This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
I'm going to put on the offer. Anyone would like to start us off today? Give us a little reminder, run us through the pointers. See how the eternity speaks through Cornelius. Absolutely wonderful. Thank you. Love hearing you.Non-duality. And Veda Vedanta. Start with the basic, the basic fact that There is presence. Nazagadhar told us, focus on the I am. He said that he focused on the I am for three years and he very quickly realized.It seemed a bit difficult to understand what he meant by that and what difference that would make. I found myself repeating, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, for years and rereading the book.
And it seemed so simple that I didn't get it. Ramana Maharshi, he told us to ask, who am I?And so for years I sat there asking, who am I? Who am I? Who's asking? There seemed to be nothing there. Again, I didn't get it. Eventually, Sailor Bob rose up in the consciousness and he said, well, you know you are, don't you?And somehow, putting it in that Melbourne English Australian way, it popped. Now, it's like you see your heart's desire shopping online and you order the thing and it's coming and you can follow it online. So the post box, your letterbox, is kind of far away from the house.
So every day you put on your boots and you tromp out through the snow or you put on your thongs and you tromp out through the blazing heat way, way down to the letterbox and you get there and you open it and it's not there. And so you go back home. And you wait. And then the next day, you go down to the letterbox and you check if your heart's desire has arrived from online yet, but it's still not there. And this goes on forever.And it seems, for here anyway, that what Bob said was, You know you are, don't you? What he was saying is the parcel has already been delivered and it's under your bed.
And that's where it was. And you always had it. And it's always there. One thing Ramana said was, when this is realized, you'll laugh because it was always there.There's a lot of complicated language and complicated culture around this always there-ness. It's dressed up in Sanskrit. It's dressed up in Latin. It's in Chinese. It seems very complex. There seems to be a lot of rules, a lot of directions about how to get there. But the simple truth is that it's already there. It's always there. It's prior to the idea of I am.Most of the time, it's totally ordinary. It's so ordinary that you don't even think about it.
But occasionally, it's so profound. That there's an expansion. It's difficult to describe because this expansion happens beyond the symbolic language of talking about a particular space or a particular experience. And all of that is perceived by the senses. This is This is the substratum of all that. It all rises up within that.makes it difficult to explain, describe. It's unmistakable. When there's, it's like a clearing in the smoke. It's unmistakable. It's, oh, that's it. That's it. Nazagadot used to talk about attention. He'd say, put your attention on the I am. Bob would talk about the the energy of belief. That we give our attention to this belief in this separate individual sitting at home desperately waiting for his heart's desire to arrive in the letterbox and it never comes.
Whereas when all along he's sitting on it, it's in him, it's under the bed, it's there. The energy of belief and Bob's beautiful definition of belief was an unquestioning acceptancein an alleged fact in the absence of positive knowledge or evidence. It was beautiful that we believe in the person. And if attention is withdrawn from this, person, this movie that's projected onto a puff of smoke. The reality comes into the foreground.the person is seen through. If you try and intellectually figure this out, It can't be done. It becomes more spaghetti in Sanskrit. It becomes more ideas, more concepts, more rules to follow. More time to pass.
Something else to consider. Another YouTube video of someone else talking about it.The withdrawal. Of the energy of belief. Becomes kind of paradoxical. How to withdraw the energy of belief? Who would be doing that withdrawing? When there is, when you see something, when you see a chair in the grass,There are three things. There are seemingly three things. There's the chair in the grass. There's the one who is the seer of the chair in the grass. And there is the act, the happening of the seeing. If you take... Any one of those elements away, there's no seeing a chair in the grass and there's no one to see it.This means that they're all bound together.
If they're inseparable, then they're together. They're the same thing. So there is being and there is knowing. The knowing knows that it is, and the is is known.And beyond that is elaboration. And if you go further into the elaborations, you're going way off in the bush and it's behind you. This came up this morning.Because, as I said, It's this, um... ordinariness. And Bob used to say like, It's ignorance that stops you from getting it. It's not that we're stupid or that we're ignorant. It's just that it's because it's the silence, because it's the stillness, because it's the no thingness.All those things aren't very interesting for the mind because the mind is there to protect, to maximize pleasure, to give a long life with many children and plenty of shopping online and figuring stuff out so they can have money and so that next week will be okay.
Stillness, serenity, no thingness. It's not the business of the mind.And over a 60-year period, the mind, I mean, for the entire life of the organism, the mind can ignore it. That's the ignorance. It's that the mind ignores it. So back to this morning, there was... The idea of... The withdrawal of the energy of belief.And this... Because you... You see through it, but as Bob used to say about, you know, you know the water's not blue and you know the sky's not blue, but they still appear blue. Until you go and try and get a bucket of blue water, it's not blue, it's transparent. So you see through the idea of the person, but the person continues.
The life goes on living. The little guy keeps doing his thing. And there's still the idea thatIt's kind of an obligatory interest in this little guy. It's momentum. So if you can consciously withdraw attention from the little person, what will happen. So this morning, that seemed to happen. The jaw went away.The space inside the jar merged with the space outside the jar, but there was no inside and no outside. There was no eyes open or eyes closed. It was just silent, empty, boundlessness was a word that came up. The boundlessness. It lasted for a while. And then, The familiar couch and lounge room, cup of coffee, heater were back.It was quite...
Extraordinary. As I said, it always seems so ordinary, the this is it. This is it.That fabulous thing that I was promised. That beautiful thing at the end of the rainbow. Was here. Always. Anyway, always already. And it was overlooked because it's silent.It doesn't have any qualities. It doesn't have any things. I remember in yoga there was a lot about renunciation, the renunciation of possessions, because eventually you're going to have to renounce the body. But you can't. The body is an appearance in consciousness, like a clear blue sky with a fluffy cloud floating past. That's the body. It has the same qualities as memories. These things that float past, you can't hold on to anything.
