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 starting from our names, we have Daga, Jojo, Michael, Cliff, Charlie, Sim, Anthony, Raymond, Ross, Jimmy, and we got Tanya and Bob. And Kat. And welcome everybody and happy new year. And if there is any trouble with the sound, I'm requesting people who are with us online, let us know. So this is... First time for Daga, so I'm going to start. Whoops. You got it? Yeah, it will come in a minute. Yeah. So what we do here really is just describe the so-called natural state. We describe it so in many different ways. And Bob did it for most of his life, just describing what was his direct experience.
And we're going to be describing what is our direct experience. And because there is so many ways of putting it, there is absolutely no need to resonate with every single pointer, with every single way. Just... Just sit and feel what is resonating with you, what kind of rings true.one thing there may be few things but what we're pointing at is what is clear and obvious for everyone and what is undeniable and vastly ignored due to the entertainment that mind provides so natural state or cognizing emptiness of pure existence being awareness presence The fact that I am, the existence, the pure existence. There is no one in this room who is not aware that they are existing.
Everyone knows I am. I am is just a translation, it's just how mind puts it. But the sense of existence, the certainty, of existing, of being alive, of being conscious, is there with you right now. It's hard not to resonate with this one. It's hard to argue with this one. You may try and see if you can stop it for a moment, just for the argument's sake. And you will see that even to stop, to try, you have to be present first. So they put it in different terms. They call it presence awareness or self-shining, ever-fresh presence awareness. And they add to it just this and nothing else, pointing to the fact that apart from that ever-fresh, self-shining presence awareness, there really is nothing else.
Can you postulate anything apart from that field of awareness?Where would that be? Nothing that is... And that field of awareness is not a thing. It's no thing. It's space-like. It's sky-like. The consciousness, the field of consciousness, you can't grasp it. You can't touch it. You can't deny it, but you can't assert it either. You can't say what it is. Because that is your essential nature. How could you assert or deny or encapsulate or put the boundaries or circumference around something that you are? To say what you are, you would have to look from somewhere else, wouldn't you? So you can't know really what you are, but at the same time, you can't deny that quality of existence, that certainty of consciousness, of being present and being aware.Yeah.
Sorry for that. I just don't want to. The sound troubles. And is that actually streaming? Yeah. Okay. There is no...Thank you. So this hope is working. Let's hope it will eventually show up in the notifications. Yes, so presence awareness, one way of calling it. Sat-chit-ananda, another way of calling it, which is an Advaitan description. Description of reality is the three factors, sat-chit-ananda, and description of unreality or illusion is two other factors, nama-rupa, name and form. So reality, it translates. Sat is being. Chit is consciousness. And ananda is bliss of being or love of being or contentment. The stillness of being. Joy of being. So sat, chit, ananda.
Everybody is being. Everybody is being present. Everybody is conscious of being present. And everybody is fairly happy to exist. No one seemed to have a knife on your wrists or a gun in your head. So fairly happy, happy enough to be. And if someone was to hurt you at this moment, you'd probably defend it. So that's the reality. It's already present. It's already here. What is unreality, what's illusion, is the name and form, the namarupa. If I say I am, that's the reality. If I say I am,a person, I am a woman, I am a body, I am a human, that's already conceptualizing, limiting, encapsulating, putting up the illusion on the existence, on the being.
Being of its own does not have any limitations it does not have any costume any color any shape any sensation to it it just is in that isness of being or isness of consciousness the whole dream appears the whole dream appears in the consciousness, in the presence of awareness, in the beingness, including this body, it appears in the beingness, including the idea that this is my body, it also appears in the consciousness. Isn't that the experience that you share in? We were told differently with the metaphor of growing up as that little fetus in the womb that emerges out and becomes a baby and then becomes a toddler and then becomes a teenager and then and gets all the conditioning learning through imitation learning the language labeling mommy and daddy and itself as this is me and this is not me and isolating and separating and including itself in the boundaries of the bodyand excluding everything outside the boundary of the body as not me.
That's all conditioning. So without that mental programming that has been installed around about age two, three, when the reasoning capacity developed enough because the little child had enough of the language, enough words, labels. Apart from that installation of that program of narrating and telling a story of what i am if we put that program aside just for the sake of direct experience of presence What can I say about myself? What can I say about the existence? Can I say what I am without the thought, without the word, without the label? I can't. But can I say I'm not? I still exist, but what I am I can't say because this will be a thought.
Existence is primary.It is almost as if you could see that existence itself as the energy. And Bob used to like to call it life or life force or life essence or intelligence energy. He loved to call it energy, pointing out that it is a movement, but the movement is... It has a quality of brilliance, of intelligence. You'd point out how that intelligence energy forms the planets and galaxies and bodies and cells and thoughts and experiences and the dramas and the stories. It is all that energy of life or that infinite potentiality, that field of being, knowing, vibrating into different shapes and forms. It vibrates into the sound.
And then we have all the spoken language, all the other sounds in nature. It vibrates into a frequency of light. And there is a whole visible realm of the dream. It vibrates into solidity of the material objects. Or gas objects, planets, galaxies, cells. But it is still the same one field, one source, vibrating into all those patterns and shapes and forms. And why would that even do it?to itself well the question is why not the life essence that infinite field that um pure awareness space like sky like which is all there is which cannot know itself How can space know itself? It doesn't have center.
It doesn't have any reference point. It doesn't have second France. It can't know itself. But at the same time, the potentiality in the intelligence is to play the game and experience itself as a seeming form, dreaming itself to be a form, to be a planet, to be a thought, to be a person. So that infinite potentiality has the capacity to glimpse itself. Its infinite self through that finite appearance as an object. So now it dreams itself a costume, a body, and now that field of energy, which is infinite, suddenly transforms into the field of seeing. Through that transmitter receiver, which through the eyes, now we have visual field.
