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 still a couple joining. And would anyone like to start us off today? It was a nice intro. Maybe I can go. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, I don't know what to say. It's just, um, Look around. Yeah. Just say it. Say it.This fact, simple fact. Yeah, simple fact that We are. And what is this we are? That's just him.look and not only look just um Relax and... See everything that is trying toGrab something or catch something now. And ask yourself, is it possible to catch what you are? Grab what you are. If here some... Something is looking for something else or looking forwhat you are.
Is it possible that you are that what is looking for itself? Obviously, no.It's absolutely not possible. What's left? What's left? Just this delight of being, this delight of... Inspiring.Smelling. Seeing. Hearing. Touching. The delight of this activity. And the delight of...Cognizing or... Knowing. Knowing of this activity, moment after moment now. So is that nothing else?in this space, what is a thought? Is there anything that can be named as thought? Maybe some image. Our word written on the void.a beautiful pattern of imagination. Creating a reaction in the body, the so-called body, creating a pattern, another pattern of sensations. And everything happening.In. You! Just joking.Of course, there can be...
A lot of discomfort sometimes. All these energies swirling into the space and bringing a lot of harshness in the experience. Distress orWhatever the name. Contraction. Layers on layers and layers and layers of resistance. Wanting to be elsewhere, to experiment something else, to have another life.or have another experience. Everything always happening in you. Always happening in. The space. We are. So what is then just being infinitely curious about these layers?Is there any choice? No. But to... Get curious. Look.Try. Play. Embrace the illusion.until maybe this moment of What an illusion. Wow. Where was I? What's the topic? What were we talking about? I forgot.And just relaxing.What is then just relaxing into?
Into what is. Really, what else? No, but maybe.and witness the marvel of everything resolving itself.God's saying, get out of the way. Let me take care of all your problems. Hmm. God or life itself or whatever the word.Okay, if someone else wants to... Continue. It's really...Welcome. Thank you, Amid. It's always so energetically joyous to actually hear you and to feel that. Would anyone like to continue? We have another roughly 15 minutes of the introduction. Would anyone like to just pick it up and add a few more pointers? Or just expressions of silence? Jenny, would you? I see you have... Yes, I can, but I will stay off camera because I am moving.
So then it will be too choppy. I really loved... I mean, because I felt that you were so clearly pointing to what Bob always used to begin. That we, the only thing we really do need to know or to realize is that we are utterly aware of our own existence. But this awareness that we are alive, that we are, has always been there. And that this awareness, this knowingness is not something that we can put in a box.It's not a knowingness that we can conceptualize. Because the knowingness, the awareness, It has no beginning and it has no end and it's like space. I mean, it's there, but we cannot put any boundaries around it or we cannot put a beginning point or an ending point or...
Or whatnot on it. But we all know that it is there.And it is in this knowingness, in this awareness, in this life itself, that everything appears. Everything appears in this awareness, whether it is energy in the form ofthoughts, if it's in the form of emotions, or is it in the form of a hand, the form of a face in a mirror, the path underneath my feet right now. If it's the tree that I'm seeing through my eyes,It's all appearing in the same location, I wanted to say, but it's not a location, in the same space, in the same awareness. And it cannot be anywhere then in this awareness.
It cannot be in what we call yesterday, and it cannot be in what we call tomorrow.It can only be appearing exactly where it is appearing right now. And that is, in essence, the only thing. That we need to know and it is also the only thing that we can verify because we do know that we are We know it, that we are, we know that we are.Even, well, awareness is there, even though we may not be aware of awareness, or however to put it, when we are in deep sleep. But we know in the morning when we wake up. That we have slept. So obviously there is The awareness is aware that we are sleeping, or however to put it.This knowingness is what has been tried to express, be expressed with so many different metaphors.
The metaphor of the ocean and the waves not being separate, but the wave is just appearing as a wave, but it is still the ocean. At the same time, we all are appearing as these unique appearances. Experiencing life.But it's all happening in the same space. Because as this awareness, this knowingness, as I cannot put a beginning and end or a boundary around it, then it cannot be mine. It cannot be my awareness as in a personal thing awareness. Because if there would be such a thing, I should be able to fence it in. But I cannot fence in, I cannot separate. My awareness from your awareness.