So you don't have to let go of anything because it's not there anyway.You achieve your heart's desire and poof, it's gone. It's over. Your worst nightmare, the thing you've been worrying about 15 years arrives. But poof, it's gone and you're looking back at it. Whoa, I got through that one. This seems to be the real texture of the illusion. That there's nothing happening. There's nothing to be achieved. There's nowhere to go. There's nothing to have.And there's no subject to any of that. There's just like a subjectless knowing that's inseparable from the existence, from the presence. So it's good news all round.The words have stopped coming, so I'll pass the mic on now.
Wow, what a treat. That was so good. That was so beautiful. I love how you build up to it. You brought those, you know, those so-called big guns, you know, Nisargadatta. Giving seeming instructions focus on this or focus on i am or whatever and then and then uh ramana uh ask who am i and then the aussie blog came up and asked you hey you're not there are you are you not existing so beautiful and yes he does have that magic of collapsing that you know like nisargadatta was a sweetheart i never met him but that's what bob said and possibly was ramana but over the time there is just so much of that uh legend build around and the language gets so poetic and gets so profound that suddenly that simplicity that ordinaryness somehow gets obscured and i love when you said and it's always been there under the bed the parcel has been delivered it doesn't it didn't even have it's been delivered with the whole dream it's never been not there And what a brilliant metaphor to put it underneath, you know, whether it is the bed or the clouds or whatever underneath, it is never not here.
Yeah, how brilliant. You go on, Ivan. Hi. Yeah, beautiful spiel, the Cornelius. And what came up in me was that when you are not in sync with that what you are, then that feels kind of wrong. And maybe that's the motor to look further and to see that everything is already there. But when it is not there, then it feels like something is wrong. And I remember that Misa Kadatta had a quote, life is love and love is life. And that fear is the love to protect and knowledge is the love for the truth and love for the me or the mind. But the motor behind everything is love.
So the love is always calling. And when you are not in sync with it, then there is something to do to come in sync.think with it because you have to let go of some concepts or something that is troubling it, but it is always under the bed, as Cornelia says, it is always there. And yeah, something might be hiding it. Just like the clouds in the sky. And the sky doesn't care when there are clouds or when there are no clouds. And the love doesn't care either. It's unconditional.It accepts everything. That's what I wanted to add. Yeah, beautiful. Unconditional. Totally, completely unconditional. No conditions. Not that this is ugly, this is stupid, this is lovable, this is unlovable.
It doesn't have any concepts. It's non-conceptual, complete. And unconditional beautiful and we have few things here uh jay says same equals which changes new yeah form is emptiness and yvonne says the never ever changing like the sea always the same always changing and cornelis uh and matthew says thanks cornelis and cornelis says be in sync with the love nice yeah yeah that is Bob would often say, start from the fact that you already are, or you could say you already are that, because that's the same thing. It's pointing to the existence and see what obscures it. Blaszanka, you want to add?Yeah, how beautiful. Thank you, Cornelius and Yvonne.
Just kind of like when Cornelius was talking about, you know, seeking and going around and what kind of puts Bob away from many others, even Nisargadatta and Ramana Maharshi. It's the easiness, it's the relax. And most of us, when we seek, it's like we're not relaxed. You just go on like, I want it, I want it, I want it. It's in front of you, but you want it like, as soon as you... Wake up in the morning, you're there, it's there, that's, the awareness is there. So you're there, but you're like, open your eyes, it's like, oh, it's not there yet. As Cornelius was saying, it was under the bed all the time.
So that was beautiful. But the thing that I want to point out and Lots of seekers go through it. It's the promises of this and that, and you have to do it this way, and you have to do it that way. The patience that needs to be there is important because we need to ripen up to that. We need to receive. Lots of sun to ripen up to to kind of go like oh my god that's that and it's really that simple because mind makes it so difficult so there is no seeker and and and umseeking is just the one and that one is actually doing it all so when we ripe it just pops and you go like oh my god there we go pull it out of the bed so beautiful thank you that's um yeah that's just what came when i was listening to you too so Beautiful.
Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Blaszanka. That's gorgeous. We can't see you, though. We hear you very well, but we can't see you. It doesn't matter. It's okay. It's not like there's no obligation if anyone wants to. You know it's okay and I also see we have Belinda with us who I don't know if I've seen you before welcome hi hey yeah we've we've messaged before on on Facebook yeah I'm I'm in Tasmania yeah yeah it's nice to to be involved tonight finally it's something I've been looking forward to for a long time and I've often watched the
from Facebook, the Sunday meetings and so on, after the fact, unfortunately.
But I'm coming to Melbourne in a few weeks. And so I thought I'd, well, not that I wanted to be present online so that I wasn't a complete stranger, because I'd really dearly like to come to to a meeting in person on the Sunday while I'm in Melbourne for the weekend. It would be great to have the physical presence. Yeah, please. Yeah. So, yeah, thank you. Yes, I am new. Not new to non-duality, but definitely new to the group. Yeah, I had the privilege, I suppose, of discovering Bob. Oh, seven or eight years ago, I guess now, through Geoffrey Martin's coursework. And I think stepping into my first meeting with you all and having someone like Cornelius speaking, it's a very hard act to follow.
That was really amazing for my first time online. That was really something, Cornelius. It was really something. It was very, very entertaining and very, very pertinent. Yeah, so finally, yeah, I meet some,some other people which is great so yeah and in no time you will open your mouth and you will be speaking like gornel because that's what happens you know your certainty of existence is equal to his and everyone else that's right i mean One thing that I often ask myself, who is the anxious one? Something that I have to keep. Who is the anxious one? But, I mean, I can say a few words if people are interested.