Through the ears, we have the auditory field and the sensations and perceptions and thoughts are all capacities.that are within that machinery, this brilliant equipment that translates that potential energy into the actuality of experiencing, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and thinking. So that's how the world seems to come into existence. And you can see how it seems to come into existence, even though you don't remember your birth. You only know because you were told. As everything else that you were told, you believe. That's real. And the act of believing is act of fueling the story with that energy, with that field of potentiality. If you believe you are a human, you experience yourself as human.
If you believe you are God, you experience yourself as a God. They lock you up for that one. If you're too loud about it. But if you experience yourself as no-sinking,then you see the reflection of that no-thingness in absolutely everything. You see that the nature of everything is the same no-thingness. So you can't be separate from anything. As much as you can't separate anything from the field of experiencing, from the consciousness that it arises. And you can again see it isn't that your own experience right now. Can you postulate anything that you could think of, perceive or conceive in any way from the field of knowing that you are, from that consciousness that you are?So there is no separation.
Separation comes through labeling, through language, through that software installed early on, the narrative software, the large language model, which tells us what we are. And it is a little bit like, you know, Children sometimes play the game too. It's a beautiful game to play. Let's pretend we are adults. Let's pretend we are doctors. Let's pretend we are playing with dollies. Just playing, just experiencing different roles. And adults are also in that play. You are different role. In any relationship, in every single encounter, with your mother you are a child, or you are a son or daughter, with your partner you are a spouse, with your pet, it's yet another subtle role that is being played.
And who is playing that? You might say it is me, a person. It's a person dressing up in different costumes, person being playing the actor or the musician or the worker. But is it really? Where is that person when the role is being embodied? Where is the person when you are really a good actor and you completely forget yourself in a role?Where is the person when you sleep and you dream at night? You may not even remember your age when you're dreaming. And the whole world of a dream arises in consciousness. The whole world of appearances in which you are interacting. Coming out of nowhere and disappearing into the nothing.
So that's the nature of the dream. And you could see right at this moment how the dream can appear with one thought, one thought of yesterday, one thought of 10 years ago, bringing up the whole well-furnished universe of what has allegedly happened in the past. But when does it happen? Just now. Is there a past? Can there be any other experience of past than the memory happening right now? Same with the future. Is there a future if you don't think about it? Future is a thought, it's a mental image. You can see it for yourself that without the thought there is no tomorrow, it can't be.
But even if you think of tomorrow and it allegedly come into existence, it isn't tomorrow, it is right now. Like yesterday isn't yesterday, it's right now.So that right now, this is the only reality that can ever be experienced. And within that direct experience of this moment right now, the multiverse of thoughts, of memories, of visions, of fantasies, of dreams is being projected. So that life essence suddenly, out of being completely oblivious to its own existence, can experience itself and express itself in myriads of ways. Incredibly amazing, like every dream, even a nightmare. The way it is constructed, the way, the intensity of the dream, the colors, the emotions, the seriousness often of the dream is juicy, it's incredible, it's so realistic, it's more realistic than the best 4D entertainment available for humans.
Because it involves a me, the core of the whole psychological suffering, the idea that there is a self, that somewhere inside there, there is a person who's got free will and ability to choose.take decisions and it can get it all wrong. And shit, if I get it wrong, oh my God, I'll waste my life. I'll waste my potential. I'll get in such trouble. Ability to reflect on the past, oh, if I only did this, if I was only born in another country, I had another parents. Look at the possibility for that dreaming machine to go into incredible stories and look at the suffering associated with it.
All happening in the mind. All happening in the imagination. All stop when the thought stops for a moment.all fleeting, but seeming real when believed. And the whole system, that whole brilliant machinery of the projector with that narrative software has been trained to create the entertainment that is so real and so believable. That is mostly never even questioned. And for a lot of cases, life is unfolding easy enough, the cruising through life is happening easy enough, that the questioning isn't even necessary. The life is enjoying itself as a character, enjoying its heartbreaks and heartaches. But at times, the suffering gets unbearable. And then, out of nowhere, out of that same field of infinite possibilities and potentialities, the idea arises to question, to look behind.
Is there something more? Is there really a me inside who's getting everything wrong and who is being a victim of the circumstances of the world? Let me see. And then the looking happens. And the way Bob invites to do the looking, to investigate, again, it has so many facets, so many aspects, and not all of them have to resonate.enough if one pointer rings the bell and feels true because they are all that ultimate wisdom that ultimate knowing of existence is your birthright you were born without any stories of being separate without being a me You are just pure consciousness looking out from that tiny vehicle of a baby, not seeing anything, not seeing itself as separate from the consciousness it arises, not separate from the environment which feeds it.
And you're still the same. You're still inseparable from the environment. You are part of it. You are one with nature. You will find that every thought is related to the environment. Every urge that the body presents or the mind translates as a thought. Is related to everything around, is inseparable. You are still that costume for the consciousness to experience and express itself as it pleases.even if the part of that whole show includes the narrative, the translation and relation, relating it all to the separate me. This is I, this is me, this is not consciousness looking out of my eyes, it is a little person somewhere there that does it.
And that little person can get it wrong or can get it right or is right right now. And again, have a look. Can you ever find, even if you focus, where is the looking coming from? Is there anyone there looking? Even if you focus, where is the hearing coming from? Is there anyone there that does it? And if there was one, how did they do that? How do you think the thoughts? How do you make decisions? How do the choices happen? And if you're sitting quiet and if you are really, really curious, you look and you see and you wait. And you'll find out that it is an endless field of discovery you discover your thoughts you discover the urges the decisions perceptions you discover the habitual patterns of maybe indecisiveness wow or the patterns of Emotional dysregulation, anger, anxiety.