The awareness is everywhere and the space is everywhere.I guess that's why you were laughing and smiling doing your spiel. I mean, because it's the realization that in a sense it's so simple.when we realize that all these stories that we have believed from when we were young about magical stuff that is going to happen, all the fantasies about how life is supposed to be, whether it is the so-called ordinary life of getting a job or what job or what family or what partner or what spiritual awakening or what realizations or what, what, what, what, what.All those things are just appearances. Just stuff happening. Just stuff happening within the awareness.
The good, the bad, the ugly, the whatnot. It's all just stuff happening. In this space. Yeah.And it is silence. When our mind chatter stops, when there's just this brief pause,between our inhalation and our exhalation. We're still here somehow. Awareness is still here. Everything is still unfolding or living or expressing or whatever we want to call it. And there's nobody that has to do anything to make any of this happening.I don't have to think about lifting my foot to take the next step on this path that I'm walking right now. It's all happening just by itself. The pauses, the words, the thoughts, the sounds, the sights, the smells, the tastes, everything is just happening, unfolding, blossoming.And that's the beauty.
You know? To just rest in this, in the is-ness of, in the is-ness of the reality of this very, the moment of right here, right now,And we can check, this is something that we can investigate and we can see if it's true for ourselves, for this. For our manifested being or whatever you want to call it. this human expression, we can check if this is, is this my experience? Is this my experience that I have always known that I am? Is it my experience that I am aware? And can I find a boundary to this awareness? Can I find a beginning? Can I find an ending?Or is it just there?
And how it's just always been there. And if it has always been there, well, the most logical thing is that it will always be there. Even if we don't remember when it began or we can't see where it ends, then, well, probably it's logical that it always is there. Yeah. So that was my contribution for today.Thank you, Jenny. I hope you're going to contribute some more if you are moved to. But that's beautiful. That's really the essence, the pure presence, the pure experience of existence. And just noticing whatever arises and just recognizing that it is always arising spontaneously. You know, people often believe that, yes, but my mind or I get engaged or I get lost or I get trapped.
It's just translation. There is a spontaneous arising of attention and a spontaneous movement of attention. Noticed in that cognizing emptiness of space, I interpreted as me being trapped or me being identified or me something or the other. But that's only an overlay of language on top of that spontaneous existence, spontaneous presence. And the story which is equally spontaneous appearing to express itself to show up just like everything else showing up the the smell suddenly arises or the sound arises the same way the story arises The same way, you know, I'm pissed off with my boss because he shouldn't have bullied me or say,Well, that's the story arising.
Yes, but this is serious. This is real. It causes me a stomach ulcer and insomnia. Yes, that's the response to the story arising also. All that is arising is completely spontaneous and completely impersonal and completely interrelated to everything else. So it is the whole dance of the 10,000 things interacting, affecting each other, co-arising interdependently in that I am, in that which you are or what you are. It's not even definable what it is. But it is here. If you are not here, there is no arising, there is no noticing, there is no story, no sensation, no smell, no sight.And that is so simple and so beautifully, brilliantly obvious.
But for the mind, which is the operation system, it is not entertaining enough, not interesting enough, not colorful enough because it doesn't have colors. It doesn't have any interest. It doesn't, the pure, the prerequisite, the space-like awareness is nothing to the mind. It isn't a thing, it is no thing, but it isn't a nothing either. You know, something is not a something, but it's not a nothing. It's the pure potentiality of absolutely everything. Of that spontaneous arising of the worlds within worlds, dreams within the dreams, mental images, interpretations, all of it, the whole thing spontaneously arising.in that which you can't name, you can't grasp, you can't describe, you can't draw a circle around it because it's not a thing.
But the mind says, ah, it's nothing, it's void. No. Nothing is when there is not even an I am, there is not even a presence of consciousness. In that, nothing arises. There is no arising, there is no noticing.So it is the nothing with the potential of everything. It is the... Absolute mystery of pure potentiality reflecting itself as the essence it is one it is one field as the expression is the infinite And... The pure field of consciousness, the self-shining, ever-fresh presence of awareness, of pure existence, right here, just this, nothing else. Is that Sat Chit Ananda or the being, knowing, loving to be, your omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, the mystery of the I am, the pure existence,And because of that, there can be an appearance.
