, how beautiful. Or metta meditation, praying for every sentient being to be in love, praying for the world peace.
Wow, wow, beautiful, I mean, yum, gorgeous, bring it on, bring it on, throw it in the air, inspire the world, inspire each other, inspire everyone. There's a lot of pleasure in it. Go for it. But... It has absolutely no relation, the content of the dream, pleasurable content of the dream, with the witnessing, because the witnessing is equally neutral towards pleasure.pleasure and pain. Capacity to witness high frequency pleasure, manifestation, gratitude, and capacity to witness the horrific torments and displeasure and sickness,
and pain is the same. And yes, within the dream, if you are inspired to go to a choir, a sing, by all means, or dance, or take cooking class, or go for the psychotherapy or CBT.
Wow, who cares? Life doesn't. Life says yes to everything. The space says yes. You are moved to do this. You discover yourself doing this. You move to do that. You discover yourself moving that. Doing that. But the you that is moving and the you that is discovering, it is the same life. But discovering life is the clear seeing. And the entity says, no, this is I, this is my choice, I've done it, I've made a mistake, and now I suffer the consequences of my mistakes. That is still the same life, appearing through the lens of the nama, rupa, maya, illusion, dream character, which doesn't exist.
That's the life, the God playing the pig and the piglets. It sounds a bit like the cricket. Maya, here. Yeah, it sounds a bit like the cricket on Boxing Day. You've got a journalistic game. Between two, well,the opposition. So you have the England team on one side and the Australian team on the other side. And it's played on the field. And in the centre of that field they have a cricket pitch where the grass is cut really finely. And the captains go out and examine this pitch at the start of the game. The cameras zero in on this grass. The grass is one centimetre high.
And the captain seemed quite concerned about this. How is this going to affect the way the ball bounces? Oh, yeah. And it turned out to be a very difficult pitch to judge, just how it will bounce, how the bowlers have this skill to... Get it to slide, slide through the air, it'll turn, it'll wobble. And it's coming down, the ball's being propelled down by the bowler at about 140 kilometres an hour.And then the batsman has to judge exactly what's going to happen in just a fraction of a second, where that ball is going to bounce. And then half the audience there, they'll be delighted by the results.
And the other half will be suffering. They'll be suffering. And so the game goes on like that.more wickets fell in that two days that have for something like a hundred years. So it was just, it was sort of demonstrating how these thousand things come into play to all the different, what do you call it, thethe thousand things of all the things that can affect the way the game goes, the ball bounces. The emotions of the players or the crowd come into it. And yet the wickets fell quite quickly and one team got bowled out and then the next team comes in and they have the same problem.
Very difficult to master this. Pitch or this game.And at the end of the day, the England team were delighted because it was the first time they'd beaten the Australians for about 14 years. They actually won a match. And so they were jubilant. And everyone seemed quite... Quite happy about the result. So that's the game of life when it's, when it's not taken so seriously and it's enjoyed and it was a wonderful day out for 93,000 people.Yeah. So, yeah. So everyone feels spiritually connected and lovely. It's a lovely day out. And when everyone's meditating in a group of beautiful music and everyone's in their Lululemon outfits and you got pretty girls and you got the babbling brook and it smells like bloody jasmine.
Yeah. Life is freaking bloody easy. And when we're up against it and it's stealing the show. Isn't that the most important conversation to have? Because that's where all this matters. That's what makes you look. That's what makes you look. That's what makes you, yeah. That's where you, it's in your best interest to look. Right? Yeah.Thank you, suffering. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the suffering is the... This is the sign. Invitation. The suffering is the invitation. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. The suffering is the invitation. Mm-hmm. It shouldn't be, but yeah, yeah. You can use it as a source of... invitation. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And then we have, Benjamin says here, I don't know me, Mimi, you dear questioner.
And Kinder digging this concept of us as both good and little piglet is a star. Spot on, my friend. Spot on. Yeah, I love it. And he also says that God seemingly enslaved by it. Yay. And Benjamin also says, liking this cricket pitch guy, great metaphor. Imagine neither right nor wrong, my friend, love it. All perspective and sense of self. Give up self and all is resolved. This is the same battle mankind has fought since the... Peloponnesian War andHerodotus. I agree. Yay, seems like it. Yep. And also it is funny to actually realize and see how, you know, even the game of a cricket or a good day with the Lulu outfits and Jasmine smell places.