Wow. If you are the field of consciousness,in which the patterns of behaviors, responses, reactions are arising. You are the knowing of it. You are the registering of it. And again, isn't that your experience? Do you know your next thought? Do you know what you're going to be thinking in two minutes? I'll see if there is a notification or not. Something's wrong with my phone. Perhaps it's restarting.Yeah, so still a few minutes left. Do you want to add something? Okay, so I'll just see what else comes up. Yeah, so that's really, it feels like it is a complicated philosophy sometimes. It may sound like there is a really, really big leap of faith.
What do you mean there is nothing? What do you mean this is all illusion, Maya, it doesn't exist? I don't believe it. I don't agree with it. I feel like this is solid. This is solid. The world is solid. Those philosophies, those concepts, they just don't fit in. But then again, have a look. It is just the same in the dream at night. Everything feels real. Everything feels solid. And where is it where you wake up? Where is yesterday right now?Where is your childhood? It is just a thought. It is just an appearance. So this moment right now, this fleeting immediacy, it ends as it begins, and the new, fresh and new spontaneous moment arises out of nowhere.
And the seeming solidity, just like a seeming solidity of the flat earth, the seeming solidity of any belief, when it is believed. That's the brilliance of the dream. That's what makes it so exciting, so believable, so real, seemingly. But it all can be questioned, and it will if the suffering is strong enough. Suffering seems to be a motivator, an amplifier of the necessity to look through. And then you will see that you can't think your next thought, that you will just discover it. can't think your next thought then who is thinking it or is it just simply arising just like any other noise what is the thought at the first place what's the thought it's a subtle mental image a subtle sound somewhere in the back of a head or not even a head you have to imagine a head to even say it is in the head And can you experience your head without mental image of a head?
You can't even experience it. There is a buzzing energy. The whole body is just a buzzing energy. And the mind straight away adds a translation to it. The picture. Come, baby, come.So in the direct experience, there is just the being, the presence, the knowing, the pure existence. And within that pure existence, without which nothing is, without that basic screen of presence, self-shining, nobody starts it. It is shining of its own. Everything appears. And it really is like a sun. Nobody leads it. And that's the ultimate truth that is an open secret, that there is no one who does not know that. And there is no one that could argue with that.
And the ways of speaking about it and pointing to it is just to bring forward that which is so radiant and so miraculously beautiful, so sentient, the essence of love, of love of being. Which is completely forgotten, taken for granted. Yes, I am. So what's next? Or covered up by the ideas that, hello, but, you know, they are broadcasting and advertising the enlightened state as a state of constant ecstasy and bliss that blows all the...fuses and renders people unconscious or dead in minutes. So they are visions and they're concepts that there is something that I should become. There is something that I should achieve in future.
If I meditate a lot or read a lot of philosophy or watch a lot of talks on YouTube, And that something will be added to the me. So there is a me and there is a thing called enlightenment and I got to get it and add it to myself. Separation right at the start. Looking for oneness through separation? How ridiculous. Let's see if, oh, maybe I'll check on here if we have the sound issues. No, I think it's pretty much all right.Let's hope it. So instead of looking for some imaginary state to achieve in the imaginary future, Pause for a moment and look into this moment right now, which is the only reality that can ever be experienced.
This presence, this immediacy. And see that in this immediacy, there is nothing wrong. This moment is a pure perfection unfolding as it should. There is nothing wrong. Unless the idea the thought comes up and says so yes but yes but this is not what they told me it should be and there is still a sense of me what is the sense of me how does it feel to have the sense of me see there is no feeling called me the feeling you may call it like sensation on the body cold hot or the feeling of sadness or joy or grief but the feeling of me that's not really a feeling that's a translation of what of a subtle vibration subtle contraction So what is there?
The field of consciousness and the vibration. Where is that me? What does it have to do with any interpretation saying that this is a proof that the little miniaturedriver of that vehicle is real. That translation, that interpretation is to be questioned. Because when the interpretation is absent for a moment, that vibration may still be present, but there is nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with any of the vibration appearing in the system. There is not even a need to label it in any way. The label will come up and you will see how the label comes up automatically also, just like any other thought.
But when you see the mechanicalness of all that process, you don't have to trust it any longer. If the vibration arises and it is called anxiety because the situation is such that that is the most appropriate label, you don't need to trust that label. You take it off and you stay with vibrations. What's wrong with vibrations? Absolutely nothing. If the vibration is so strong that the body will get up and run, what's wrong with that? There's no doer of any of it. The same vibration may show up in a system, and because environment dictates different interpretation, it will be called excitement. The same frequency, the same heartbeat, the same movement of the chemicals in the chemical factory.
But you don't have to trust that one either. There's no sadness, no joy, no happiness, no...love no hatred when all opposites are absent everything is clear and undisguised said sin sin ming which bob loved to quote take all the interpretations away and stay with the raw energy of the nowness Be fascinated by the brilliance of the nowness, including the dream arising in it, including the interpretation arising in it. What an incredible dream it is if you are staying grounded as that presence awareness, as that pure field of consciousness. And within that field of consciousness, you are on the endless ride of discovery. What's the next dream?
What's the next vibration? What's the next sensation? And all of them have the subtle quality to them of like, wow. There is pleasure and pain, there is darkness and light, there is winter and summer, hot and cold, and all the diversity, and it cannot be any other way. It has to appear as pairs of opposites. It has to show up as good, bad, pleasant, painful. But if that good, bad, pleasant, painful isn't personal, if it isn't related to me, which always wants only good,and never bad and it always resists all the bad and desires the good if it is just as it is if it is just what shows up then wow what an incredible dream it is just if you were to watch a dream watch a movie in which you know you have people interacting like on this beautiful colorful folders of jehovah witnesses sitting and lying next to the deer and everybody is lovey-dovey and imagine watching it for longer than than 20 minutes and not puke You need the diversity for anything to have a juice.