Yeah, I hadn't really planned anything too much, but I'm sure there's some things that, or something I have been sitting with lately, is that tension between understanding non-duality and actually like living it. So you can see quite clearly that everything is a part of the same process and nothing is really separate. And we discuss this in so many different ways and shapes and forms and expressions. You know, if I take it to the extreme, when something like, say,death happens, what, you know, what I struggle with is the body and the mind still, you know, there's still the reaction. I'm a farmer. I'm self-sufficient. I grow my own fruit, vegetables and my animals.
And so there's a lot of that cycle of life and death every day, every day. I recently lost one of my goats to a snake bite. And so it got me on that trajectory and it really highlighted the actual living and the theoreticizing, for want of a better word. And on one level, there's a... A clear sense that nothing has fundamentally gone wrong. But at the same time, there's still grief. There's still attachment. Both seem to be there. My goat, she was, I milked her every day. You touch the fur, you feel the warmth, the beautiful smell, the connection to... To nature, to her, and so on.
So what's been interesting is noticing that these reactions, they just arise and they're not really being done as such by anybody.And I guess that's where I actually started. And on the completely backflip, I actually started to look into the humorous side of things. Where, um, Because even the way we speak assumes that there's a separate someone or something in control. And I find when I have moments of the extreme, as I said, like the death of an animal or, you know, I'm a volunteer firefighter. So I go to. Motor vehicle accidents that have fatalities and I go to people's houses that are burning down and they've lost everything, you know, to them.
Whatever, you know.It's so, you know, when people, so I'm starting to find the humour in when people say things like, make up your mind or don't take it personally or my personal favorite are you out of your mind you know like so i've got these shifting sort of like one is kind of that sort of darker side if you will of that mind body and that extreme even that grief and then the other which maybe my brain is doing something magical there trying to um you know like shakespeare some sort of comical relief but i guess When you look closely, it's not that clear what that someone actually is.
It definitely isn't for me now. So for me, it's less about resolving that and more about noticing how the assumptions the mind-body, they don't quite hold up to the direct experience.Yeah. Wow, that was a really, really clear way of explaining that, you know, the seeming paradox. But just before you were speaking, Yvonne brought up the idea of unconditionality of arising. And then you say, who is there who's anxious? And then, you know, you were talking about the death. And of course, you know, gosh, death of the animals, they're kind of almost closer to the family sometimes because you're ever with them. So sorry, sorry for your loss.
And look, you should. Celebrate the fact that that the feeling does arise because there are people who are incapable of feeling any sense of attachment and we call them psychopaths just just as well that unconditional love showing up as the attachment to the animal because obviously you know animal is dead it doesn't suffer but you are there And everything in the nervous system, the love, the oxytocin that came from that interaction and that friendship with the animal is threatened. Somehow it isn't available anymore. And then it kicks the sink, you know, the feelings, the emotions, the thoughts. But that's... And yet it is. And yet it is there.
It's still... Yeah, of course. Yeah, you can't switch off.Yeah. Yeah. That's the nice thing about, you know, it's the freedom. The freedom from psychological suffering, I think, is one of the most beautiful things of the discovery through this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you can see how, you know, without trying to figure out who is there, who is anxious, who is loving, who is, and trying to grasp it, because that's ungraspable, that can't be done. People say, you know, they go through decades of looking, finding myself or defining myself. And it's all futile because it is all just a conceptual clouds happening within that presence that is completely free from all the concepts.
That presence which is witnessing the arising of the identity, of the seeking, of the wanting to know, of the wanting to control. Those things are just as impersonal as sweating and digesting and circulating the blood. The arising of the perception, arising of the sound, arising of the urge. They all just whatever is arising within that unknowability. Yeah, it's beautiful. Thank you. Yeah. Well, I use this very phrase as a pointer, if you will, because it's the recognition of...the lack of sex, the no separation. Like I deliberately say who is the anxious one, I very deliberately say who is the angry one, who is the happy one sometimes, because it helps me to centre, it helps me to be present.
That is a valid pointer. Who wants to know? Who is there? Who gives a shit? Who? Yeah, it's the same, isn't it? It's the same. Yeah, you're right. Who am I? Who is this? Yeah, it's exactly the same. Yeah. Or what am I? Or what is it? Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, thank you. And Cornelius has the hand up. Would you like to on it?Oh, yeah, a few points came out of that. I used to milk 60 goats every day as a job. And I loved goats. And I know you're not supposed to have preferences, but I well prefer goats to sheep. The smell isn't completely different in the whole character thing of goats.
Absolutely, yeah. With regard to grief and analyzing the so-called feelings of the body-mind interface, you know, it's like you kick your toe and there's pain. And you go, fuck, that's not, you're not less of a saint because you said, oh, fuck, because you kick your toe. And I see that they stand on the cat's tail and it goes, but it sort of gets over it pretty quickly and it's sitting in your lap again five minutes later. So. Grief and analyzing grief and like realizing that you're becoming like a non-dual psychopath because you don't care about anything. Well, that doesn't seem to happen like that. It's like, it's actually possible to be happy.
While you're sad. Like, you know, I've got to use some sort of pronoun to be able to glue the English languagetogether. So My old man is in the slow process of dying and sometimes it speeds up and then slows down and he plateaus and he's okay. Nobody wants to see him go. And there's grief there. And there's shock there at his physical appearance. The things that seem to used to send the little body-mind interface into a downward spiral and grief of self-pity, fear, and all this stuff, those things are there, but they're sort of, again, they're like little fluffy clouds on the horizon. They're sort of, they're gone.