There are 10,000 things. There are people in the meditation room amongst that high frequency love vibrations who are miserable. I've been staying in the monasteries a couple of times with Zen monks and some of them would be screaming at night in misery. Because that high frequency was still on a good day it was a beauty and on a bad day it was just something shining in the face you're never gonna have it you're never gonna get it so the interpretation again plays the role same event I'm just by the profile absolutely An unspecified amplifier. Yeah, the interpretation is unspecified amplifier. The moment the interpretation kicks in, that vibration gets right away amplified, reflected in the body, and the dream takes over.
The meaning making machine takes over. See how the same situation, you know, like someone looks at you. And I think I was discussing that, I think, with Tanya the other day.Bob used to have anxiety neurosis. He was a really, really anxious guy when he was a drunk, before he was a drunk and then when he was a drunk. And on some days, when he was especially agitated, he would be sitting in the pub and looking around for danger. And the guy there would look and catch the eye with him for half a second. With that agitation in the system, anxiety in the system, he would interpret it straight away as hostility.
He would get up and punch that guy and smash him down to the ground. And in his 20s, he would win most of the fights as he was drinking more and more, of course, more and more the fights he would be losing and more and more of the teeth he would be losing in the process. But that attitude on a good day, and especially on the last decade of his life, where was that anxiety? People could look at him, people could give him real hostile looks, people who could attack him, could drag him to court and try to incapacitate him. And there was no anxiety, there was nothing but serenity, because there was a freedom.
But still, they were better days than the worst days, as it usually is with the weather anywhere and the weather here. And on the worst days, when he would be agitated or irritable, there would be a clear knowing of it. And he would say, oh, I'm a little bit edgy today. Just trade carefully for an hour or two. And I would say, yeah, absolutely.And I would just catch the eye contact in an hour or two. The eyes would be brighter, so there is a time for a hug. But before that, that was a way, he was always beautifully self-regulated for the time that I knew him.
But he wasn't always like that 50, 60 years ago. He was crazy. He was nuts. He was an alcoholism, especially or any addiction arrests the emotional immaturity, arrests the maturity, maturation process and reverses it sometimes and at least or amplifies the immature behaviors. So he's been through all that and emerged on the other side. So even for the dream character, change is absolutely possible. Inevitable. It is. Oh, that's so true. It is inevitable. It can change the worst, though. Yeah. You know, you can... So sense the thought, oh, yes, okay, but for Bob, it changed for the better. Where's my guarantee that it's going to change for the better for me?
Right? Well, it's guaranteed when you recognize there is no me. Yeah. Yeah. Because it won't matter. The good days and the bad days and the good weather and the bad weather and just like with a cat and dog days with a little bit of agitation restlessness days with better appetiteThey're with lower or higher energy. But how personal is that? It's just what's happening. It's the weather. It's the weather. It's like the weather. And it's the properties of nature. Yeah. The weather we are not separate from. We use the word nature. We are nature. Yes. There's no separateness. We've said this over and over and over again.
Choiceless. Duelist. There's no individual as a causal agent. There's no little mini me. There's no I. I love the word relax, but there's no one to relax. Yes. Yeah. Inspired. Just the, yeah, just really radiating. Offering to resonate. Yeah.If there was someone to give up, I'd say give up. Give up efforts. Yeah, that's full stop, that Bob would also say. Who is there to full stop? Who cares? Who cares? See if it resonates and it follows of the action. Relax. But who is there to relax? Who gives a shit? See if it resonates and follows up with relaxation. If it doesn't, well, whatever. Who cares?
Nobody cares anyway. He said, I don't care whether you hear what I get to say. I don't hear what I get to say. It's just what's happening. And Julia says, another amazing session. Thank you, Julia. And Benjamin says, Sailor Bob for the win. Nothing can hit a guy or girl who finally became nothing. Boom! In the next chat. So true, Benjamin said. He's our dude. And unless, Anthony, you have another, yeah, that I think is a good final word for today. And thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Look at this baby finding comfort.