You need the night to appreciate the day. You need the winter to appreciate the summer. Children don't understand the idea of health unless they fall sick. And then, aha! No one values health unless they lose it. And yay, everything is known from its opposite. That's why that unified field of oneness experiences and expresses itself as everything, as all that beautiful kaleidoscope of colors and shapes and patterns and forms, all of which seem to stand alone on the background of its opposite. You have the sweetness.and you have bitterness. Or you could say sweetness and absence of sweetness. That's well enough the opposite. You have the form and you have the absence of form, which is emptiness.
If there was just emptiness, how can emptiness experience or express anything? It dreams itself a form. Now it has a form and through that form it can look and it can see the incredible diversity of things. And through that form it can hear. But it is a dream nevertheless, just like when you sleep at night and you close your eyes and you still see. The body in the bed is having the eyes closed and is not moving, not running, not flying. And the experiencing has the little dream body in it, the point in consciousness that can move, that can fight, it can fly, it can do anything.
The consciousness dreaming itself a body dreaming itself a vehicle of experiencing and expressing and catching a glimpse of itself through that dreaming and you are that consciousness enjoy the dreaming while it's there It is an incredible, incredible dream. None of it is personal, and there is nothing wrong with any of it. I think that's it. That's enough. I know. A word, still nothing. Still nothing.Anyone? Michael? No? Okay. I was just telling people that I was listening to the... After a year, I haven't heard Bob's spiel for a year because I was busy with other stuff and I was watching all his beautiful little videos when we were interacting with each other and when he was laughing and blowing kisses to me and I just didn't really.
And yesterday I found a meeting. From 10 years ago, just after my mind opened up, after a few years of being in absolute silence and pretending invisible in the meetings, I started expressing it. It started just flowing through. And Joe and Cliff and I don't know who else from here was there on those meetings and it was just so lovely. But quite... A couple of meetings I heard. One of them, Bob wouldn't give a spiel. He would just look around and he would say, oh, everyone's been here before. Who's going to start us off? Drop us something. Give us a pointer. What resonates? Or what's unclear?what you feel that would be worthy of exploring.
And the conversation was going, of course, Bob would jump into the conversation and would have a chat and would straighten it or acknowledge it or, you know, just drop brilliant, like, oh, beautiful, yeah, that's it. And, yeah, let's... Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Thanks, Kat. That was really good, really good exposition on the subject of no thing. I just think about everything is just as it is and it's... It's consciousness arising or we see what seem like objects before us, but really that is just the consciousness itself. It's observing itself. There's no scene without a seer and there's no seer without the scene. And it's both, it's the same thing, not even a thing, but it's,the appearance and what it's appearing to is the oneness and, um, There's no separation.
And then the idea of me comes up in the thinking, oh, I should do this or I saw that or I just had this thought and the next thought comes up and the next thought and this whole story starts coming along and you go, well, that's me, but what's me? Which is... An interesting question. I always think, well, me is, I think it's the body sometimes, but it's more than that. It's the memory of, oh, who's me? It's me. I remember coming in the front door. I remember this from yesterday. So that's what me is. It's so insubstantial that me relies on memory. And if you didn't have memory, what could you say about it?
It would only just be here and now. It couldn't be anything else. Anyway, that's all. Just to get the ball rolling, who do we think we really are? And what is that beingness we recognize, as you say? Is it contraction? Is it like there's experiencing? Experiencing is happening all the time, awake or asleep or whatever, it's stillThank you. That's such a beautiful point. Yeah. Me is the memory. Me is the past. So what is me? Question to me seems me is not satisfied me is never satisfied with how thingseven appear to be. But me is always looking to know, to find out what is behind this.
But the mere fact of Trying to find. Something that's obviously difficult to put into words. Is enough to cover the natural state. With a cloud of unknowing, as one of the mystics called it, So it's this cloud of unknowing that eventually falls, or just as a glimpse, falls away. Falls away, it's obviously...as Cliff was saying, it's built up with memories and held together with a bit of sticky tape here and there. But it all completely almost evaporates. For no reason, for no cause, it can all evaporate.And that's quite an amazing... Situation because where do you go? Where does me go then? There's nowhere to go.
And eventually me just gives up and eventually something else will come up. But you don't disappear when the me is gone, do you? So how is that me, you? There's still being consciousness. Yeah. And this absolute.And that's a beautiful point you made, you know, to me, the association or identification with that sense of me is the sense of that seeking and complaining. Ah, you know, I feel so deeply that this is not enough, that this is wrong, that this moment shouldn't be like this. There should be more pleasure in it. There should be more fulfillment and sense of completeness. I still feel that there's something wrong with me.
Something's not right. That sense of existential angst, just not this. But really, is it a me or is it just a sense? It's just an urge, just the same as the sense of contraction, just the same as, you know, urge for seeking the fulfillment. It's not much different to any other urge that just arises in the consciousness. There is a field of knowing and there is an arising, this... Reaching out for more. And again, it is that tendency of that navigational system, that large language model, which translates the survival instinct of the body, the loving to be, into, I want more goodness. I want less badness.
Natural. This is part of the self-care of the machine, which arises in consciousness, which arises in that which I am. I am the consciousness. Within me arises...Within me, the machine is already equipped in a survival system which tells it more pleasure, less pain. There seems to be... No charge to this natural state. Perfectly. Perfectly balanced. There's nothing about it that needs to change. There's nothing about it.but has any concern? It's just... Yeah, pure neutrality. And that's the birthright, the cat used the expression birthright. It's an interesting way to express it because it implies, of course, that there is nothing that you need to do to gain anything.
It's already there. There's never been anything else. And the searching, the seeking, the requirement for change, the got to get somewhere, that's all just what we call thought that comes and goes and changes from one moment to the next.And. Is really just a nothing, a nothing, a nothing. And it's charred, but it's a, the way we express it is that your attention, who is you, gives it energy, gives it life, makes it matter, creates some sort of solidity to the illusion. The whole time.There's never been anything else but exactly that. That neutrality. Cognizing emptiness, registering everything that's happening, even the feeling of being not whole or having something lacking.