It's like, well, you know, okay, well, yeah, I'm sad, but, you know, it's like.It's not that I don't care. It's just... It's something else. I realize I'm up against the threshold of my language. There's no more words to say what it is, but these things, Seem to. They come unmoored. They float away. You can't figure it out, but you can just drop it. Bob's complex idea of full stop. Don't go there. Like, who cares? Yeah. That's not to be disrespectful. That's just the way it is. And any way to try and figure it out or analyze it, Again, you're wandering off in the woods because it's just now.
It's like, this is it. The experience of this, oh, yes, I used to milk goats and blah, blah. It's like right now, that's a story, like which has all the quality and solidity of, oh, yes, I used to live on Mars and I was George Washington in another life. Blah, blah, blah. So that's it. If the attention is given,You can't give the attention to that, but you can let the other things fall away. They will. They fall away. So yes, Dad's going to cock it. Yes, the goats are dead. The little birds in the sky that will fall from the sky, splat on the ground.
It's all very sad. But that's like right now, that's not going on. It's kind of hard to wrap your head around it because, yeah, but it is, but it is. It's like, well, no, no, it's just a habit of thinking and a habit of giving energy of belief into outside this moment right now.That's what I reckon. You own the ball. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I see there is a brilliant couple of comments here from Belinda. And that is, I would say that you care more. Yeah, the caring, the natural compassion is totally, the heart gets open if the cloud of the mind of the distractions are a little bit thinner and dispersed.
Absolutely. But she also says, what is a thought if I don't think it? Yeah, where is Cornelius's dad? If there is no mental image going on in the head right now, is he actually being experienced without the thought? Unless, of course, he's sitting in the same room and they're holding hands. But really. What is the thought? Even the idea, okay, where is the thought if I don't think it? Well, even if I do think it, or do I even think it? Can I even think a thought? I'm the presence and the thought arises, I discover the thought. Like I can't produce the traffic of the car passing by.
Equally, I cannot produce the thought about Cornelius's dad. I can't do it. I don't know how to, needless to say, I wouldn't have a clue how to operate the neural networks, which I can't experience either. I don't know anything about neural networks apart from being a thought.And I, allegedly trying to think or not think, isn't even there. It's just the cognizing emptiness presence witnessing whatever arises, the thought arising. Cornelis, do you want? There seemed to be a block here about, okay, so it's just now. Like, it's just now. This is it. There's nothing else. It's like, oh, it's really quite beautiful. What about my wife?
Like, my wife isn't here right now. Perhaps there is no wife. It's like, oh, and then she comes home from work and there she is in all her glory and all her splendor. And we talk and we laugh and we have a fight and we clean the dishes and clean up all my mess. And then she's gone again. It's like, oh, so there's a...And even saying that now, I'm relying on some sort of, movie projected on a cloud that says that is so. I can take it or leave it. It's quite entertaining. It sort of goes on, goes off. It's like, poof. Where is your face if you don't look at it?
You never look at your face, ever. You can only see the reflection of it or a picture of it. Where are your feet? Really, the discrepancy between the direct experience of that ever fresh self-shining, non-conceptual, present awareness, presence awareness, and the conceptual imaginary overlay of the interpretation, meaning, and the story about what is happening and what does it mean to me, the me being reference point, also being only conceptualized. So, wow, there is like two worlds, the world of immediacy and the world of a dream overlaying the immediacy. And they interwoven, they kind of inseparable, those two lenses, the lens of direct experience and the lens of mind making sense of what is happening.
Because even the direct experience of seeing, hearing,tasting, touching, smelling isn't separate from labeling it as such or from processing it. The whole body-mind biocomputer machine is working according to its conditioning. It has the capacity that has been programmed. It can't hear ultrasounds, maybe some can. Machine that doesn't have the capacity for seeing may have tactile capacities enhanced and one thing you're disconscious about the whole shebang is the presence with the capacity to witness the capacity to cognize but it isn't a doer it doesn't do anything it doesn't fix it doesn't change it doesn't choose It is witnessing the inspiration, the movement of attention, the training of attention, the practicing of the mind, all of those things, the free will being pushed out by the circumstances and the responses and the new responses and the old ones.
All of it happening within the consciousness from which it can't be separated because it is the vibration of that stillness and i see you rohan would you like to unmute hi hi hi kat hi everyone um yeah just uh i wanted to pick up on what you said about the uh discrepancy in the direct experience and what Cornelius was saying that, you know,His wife is there and then not there. And then the actual direct experience is just like a kind of light show moving in front of the vision. There's no coming and going, but there's an appearance that's interpreted to be coming and going. And that's all based on memory.
Like if you even to say that, oh, she was here and then she's not there without the memory of it, you wouldn't be able to say anything is actually moving at all, that there is any change. It's just that, like you said, the. The seeing is constant and then there is this kind of fixation with you know the thinking about the seeing and the interpretation of it which makes it seem like there is this coming and going or you know this person was here and then they're not here but there is no person there at all it's just this combination of sensations that somehow being interpreted as person and then appearance and they are here and then because if that if that falls away then time itself falls away the idea that there is even a future or there was a past when they weren't there um if it's always this even can't even say now if it's always just this then where is that movement at all yeah thanksThat is beautifully put, so clear.
Yes, Bob would say that, you know, we relate everything to the me of memory. Me of memory, the whole construct of the identity of the separate self. How do you know you are a human? How do you know you are male or female or Australian or German? How do you know that? Who told you so? And was it now? Yeah, beautiful. And Cornelius says the imaginary world is superimposed on the stillness, the no-thinkness. They seem inseparable. Yeah, emptiness is form. It's vibrating, shaping, forming, and appearing as everything. And nicely put, Rohan says, Cornelius. Yeah, beautiful. Beautiful. And see? Whoever says one pointer or the other, oh yeah, of course, of course, the weight of attachment to the poor, miserable me doing something wrong or being wrong or feeling guilt, self, guilt, shame or remorse, where is it?