But appearance is really transformation of that field, of that pure potentiality. Suddenly, showing up as the other, the emptiness showing up as a form, emptiness vibrating into all those patterns. So when we see that pure intelligence, that pure sentience, pure love, suddenly starting to vibrate. What is the vibration? Vibration is a pattern. The up and down, big vibration, small vibration. It's a pattern nonetheless. And pattern is that which is, you know, like repeatable, it's mechanical, you could write an equation. For the wave, for any appearance, which is a pattern. So in a way that pure alive field of infinite possibilities, potentiality shows up as the mechanical vibration, as the wave, sound wave, or the radio wave, or light wave, or the vibration of the atom.
And millions of atoms creating the particle or creating the physical appearance or any othervibration, any other pattern, it is a transformation of pure intelligence into a mechanical appearance. Somehow the reflection itself is less alive, less primal, less intelligent and less clear than that pure potentiality because it already vibrates, it's already mechanical. And when we look at the functioning of the mind, which is a beautiful, beautiful example. Of that emptiness with the potentiality to become form, forming that biocomputer, forming that transformer, which creates the visuals, the thoughts, the feelings, always in patterns. You can recognize the patterns in thinking. You can recognize patterns in language. You can recognize pattern in interpretations, in personalities.
And when the pattern is recognized,It can't be who you are any longer. It is just a pattern. It is just an appearance. And then the pattern can be like beautiful, colorful mandala, like a kaleidoscope of ever-changing, like a music, like a deliciousness of appearance. Like, you know, like a morphing psychedelic dream, because that's really is the time element that makes it kind of slow and solid. Scramble this and you just go, wow. Nonetheless, it is a pattern. It's repeatable. And being repeatable or being mechanical in a way,What is it, darling? He has something to say. So that's the pattern too. A meow is a pattern.
It's a communication pattern. It's an attention-seeking pattern. Labeling those behaviors are also another patterns overlaying the patterns. And suddenly you are the space. Reflecting myriads of the ways in which the transformation of that pure potentiality into the form, emptiness showing up as a form, happens. For noticing, for appreciation, for that potentiality just playing, for the playfulness of existence, the lila, the God's sport.And now how personal is the behavior pattern saying my boss is bullying me? You know, that someone else with different conditioning would say, oh, he's very firm and admirable in the way because there is no personal element in his behavior. And someone else would say, oh, he's yet something else.
Or it is me. Or whatever the interpretation, you can see how mechanical the mind is in its working.And it kind of blows your mind when you see that. And the moment when the mind is blown away, There is a clear seeing. And the appearance is still there. The dream is still there. But without the commentary of relating it to me, without construction of a me, which also happens in the commentary, in the narrative. It is just this, just this, this incredibly juicy, unrepeatable moment of nowness, ever fresh.And it is now. It's always here. The emptiness, the miracle of that emptiness of existence, the emptiness of self, suddenly showing up as me, the person, the body, the mind, the thinking, the personal investment, the worry, the anger, the fear.
Wow. What a play.And there could have been nothing. You go to sleep, the projector goes off. You're dead. The individual, the imagined self with all its worries and the boss's bullying, dead, gone, non-existent. But the potentiality is still there. And then the dreaming happens. And then another dreaming happens. And fantasizing happens. And planning happens. Ruminating happens.And you never know what you're going to dream. Even if you have the training and you set yourself, you prompt the machine to dream particular thing. To be able to do that, this thought has to arise. And you don't know your next thought. You may reasonably predict or assume that, oh yeah, 90% of thoughts will be the same as yesterday.
But even that reasonable assumption is arising as prompted. You didn't know I'm going to prompt it. I didn't know I'm going to prompt it.sitting in the emptiness as the presence, pure presence, witnessing the arising. Letting it be. Leaving it as it is. Unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. Just as it is. Discovering it. Rejoicing in it. Come on, who is going to speak? Who's going to give us a word? I come again. I come again. Just quickly. I just wanted to reply quickly to you, Kat. And you know, It is here in the here and the now. And like you said, when we go to bed in the night, we sleep, we die.