There's something not right about me. I need to fix it. I guess it's an ongoing process. Good, good. Can you get that once we have people online with us? Yes, that we, a lot of us, we are slowly getting somewhere. Like that that just ends up happening in whatever way for a lot of us and there are ways we can accelerate the process too, but it's a process that never ends of course. And one thing that I've heard someone say is that each of us is an intricate part of the universe but not an important part. How about absolutely all of that valid and all that conceptual, beautiful conceptualisation of how things are, nothing wrong with that.
Still concepts, still conceptual, stillpart of the dream, what sits, what the substrate of that is, is that which never changes, doesn't come and go, doesn't get improved upon, silent, still, neutral. Pure equanimity allows everything. Just as Ross was saying before, that awareness is just there and then we think we want more or it should be different or we should understand something better. I think that sense of something missing or something that we want to get comes up. Or I'm not feeling the best today, I'm feeling tired or headachy or whatever. I was good yesterday. I want it to be more like how it was yesterday or I'm feeling better last week.
And then the other side comes up. I want things to go my way today in some way. And things start happening that way and you think, oh, this is good. It's all going well for me. And you'll trot along like that. There's no resistance. But if things start going badly, you go, no, I don't want this. I want it differently. And suddenly that me sound seems like it's not getting what it wants and then the conflict comes up.become more aware that you're living in that dream of the eye that's not getting what it wants. And then that's that, oh, I want to get rid of this now.
I don't want to be like that. Once again, reinforces that idea of a separate self and perpetuates the... Perpetuates the initial thought that was the problem. The lower self. The lower self. At least in some forms of yoga, they call it, talk about the higher selves and the lower selves. Where are they? It's really all just one, and they're just thoughts about a self that's a good self and a thought that's a bad self or whatever, but they're still just ideas appearing in the now. Yeah. Small self and the higher power and the lower power, they're all pointers, and they can be used. They can be, if they resonate, they can be useful.
But they're just more way of dividing indivisible. Because where is the higher power if we're talking about the omnipotence? All power. All power is all one. There is no higher power, lower power, smaller self, bigger self, if there is omnipresence. All presence, everything is the total presence, complete presence, all one. And within that one, the idea, oh, but I am not good enough. What is it? It's just a thought. But because that thought contained the I, straight away, the whole program says, aha, this is about me. This is personal. This is serious. This is important. Oh, my God. But this is just a program of relating the thought, the line of words, the sound into the imagined entity that allegedly lives somewhere in there and has control over the world.
But you have a look and see if you can't, if you find that entity. No, you can't. So it is just the consciousness still. And the words appearing just the same way as there is a sky and the clouds appearing. And get the mic.Our thoughts that come to us, if we don't give too much importance to them, they can't hurt us. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's the freedom. Thought has no power whatsoever. The only power that it gets is that omnipotence, is the belief. But the belief can be questioned. To believe a thought, the energy charges the thought. But to believe it and to reference it and relate it to the imagined self takes a habit.
And that habit can be seen through. And when it is seen through, it can easily fall apart. I have just a couple of things. Unless, Ross, you want to say something? And then I have a couple of things. Just a... I think that you, what's your name? Me? Katrina. Katrina. Just something that Katrina mentioned earlier was about the normal progress of the seeker that goes through various processes, thinking that, you know, we'll develop this skill, it might be meditation, we'll develop this something else, and eventually we'll get somewhere where we're not sure, but we're going to get somewhere. According to the Buddha.No process leads to this natural state.
It's a state that we've never lost. It's always there. There's only one. So what sort of process will lead to our natural state? The more it's developed and studied and written down, the further away you're getting from the natural state. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. There's literally... The processes. Yeah. The processes. Give it a try. Whatever those processes be, we'll still go through whatever process there is, but what we seek, we already are. That's the thing. In the dream. The seeking will happen. Yes, in the dream. In the dream world. In the story, in the illusion. But you've never left home. No. There's no path. You're there from childhood.
There's no being. There's no becoming. This process concept is a dream of becoming. If there's belief that I'm not yet that, that I'm going to become something, then there is a belief I'm not yet that. Start from the position.that you are that. You've always been that. You'll never be anything else. There's no path, there's no gate, there's no gateless gate, there's no process. You'll never, ever, ever be anything but the nameless thing that is nameless that we can't put our finger on. But there's a knowing and it's not... In the thoughts or in the head or in the mind, can you not be?Simple as that.
Layer upon layer upon process and all this is just more dividing up within the illusion, which is perfectly fine, but still an illusion. Start from you are that. And if that one doesn't feel right, because sometimes people get confused, okay, that what? That means God, that means enlightened. I don't feel like this. Instead of saying you are that, the Mahavikya actually sounds that you are, that you are. So that's the ultimate wisdom. I know that I am. Is there anyone who doesn't know that they are? Everyone already knows that they are. Saying you are that because it is nameless, like Tanya said. You can't call it anything.
Every word is wrong to say cognizing emptiness, intelligence, energy, presence, awareness, God, love, whatever you want to call it. It's already moving apart from that sense of existence I am. When I call it it, it's not I am anymore. So I'm moving apart. That's why it is being called that. But instead of calling it that, which can be everything or anything, that I am is kind of... Closer to me it just feels like closer to me i know that i am what i am is unknowable that we've establishedput any costume, any role for experience for the sake of playing. But that I am, I can't deny.
I already am. I exist. I don't have to become. There's no future. In this moment, I know that I am. Full stop. 100% certainty. No doubt. And Bren, you have the mind. And I'm guessing that the same... I'm guessing that's the same meaning as the phrase, I am that I am. Yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely.I'll try and put words to what I'm going to say. So I guess I think, So if I say to everyone, become aware that Kat is over there, we'll use our eyes and we'll look at Kat and become aware that she's there. But if I say, can you hear that? you'll become aware that you're hearing.