What happened to that? When you see the whole magic trick, how it is even orchestrated, how the cognizing emptiness of that spaciousness, that pure presence, the presence of consciousness,shines through and on that screen there is arising and i see lisa lotus says who is thinking about the wife who wants to know beautiful exactly even those questions eventually die down but but to start with the absolutely beautiful potent pointer and i see jens has the hand up would you like to unmute Yeah, thanks. Just a short one first in regards to wife coming and going many years ago.I did some mushrooms with my wife. She disintegrated and integrated over and over in front of my eyes, from seemingly formed to no form at all, over and over again.
Like it was the... One of the strangest experiences of seeing how the grip of the mind interprets and And makes form out of nothing.I'll never forget that. And when it comes to, I've been thinking a few times here, when it comes to seeing something, When it comes to touching something, when it comes to tasting something. And all the senses. It's like... It's a seeming meeting between, or it's a kind of a meeting between seemingly differences. Otherwise, you wouldn't feel anything as such or see anything as such. And if you stay with the... Let's say touch. You touch. The seat you're on, you touch the floor, you touch, maybe you touch your own fingers, two fingers touching each other.
Maybe you touch the chair or the sofa and just feel into that touch. How does it feel?Right away you might say, well, it has this flavor. But if you go deeper, if you go deeper into the meeting, and you try the same in different circumstances with different things, you will notice that immediately the flavor seems different. But in its depth, There is no difference. When you go below the layer of immediate flavor,the apparent meeting or the meeting of apparent differences, tastes or feels or looks exactly the same. In its root. And you can also question like, what is it that touches what? Is it the finger touching the chair or the sofa or is it the other way around?
Well, that's up to the mind, isn't it? But if you go into the root of it, the depths of it,There is first the appearance, the apparent meeting of differences, and then there is a root feeling that's the same. And that is the... The wholeness, what we call love, that which is not experienced as different, but closer than close, always the same feeling to it, pervading all and everything, that which we sometimes called presence of stillness, but looking into every single phenomena and experience and falling deeply into it, we will see that that is what is there at its root.Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Can't not be.
It's like it can't be achieved or delivered. It can't be found. Even, you know, even to say recognize. Well, it's a good enough pointer. But the substratum, what underlies every experience, and whether it is a psychedelic experience, which is kind of a good example, but you don't have to go to psychedelics, you can get a vigorous breath work. And that will give you a natural psychedelic of dimethyltryptamine released in your brain. And or dream take the dream and you will see how the content of that knowing or being or experiencing is constantly fluctuating yes touching the fur of a cat Or like Nisargadatta had this idea about the thumb touching the forefinger.
Which one is touching which? You can temporarily take a position. Okay, I'm a thumb. This is who I am. This is my identity. Now,Four fingers touching me. How does it feel to be touched? Oh, yeah, I'm touched. Interesting. And now you can swap, like different position. Now take a point perspective of that, of the forefinger. This is who I am. Now. I am being touched. And from that, he suggested a little flip, you know, you can actually play with anything. You can temporarily assume another position. It could be a tree. It can be a water. You can be, I used to absolutely love it before I even knew Nisargadatta existed, working at sea for hours and hours, day and night, standing in a bridge with the windows all around the ocean and occasional seagull.
So I would just take the binoculars and fly with a seagull. In no time, there was no awareness of any bodily sensations. There was just floating with a seagull. I was that seagull. I was that space. But there was no identity as such either. But if there was a definition of one, that would be it. And you can see how in the dream the identity somehow collapses. You don't have that much memory accessible. The seeing, hearing is immediate, responding is immediate. But the access to your...history or your trauma or even the associations you may see someone arising someone showing up in a dream and oh is it half my mother half my uncle oh that's weird i don't know who it is the association even this faculty isn't fully available So you can see again the content of the experiencing constantly, weirdly fluctuating, twisting.
You can, and I don't recommend it by any means, you can get pissed drunk instead of magic mushrooms, probably mushrooms are more fun. And again, the whole content is twisting and it's changing. But the experiencing, the ink, the capacity, the capacity for knowing, the capacity for experiencing, that one, it can't even, it can't be lost. It can't be found because it's never been lost. And I've seen you, Isabel, for a moment. I just wanted to finish the sentence. Come on, unmute. I want to hear a senior.Yeah, I'm blank now, but look what was, because Jay was speaking about touching and I lost track now. But I can't say.
So yeah, totally blank now, I must look for... Yeah, you said we had also in the beginning about the pointer from the Sagar Datta Ramana to I am.And it is such a beauty to see that everything is already a pointer, but to say, I am. Try not to be the I am-ness. It's a pointer. And when you free that pointer, You're coming in this nothingness. And these Agadatas teachers say, stay with the I am. And it implies not a doer, it implies not a person. And that's the critical things, you know? Stay in that I am, loving to be. And there are a lot of...surroundings in here.
And all these years. And they say, yeah, you need to focus. You need to be asking again and again. And I do that also. But then was Bob, and they said clearly, There is no door. And we know that already all together. There is no person, but the only closest to close is to stay in that I am, loving to be. And there is no doer. There is maybe to see it is a nothingness. It is not a nothing. It is empty. It is full. There's no beginning. There's no ending. There's no time.so open. And to stay in that loving to be, in that I am.
His Agadatta did it for three, four years, I believe, he telling his disciples, disciples. You know, this here, this front, it's such a magic thing because it's always do like that. It's the natural thing about the thinking. And then you see, you never ever thought a thought. Nobody. Thoughts coming, thoughts going. And I love it when Bob say to, I hear it also, when you are thoughts the thinker, stop now thinking, stop and wait. Yeah, there is no thinker. And you know, when we were small, I think of us raining. Isabel, what are you doing? And poops, the thinking world creates a little me. I am hungry.