Of a noise the cat just made or something else. Now, if I say, can you feel, the chair that you're sitting on. Awareness will come and you'll be aware that you're sitting on the chair. Now if I say, can you become aware that you're breathing and that the heart's beating? Awareness will be there. But what you realize is awareness is not limited to any of the senses. The body is appearing in awareness and everything here is appearing in awareness. It's not limited from sight, hearing. Your eye isn't telling you I'm seeing. Your ear is not telling you I'm hearing. Everything'sjust appearing, functioning, and the body is just a pattern of vibrating energy.
It's not anything other than that. And we're all appearing and as awareness. There's no boundaries. It's just the thoughts and concepts that get us stuck. And the fact that it's here. Awareness has no limitations at all. It can be called space-like because it has the qualities of space, but even that is putting a name to it. It's absolutely no thing. It's not even silent. There's no word you can put on it because it's free of everything. So there's no progress. There can't be a path in that which is absolutely not contained by anything. Yeah. No beginning, no end. It's unlimited. And where did it start?
Like a baby is awareness too. Was it aware, always aware? It was aware when it was in the womb. And where does awareness start? Where does awareness end?There's no beginning, yeah. And there's no end. The beginning is the end and the end is the beginning. There's nothing. Someone said something like that once, that there is no beginning and there is no end. Therefore, the wise man considers only the highest questions or something like that. But what Brendan's saying is words are wording. Everything's inging.It's just suchness. It's like we call it being and, you know, the primary and words don't describe it, but the primary verb in any language is the verb to be.
And it's I am, you are, he, she, or it is, we are, they are, etc. But it's just the mind dividing it up into I, you, he, she. It is just being anyway, but the mind creates the tools and the separation to think around all of the things we think about and put labels on it. But it is just... Being anyway with various descriptors on it starting with you know that i am idea you are you're separate to me in some way but it really is just being just awareness and that's it that's right yes and You often hear the phrase, you know, be in the now.
You can't get out of the now. There's never anything else than now. And now isn't even a good enough word for now because the minute, second, the moment it's spoken, it's not now.As it is? As it is. without, you know, any requirement to have any post-event narrative believed in or gone into. Followed up on meaning, applying meaning to what's clear and obvious. As it's occurring, being. But this came up the other day in one of our Zoom meetings when it really does help. When you can see that there is no past and there is no future. In terms of what's actually experiencing, it's always that which we call now.
Even, you know, when you've written it on the calendar, I know it's going to happen tomorrow, I've got this appointment, but when it arrives, it's still now.reach into the future. It's always just as it is. This Nothing ever happens. Nothing ever happened. It's just happening. Just happening, yeah. I got a couple of comments here from our online community. Deborah says, good morning and happy new year from Julia. And by being no thing, nothing can bother us. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And she also says, whenever I feel depressed or upset about something, I remind myself it is the mind making up a story. Yeah, that's so obvious, isn't it?
There's nothing wrong with right now unless the story comes up and says so. Without the thought, there is no problem. There's just what is. Nothing wrong, but also nothing right. It's just no thing appearing as this unique, beautiful, unrepeatable, fresh, present moment. And Sandy says, beautiful words, says Andrea. And Sandy says, love what you said a few weeks ago, Kat. Anything, always wanting what is not, never happy with what is God. Yeah, that's a little anonymous poem that Bob sometimes reads.sides in regards to the complaining nature of the mind, which is a beautiful, beautiful capacity for the survival to just report on the issues and the problem.
And he'd say, as a rule, a man is full. When it's hot, it wants it cool. When it's cool, it wants it hot. Always wanting what it's not, never wanting what it's got. As a rule, a mind is full. And that's that. Even the fullness of the mind is to be appreciated because it has its function. There is a great intelligence to everything, including complaining human mind, including the story of the journey. Don't we love the beautiful hero's journey? Everyone can tell thousands of those stories from that incredible body-mind projector of a me, of a dream character. And even when there is a clarity that there is no one there, the story is still unfolding.
I'm writing a biography of Bob and I really, really hope to finish it before a year has passed. But it's such an incredibly juicy, colorful life story before so-called enlightenment and after so-called enlightenment. The dream character which does not have any essential real existence apart from the life that animates it just like the light has no real existence apart from the power of electricity andthe body of the globe. It is all required for experiencing an expression. The life essence dreams itself a character for that incredible, incredible dream to be lived fully. And especially when it is seen true and the psychological suffering is removed. There is still going to be a pain and pleasure.
There's still going to be anger and joy and sadness and all of it, but not personal. And without the label, they're just a kaleidoscope of vibrations, really juicy. And I have some more comments here. There is Julia says there is something about me and I need to fix it that was pretty funny Tanya yeah that was cute and also I loved what Bren was saying you know expressing the the awareness encompassing absolutely everything. I think Bob had a similar metaphor when he was talking about, you know, like you were moving the attention from here, from hearing to sounds. The movement of attention happens within that field of registering, within that cognizing emptiness or witnessing presence.
The same way Bob would sometimes request, okay, look around the room quickly, quickly. And then, okay, as you did, how many things did you see? And you may label 10 things, maybe 15 things. But you register.everything just like the camera lens it registered everything but the capacity for attention to attend to those things is limited it's like a computer it cannot process too many things at once so you only label five things or maybe ten things depends how observant you are but everything has been registered in that consciousness But again, when we talk about attention, it is the definition of terms. The awareness is indivisible, is all one, and it is not even it.
It is the my sense of existence stretching as a field of knowing. And that field of knowing through the capacity of that human pattern of translating everything and making sense of things through the capacity of labeling and interpreting the seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. Now we have 10,000 things known in consciousness. Awareness doesn't have any language if there is no consciousness. If there is no human pattern with the human capacities and programs. So it dreams itself that pattern. It's like the electricity has no capacity whatsoever until you put the globe somewhere and it flows through and it appears as light. But electricity is not light.
Same as the awareness is not a consciousness, is not a seeing, hearing.But it is that too, because that is his expression. And Bob had this beautiful one-liner which sums it all. Everything is one in its essence as the pure potentiality. But it's the 10,000 things absolutely unique in a way it expresses. In the expression, seeing is different to hearing. attending, brands attending to the ceiling or the wall is different to roses. The attention, the movement of attention, the habit of attention, being preoccupied with football or being preoccupied with diets or being preoccupied with anything, even those are unique expressions. Every personality is a unique expression, including the personality of the cat or dog.
A unique expression, even though the cat or dog doesn't have a story about being a cat or dog, or about being separate from the environment. I was just thinking everything, as you say, exists in its potentiality. Awareness is aware of everything in a way, but it's a tension that makes it seemingly real. That's when the attention goes. Into looking at the atom or into looking at the universe, and suddenly it seems to have reality in it. Then it matters.It could be something you don't like or something. It doesn't matter. But when you're thinking about it, it matters. It becomes like solid, you know, giving rise to that expression, I think Bob would say.
You know, you know when you say it doesn't matter. Well, it doesn't matter. You don't care. But when it matters, it seems heavy and concrete. Absolutely. Takes four you know and you can think about anything like well your car exists in potentiality but when you think about oh yeah i've got to attend to that scratch or the engine's not running well suddenly it's got a it seems like it's real in the mind and see how choiceless it is See how you don't know your next thought. You don't know where the attention is going to go. Because it depends on everything. It depends on the weather.
It depends on the hormonal balance or imbalance. It depends on the conditioning, on your family, on the genes, on 10,000 things. You don't even know where is the attention going to go next. I have no idea what I'm going to say next. It's just all one huge discovery of choicelessness. The spontaneous movement of the life force, which, as you say, you know, wherever the attention rests, the so-called energy turning into this charging force, making it a belief and making it appear real. What an amazing.projector which looks in there and suddenly you are real. I'm looking at you, my gosh, you're sentient, you're real, you exist.
Wow, welcome to my dream. There is no my dream, it's just a dream. Charlie, you want to say something? It's always good to hear you. I was going to say something about the bird is flying because the tension is so fluid. That's what I got. Sorry, I don't know your name. Brendan. That's what I got from Brendan's talk. The fluidity of attention. And that is something that is constituent within the individual. Yes. Because the individual is governed by an amalgam. Of influences that they can actually track in Vedic astrology. And so the analogy is this, and this is what I gleaned from Brendan, is that if you want the consciousness...
The metaphor is this. The consciousness is like white light. The individuals are like the colours in a colour filter. You know, it colours the colour of the original white light.But the fundamental thing is that there's the white light, there's the consciousness, if you like. But we just express it so differently in our perception, our mental capacities and so on and so forth anyway. That's beautiful. Thanks for the prompt, Fred. Yeah, and I love when Bob was actually describing it because it's so sobering. You know, we think so much of ourselves as superior species, humans. Wow, we are the gods for the consciousness, for the life.
He says, you know, this human capacity, this human pattern has those capacities, but other creatures have different capacities. You know, birds can fly. And have the eyesight much better than humans. And the leopards and tigers, they can grow spots. It is the innate intelligence, it's that light behind it, that make every species, every creature, its eyes for experiencing and expressing. I, as the life, as the ultimate field of pure potentiality, I am the bird looking at that eagle,
Eagle looking at the mouse. Thousand meters away or the whale in the ocean or the tree anything and everything is an expression of that aliveness of that intelligence of that field of potentiality and everything is equally amazing when you look close enough it's not that this person is better than that this is smarter yes they are different and they could could be compared but all of it is a reflection of absoluteness the drop of do is an expression of the absolute, is an expression, is the reflection of pure perfection.
It's like the reflection, like the absoluteness or that pure space is like one mirror. And it reflects always itself. Everything is itself. Human pattern is the absolute. Yeah, through the agency of the individuals. Yes, yes. And any other nature, any other form of expression. Yeah, exactly. It is the petrol of all beings, all planets, all stars, all phenomenal existence. Or seemingly solid existence because it's not really solid. And science has proven that. One thing I used to think when I was a kid in regard to other species was about how, when I was a kid, I used to think about how humans, for our size, we're so physicallyineffective in that we can't run fast for our size, we're not strong for our size, we don't have strong teeth, we don't have claws, but we had the ability to throw rocks and then to develop weapons.
And funny enough, as the totality has it, even being a human is a definition of like a whole conglomeration, a huge society of other organisms without organisms, multitudes, trillions of cells that exist almost as the humanity itself. As an entity, the bacteria, the gut bacteria, there are even bacteria in the brain that alter the way of perceiving or the way of acting.What is human? What is not? It is just another label for that incredibly complex vibration. And what an incredible projector it is. What an incredible... Eternity of expression it is. Just like one cell, one body, one galaxy, one planet, one humanity. And through the storytelling, we can join as one room, one country.
What an incredible, incredible capacity. Suddenly, life opens up to itself. For multiplying the diversity of its absoluteness on an infinity of expression never-endingness of expression if you look at your own experience how fresh and new every single moment of now just now is how rich it is with the sensations. And again, like Brendan was saying, the capacity for processing those sensations is limited. So if all the attention is focused in the complaining, of course, the result will be depression and suicidal ideations and all that. But if that capacity for processing that attention relaxes and brings itself back to that ever fresh presence.to the current breath, to the sensations in the body, to the perceptions, to the seeing, to the amazement and beauty of this ever fresh, never to be repeated moment of now.