I am angry. Oh, I'm sad.I'm in love. And that's the great illusion. There is no doer. It is so free. It is so open. And here is no thinker. But everyone you recognize or coming up in this living dream, there are also no thinker. And maybe they say to you, I hate you. I love you. I want to kiss you. It's coming up. There is no chooser. And then you can also recognize you have two eyes, but you see one view, seeing. You cannot see like this. And that is also beauty to see. The seeing is already so free and open. They don't want to change nothing.
See colors. See whatever is appear. And maybe say the thinking, oh, I don't want to see this. But it's always later on that somebody says with a title, and that is also coming up for free, but to recognize that it's only titling to something what it likes or not like.And that is also coming up for free. And yeah, that's such a relief to see that there's nobody home. Only experiencing, knowing. And what's this knowing? Nobody knows. For sure, we have an upgrade from our parents to go in this. To learn and to learn to drive a car. Yeah, that's needed. But then also, must I say honestly, that is also blah, blah, blah, because we have only now.
And that's the strangest thing ever. So it's only now this, this speaking, but I'm not sure it's coming out here.This is only now appearing for nobody. We cannot choose it, we cannot hate it, we cannot love it, we cannot, yeah, maybe then somebody comes in a lucky, for sure, you can, yeah, that's the greatest gift that we have, this body. To love each other or to hate each other. But see how here is my finger and on the other side is also my finger. And that's just good things like Bob always say to everyone. When you are a tinker, stop right now.Or think, I will always be happy.
And that's such a joke. I don't want to say it. It's also coming up. But it's such a joke that we have all investigated to change the surroundings. And it's also a normal thing because we learn only that. And we maybe also daughter from Bob and Kat. We grow up more happily. You never know. But yeah, it isn't happening. And even happening is dangerous because that seemingly time and there is no time. There's only experiencing. So, yeah. That I know, that I want to choose. No, no, no, no. But yeah, that I want to say today. See what wonderful things come out from blankness. You've got blank.
Yeah. And this beautiful outburst from that blankness. Yeah.And Elisa Lotta says also, thank you, Isabel. That is wonderful. And there are three hearts to that. And Ivan says, you are all daughters and sons from Bob and Kat. And Bob and Kat is a daughter and son of you. Yeah, that's the beauty of that spontaneous expression. And that's the beauty of this group that, you know, you pause the thought. There's no thinkers, no one there. Prove it to yourself. So if there is no one there, there is a blankness. And see how that blankness expresses itself in the unique, beautiful way. And when the attention rests on that topic of the attention of the...
There is an intention for the attention to attend to itself or to just really rest, that resting bit. That beauty comes out. Anyone, open the mouth. And that ineffable, impossible, beyond mind, beyond language, expression. Still shows up, still flows, even though it can't be grasped, even though there is no way to adequately represent it, but in the frequency, in the vibration behind, in the certainty of that knowing. Apparently only like what, 20% of the communication are words?Rest is that beautiful energy behind what Isabel was just saying. Yeah, there's no one there. No one there. And no one there. No one in the cut. No one anywhere.
And yet, the presence of consciousness, the presence of existence is absolutely undeniable. But it isn't a presence of someone. It's just presence full stop. And Rohan says, stop talking and thinking. And there is nothing you will not be able to know from Sins in Ming. Yes, that's also one of Bob's favorite, although he loved the whole lot of Sins in Ming. We have a video on YouTube where Ram is reading Bob's commentary. And I put that commentary also to awareness, speak the book that... Has shown up for Bob's anniversary of formlessness, really. Anniversary of formlessness. Ivan, would you like to add something?It is beautiful what Rohan was saying, stop talking and thinking and there's nothing you will be able to know.
Because everything is already there and you have not to do anything. You even don't have to lift a baby finger. Everything that will need to be known will be known and it will come to you whenever it is necessary. And I have experienced that a lot when I lost something, for example, and you let it go and then one day you see it where it is. And you are thinking about someone and that someone calls you or you don't have to know anything about anything, about what the best diet is or what I have to plan. I don't like planning. I do it, but the most I love that it unfolds, the day unfolds like itself.
And I have no things in my agenda and everything pops up. And at the end of the day, I'm tired and I've done a lot, but I didn't know that I was going to do any of it. So everything is happening of itself, by itself, and I don't do anything. Yeah, it seems that his body is doing lots, but there is theQuietness, the stillness is doing it all. I do nothing. Yeah, think how much heart is doing, beating, expanding and contracting and pumping all those tons of blood. It's not taking any credit for an effort. Doing happens and there is no do it or planning happens and yet Did you just put your hand up again, Ivana, or was it there already?
I was putting it down and it rose again and that's not my doing. There you go. It just happened. Yeah, yeah, like heartbeats, everything is just happening. What a wonderful way to actually view the happening, the unfolding, being the consciousness, being the presence, being the emptiness, being the basic screen, the sky for the unfolding, where nothing is excluded. Desires are not excluded. Preferences are not excluded. They're also arising. The judgments are not excluded. They also arise. Lisa, would you like to add?Hi. Good to see you. Thank you. Good to see all of you too. I feel in the best of company here, really. So thank you to all, everybody here, all the wonderful things you've said.
It's touching and it's inspiring. I don't have many words, but I'll just try now, because I would like to try and express this. And what Isabel said, I'm sorry if I'm saying a bit of the same that you did, Isabel. I feel that is my way, if you can talk about a way, to go to what Bob said, the points that Bob had about you can't say you're not. It's just, that's the way for me to get the being or I am, because if I just say, go to the I am, for me, I try to understand it with the mind. But if I say, Well, I can't say I'm not.
Wow. Okay, yeah, that's right. There's this M, there's this M-ing.all the time or if I say being that's a word it's been said so many times and then but it's still it's true There is something, and you just said before, it's not a presence of someone, you said that cat. It's just a presence, and it's not even a presence. It's just something or some, it's just what is all the time, all the time, just. Looking or knowing, all this going on on the top, on the surface, all the thinking. When I feel, if I think about if it's my man, where is he now? I feel something is knowing that there's a thinking about is my man where is he so there's this something but it's not a someone it's just a red it's something it's a registering ofeverything taking place and everything taking place is exactly like what Bob said was like reflection in a mirror because you can't say it's there but you can't say it's not and that's it just lands on the spot for me it's like two or three pointers They can sort of just do the whole thing.
Yeah, for me that is. So I just love being in this company with people who actually get this because you are the only one who really understand me. Yes, so that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. That's absolutely beautiful. And look, repeating it, you didn't really completely repeat it. You gave it a new flavor through your lens, through your language, through your angle. Repeating, and yes, one or two pointers, sometimes one pointer. brought back to the surface. It is all so, so beautifully simple. We can talk with the convoluted language. We can use complicated metaphors. We can, you know, there are people out there who, I don't know, I don't follow it anymore, who make it to something completely...
Unrelatable even some of the metaphors that nisargadatta would use or krishnamurti people would come and ask bob to translate it or explain it to them to make it simple to make it like really really basic so yes they can Oh, yeah, I agree with that. I can't deny my own existence. Yeah, yeah, there is nothing even to look for. There is just that capacity to register. Things show up, they are known. It doesn't have to be any construction, mental construct of a receiver of those things. They just appear in that whole knowing. So that was brilliant. That was beautiful. And really highlighting one pointer. I remember when Bob used to give us a spiel, that would be very often similar word to word sometimes.
But it was always ever fresh because as he was describing, he was describing what is happening, what is known, what is certain, what is clear within his direct experience. So it would resonate.In many ways, sometimes one word would be heard, sometimes another one. I would always invite people, come on, just repeat, even in the same words. Just repeat it. It will be fresh if it resonated, if it moved something within you. It will be fresh and it will deliver that frequency. And I totally so agree with you, you know, being in the company of truth, which they call Sangha. What a privilege, what a beautiful companion to share, what a beautiful endeavor to share, the exploration of that which is so vastly ignored and overlooked and which is the base of the whole miraculousness of existence, which is that, which is that.
Without which there is nothing. It's, yeah, I'm super grateful that those explorations keep going on because there's always so much joy to, you know, you don't have to question your own sanity. You see the same reflection in everyone who resonates with the same message. Yeah, you know, and it's so obvious. It's not about the grand achievement and enlightenment in seven lifetimes in which the trees and the flowers will bend down to my feet and I will be so much superior.You're better than the Tao. No, it's really, really basic, ordinary, registering, witnessing, awaring, knowing of existence and arising as secondary. Whatever is showing up in that is because of that if i was a corpse well nothing would be experienced and i see blashemka says love life is simple yeah absolutely So, yeah, if there is anyone who has something that resonates, even if you just want to repeat it in one word, anything that is helpful, anything that feels, yes, would you like to unmute?
Yeah, I totally resonate with Elise a lot. And I think one of the greatest pointers and starters that Bob used to say is like, anyone here not existing? It's such a laughter, such a good one. Anyone who didn't exist before the meeting or before understanding or after understanding or 10 years ago, whatever, it's like just that point of existence. And whatever that is, who cares? But yeah.Such a good joke. Thanks. Whatever that is, who cares? Exactly. Yeah. And at the same time, it's such a joy to just explore the mystery, just put in words that which is beyond language. And who doesn't do it better than Bob?
I'm just going to pick a card with that beautiful, clear, reflective surface and the sunshine, the brightness reflected on the sea. And it says, recognize that non-dual, meaning one. Not to is pointing out that everything is an emanation of the same one intelligence energy the activity of knowing a reference point or self-center cannot be found I love the way he worded it, the emanation, emanation of that essence, of that energy, you know, emanating. And it's just like a fragrance of it showing up as a mental imaging, you know, thinking about, you know, Lisa Lott's husband or Cornelius's wife. Where are they? The emanation, the little mental image.or a dead animal or a dying father, emanation of that intelligence energy, of that pure potentiality, emanation as a headache, emanation as an anxiety, emanation of that one appearing in the 10,000 costumes.
shaping, forming, patterning and vibrating as everything. And that everything, the capacity, the quality, the only quality that this everything has is impermanence. It's fleetingness, it's unreality of it, because it's constantly changing, it's gone. The thought about, you know, like, Colonel Alice's wife gone. Where is it? Have there ever been there? Does it have any substance? Or even a headache, yesterday's headache, or memory. Where is it? What is it? Or even the current experience touching the cat. What is it? Is it even there? Where?Everything is so fleeting that you can't help but just rush to love it. Because it's not going to last. The time is now for that life essence to love and appreciate itself as everything.
In this moment, the capacity to appreciate. Itself through the born in mind like i was talking with someone who was it's just a friend's birthday completely unfamiliar with non-duality but absolutely repelled by the idea of of god the father sitting out there in the cloud he's been severely abused by by priests and all that catholic establishment And I was telling him that, you know, I'm just about to click the publish button on the book. And he says, what book? I say, well, there is a trinity there. And the representation of the father of the sky is not the big daddy without the underwear who through the priest abuses little children.
No, it's the voice of life. Is the life itself that is speaking. You know, the father, the God, is blind, dumb, and deaf unless it dreams itself a vehicle of an expression. So one of the voices in Bob's biography is life itself. Another voice.is the voice of the narrator now the life speaking through the narrator telling a story telling a story about a little boy being born in a winter in a country house just on the brink of great depression that's the son you know the father in the human form being a son and then we have the holy spirit the voice of this beautiful man who is a holy spirit because it embraces both of those voices the human element and the godly element the life itself And the guy who had no idea about the non-duality, he laughs.