Where is the depression? Where is the suffering then? If the attention if the love of being if the love for being if the affinity for the dreaming itself for the life essence for that capacity of expressing as the ten thousand things is right here can't help but justA mystery. Mystery of like, wow. Dream it is wow it could have been nothing and really it is nothing but not a nothing really is the no thing because there is a sentience to all of it there is there is a sentience to every experience There is an emotional depth, seeming emotional depth, because it is only there when you look at it.
And by act of looking, you create it, you improvise it. There is a seeming emotional depth to every story because it comes into the surface as soon as that life-giving force. Put that electricity through that globe and it leads and wow you know what has happened to me for the last year wow you know what has happened to me in my childhood wow it's incredible but all of that is happening presently alongside with the seeing hearing tasting touching smelling alongside with that subtle joy of aliveness that is vibrating through the cells that could be experienced through every breath that is never far away that stillness without which the whole dream couldn't be seen the basic screen And we always focus on the movie.
And it's okay to focus on the movie. But it hurts when you forget what it is.I know, as you were saying there, I love that term, appointed by Nisargadatta, nothing can hurt you but your own imagination. He probably hasn't met Bruce Lee. Charlie just jogged my memory about individuals. Firstly, If you look at the word individual in English, it means in, not divide. Jewel. So you've got...that which can't be divided. But the actual individual that we talk about doesn't exist. It's just a character in a dream. And I was looking at a YouTube video the other day, nothing better to do. And there's this... There's this...
World boxing champion Muhammad Ali. The greatest of all time they consider because he was a heavyweight boxer, but he was incredibly fast for his speed. And he was also very strong. But he'd heard about this little guy from Hong Kong called Bruce Lee. And Bruce Lee was about five foot seven or eight. And he weighed about 130 pounds.Not very much about H. Stone. I've forgotten the name. Stone. Yeah. Too ancient. Not very much. When he walked into this gymnasium, all the bodybuilders there just laughed at him. But he was invited by Muhammad Ali to throw a punch at him. And he... He walked in and then eventually they set up what was going to happen and he was going to throw a punch at his chest.What they'd overlooked was that he had mastered his body.
And he knew everything about the body, or the way the electrical circuitry worked. The way the muscles worked. And anyway, he threw this punch at Muhammad Ali and... He dropped to the ground and he stayed there for several seconds while he got his breath back. And apparently what Bruce Lee explained to him, what he'd just done to him, but he'd punched him with a punch that travelled about one inch. To his diaphragm, but it was so fast and powerful and it was precisely focused that he just took all his power, all his air and he just fell to the ground.What did it show? It demonstrated that someone who was very skillful and had, in this process of becoming, had developed his body to such a stage that it was perfect in this process.
The control of the Nama Rupa, control of his mind and control of his body was perfect as a martial arts fighter.The pity is that he may never discover his true potential. Like another guy I feel sorry for, his name is Elon Musk. And he's the richest man in the world. But what did Jesus say about rich men entering the kingdom of heaven? It was easier for, what was it? The camel to go through the middle. I have a dream. The rich man to go through the middle. That's right. Easier for the camel.Yeah, yeah. I've seen the eye of the needle date in Jerusalem. Yeah, well, you couldn't fit a Tesla through there.
The whole beauty of that is that, you know, there is never an Elon Musk to feel sorry for. There was never a Muhammad Ali who hit the mat and was unconscious. There was never an individual. Correct. But there was a cognising and a recognising, a knowing that knew the whole shebang. As it was occurring. The rest is all... What you're saying is there's an absolute? That's it. That's it. Everything happens in that, not separate from.That's it. Bottom line. Freedom is that, you know, I feel sorry for Elon Musk because that poor devil doesn't know that he's not Elon Musk. Who am I to feel sorry for Elon Musk?
Find a mini me Tanya here either. It's just verbiage. It's just stuff that comes up. And we need to try not to judge people. Because there's no... We need to try not to judge people. As if we had a choice. Yeah, as if we had a choice. But it's okay because there's no one here judging. There's no one to be judged. It's uncomfortable and the torture is if you believe in that imaginary me being judged for doing the judging. Yeah, but what Kat described before when she was talking about that, she really described the mechanics. Have a mic, Charlie. What Kat described before was the mechanics of identification.
That's the psychological process that hooks the attention into the persona as opposed to...Some describe it as a habit. It's purely a habit. It's exactly what it is, Tanya. It's a habit of believing, going, the habit of believing in that core thought that comes, and it's new and fresh every time, in me, and I did something, or I have to do something, and I, when that thought comes up as I have to do something, I did something, I'm going to do something, that's an invitation. To look. Yeah, so in that process there's nothing flipping wrong with identification. It's only that you become aware of it. That's all.
Absolutely. Well, you don't become aware of it. Well, you don't become aware of it and you come back and do it again. Let's play the record again, Sam. And life doesn't mind either way. It doesn't mind. No, it doesn't. There's no necessity for seeing through. Whether you're a demon or an angel. Yeah, because from the perspective of absolute, those who see through and those who not see through are all my expressions, are all part of what I am, the pure potentiality. And even though, you know, it may feel like, oh, okay, the illusion of identity has been seen through here, but it hasn't been seen through there or someone, and they still suffer, and I don't suffer, and that's unfair, and they should keep trying.
There's no one there either.If you start caring, then you'll fall into the trap that religions have fallen into since time immemorial. Yes. And I won't name them. They're two very poignant ones. All of them. All of them. Yeah. Yeah. And even religions are also just the expression of that intelligence energy self-organizing into the form of a religion. Yeah. Like into a form of a country, into a form of individual, into a form of collective story. There is nothing wrong with any of that. You took the words out of my mouth. Is it a time? Yeah, it is. And thank you. Thank you for making a discussion alive.
And thank you, everyone, for showing up.