He says, this is my birthday. I want the copy of the book. Because I do want to see the God, the Father, the part of the Trinity as life, as the energy. Which requires a human form to experience. But as the potentiality, it doesn't require anything whatsoever. But then it doesn't even know that it is. So arguing what it wants, what it needs, why, is pointless. What is happening right now? Is the way that pure potentiality of God the Father, love, eternity, absolute, or essence, or life, or intelligence, experiences and expresses itself through.and us everything and even the story that it happens for the sheer joy of appreciation your own reflection is a story what a good story we can appreciate a good story I love the good story of the whole shebang, of the whole dream existing for the joy of that potentiality to reflect itself for the appreciation of that fleeting moment.
So we can appreciate every single way in which it is speaking, in which it is showing up, especially the way it's just shown up in Bob's pointer, the intelligence, the same one emanation for which the reference point of self-center cannot be found. Just look. And you can't find it. There you are. Still existing. Still present. Still the capacity to register whatever is arising. Is still there even though no object no person no entity no separate self can be found even though in the narrative function that separate self is still existing is still saying i it's stillsaying that I am a person, I am a female, I am Australian or Polish, my name is Kat or this and that and the other, that function, that program is still doing what it has been designed to do.
And that dream, it still feels like, you know, when I'm feeding this particular vehicle, this one is not going to burp. Or shit yes there is a perceived separation within that within that appearance within what arises there is even perceived separation between one hand and the other but you can't separate them from the consciousness in which they are arising they can't stand They don't have any separate nature apart from the knowing. If there is no thought or no mental image or no experience or sensation, is there a hand? Or two hands or eight hands or a million? No, it can't be found. Like a separate center who takes credit or who narrates or who tells the story of me cannot be found.
So hopefully that book will be online soon. And I will get the copy and read you a fragment one day. Bob actually loved that idea of that creative structure, which I haven't seen anywhere before. So hopefully. It will be something.new and original and attractive. I have, I had a Facebook live also. We had a couple of people watching with us. But they don't talk. So anyone would like to, you know, just open your mouth and let the father speak, the father sky, the essence. I just got to say thanks, guys. This has been so special, unbelievably beautiful. I'm just sitting here in bliss. Thank you.
Tell me more, Michael. Tell me more. Well, it's like I've just been beyond, in a place beyond words, like from the minute Cornelia started sharing, really, and everyone who shared has just like expanded it even further. I mean, the idea that it's still, that it is here, it's never been anywhere else. You know, the idea of touch, even touching the cat or the couch, or I think Jay was sharing, I couldn't quite get it. I've got his initial, not his name. When I was experiencing that, there isn't any sense of touch anyway, or you have to have an idea of... Something touching something so that takes a concept or an idea so you have to have a concept or an idea to even picture that and if you don't haveconcept or idea.
It was just an energy, I guess. There's no location in space or there's no... Yeah, just there's no words for it, really. There's no body as such, unless you give it an idea or a concept of some sort. And the idea of, because Sandra's away, she's gone off to England again, Kat, so I'm on my own here. And, yeah, the idea of her not existing, I mean, this is something. And the idea of journeys came up as well and materialising and dematerialising. So I've done all that many, many, many times personally. Dematerialized and but the idea of now ever fresh, ever knew that Bob's idea of that because I sat in many of the spiels and yes, I sat and heard the same thing many, many, many times.
He's saying the same thing he's saying before the mind shuts up and then you allow whatever it is to wash over you. You're not even really hearing it anymore. But it's just beautiful to sit in that energy. That's what I've experienced today, tonight.But even that idea of now and Sandra being away, yeah, it's just an idea. And if you would play computer games, then they only render the game when you turn left or right. It doesn't exist until it exists. It only exists. Like right now, right here. And even right now and right here, listening to music, I was listening to some beautiful music I love listening to.
It's kind of, it's actually ayahuasca on an ayahuasca playlist I've got. So it's in Spanish. It's about the eagle, you know, flying around the world. And I'm listening to it. I love this song. But for some reason, I kind of, it's like the mind's already saying, well, I'm not enjoying it anymore because I'm not enjoying it like I used to be. And it's like the mind pretends that it's, well, the mind comes in and hijacks the now in a way or tries to hide it away. So it's like it's not new. I know this. I know what's coming next. And if you're just open to it, like if you're not, because now I'm looking to enjoy it, and now I'm looking that I'm not enjoying it because the mind's making all this noise and not just being.
And the idea of arising in both.Yeah. Like it can, that idea, I can't remember who raised it, the object, the subject, the being, the seeing. So there's this arising here, but that's arising there too. They can't happen without each other. So there's, yeah. Anyway, beautiful. Thank you. Oh, wonderful. It's so bleasy that I don't even want to wrap it up, but Rohan, you are on. Just a very quick thing. There's something Michael said. He said it's like, you know, it's turning. And that's something I think we mentioned a couple of weeks back that, you know, with the movement, that there is no actual turning, right?
It's like, it's like, you're just a space, but this whole thing is kind of moving around in that space. Like you're never, you don't turn. Like there's a sensation in the neck that, oh, I turned my head, but no, actually the whole scene has just kind of moved up to the side, like in the video game. But actually you're always in your place. Like you couldn't be anywhere else. Yeah, that's all I wanted to say. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, notice how you're always here. Everything else is moving. You are always here. And that is it. Thank you for reminding that. And thank you, Michael, and everyone.
Thank you, everyone.It was just so wonderful to hang out with you all. And lots of love. See you next week. Happy Easter. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.