There's no me here. There's no, the problems disappear. The so-called problems disappear. And the awareness is still there. And also, when we, in our waking dream, may suddenly feel, for example, offended or stepped on a toe, to know that it's only in that very moment that we can againjust realize that it's a story, that there is no such thing as a permanent state when something is related to the appearances. That we can't, there's no such thing as the big, great, so-called enlightenment, because that would be a thing then. What I'm trying to say is that it's only in every in every instance, in every lived moment, in every here and now that's so short that we can't even put a beginning and an ending to it.
That we can.can awake or whatever, but the awareness that the space is there, even at the split moment. So we might forget it. Also, give us a bit of a leash, a slack of the leash, because sometimes the mind can come and say, oh, wow, now I have understood something. So now life should be such and such and such. But that's not. It will always be changing. Everything will always be changing. The only constant is the space in the awareness, the openness, the whatever not we cannot give a word to. That's the only thing that is constant. Everything else will be changing, fluctuating, up and down, left and right.
Yeah, so that is what came to me. Now over to you, Isabel, or if you want to comment on that, Kat.Yeah, absolutely. Over to you, Isabel. Come. Yes, it's possible. Beautiful dance, really different. Expressions and I can see, oh yeah. And yeah, what can I put it on? I just wanted to say something, but now everything is already so beautiful.Yeah, the song is already so cool and happy. Yeah, and Janice said there's no awakening. Yeah, that's really true. But maybe you can say it is. Awakening to the dream. Not in the dream. Because when I was started witheverything, then I was always thinking that the so-called person could awaken in a more beautiful dream.
And that's the big illusion for sure. And, uh... Yeah, I love also when Bob mentioned full stop. We'll stop and... Go into the heart, so-called heart, not the physical heart for sure, but go into the love. I am that I am.and recognize ¿Para qué con esta? That is so open. So alive, the nothingness is alive. And all of this is already here. Not conscious in itself, but in essence it is. That is also a very strange thing. Appears and it is not conscious in itself, even not this voice, but it is in essence, it is consciousness.And I like also when Amin said, from the choice, the choice.
And yeah, there is no choice. That is the beautiful, how he put it. Everything is happening in itself. There's no becoming. There is this beautiful expression here, it calls us and we give a lot of labels, but it's expression like here, this now.mentioned that, unaltered, uncorrected, and something wrong. I don't recognize now, I'm not coming up. Unaltered, uncorrected. Yeah, that is the free fall of, wow, wow. Yes, that's for sure. What's happening next? But not for somebody for sure.But yeah, what can I, a nice point, so let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, I'm blank. That's okay. Yvonne just put her hand up.
So if the pointer comes to you, come back in and we give the voice to Yvonne. Yes, this morning I went to the supermarket and I saw my neighbor and he was telling me that he could not, that he was very ill and he could not recover anymore. He has a cancer in his kidney and it's all through his body. And he heard it yesterday. And he told me that and he said that when it is so, then it is as it is. And he was so relaxed and he was going on a vacation and his brother had already died. And he said, I have someone there waiting for me.
And yeah, it is as it is when it is that. Then I have to accept it and it is okay as it is. And he was so positive and so, and while he doesn't know anything about this, and that was very amazing.how he talked about it and how he stood in it and how he told me that. And there was, Yeah, amazing how we handled this news. Because there is no cure. You can only save some time or try to add some time.Yeah, we had this conversation and I was stunned how we were handling with it. Yeah, Bob mentioned that, you know, there is a lot of people who live their life without any exposure to non-duality.
And they may have had a reasonable upbringing or not too many glitches in the system. And they cruise through that adventure, human adventure, without that much of... Of attachment to the image of self or not that tight, thick sense of identity. And that's, you know, perfectly beautiful. Or people who are passionate about some ways of expressing and they throw themselves into a music or acting or whatever. And they're not that obsessed. With themselves and or somehow there is an incredible maturity emotional maturity and and and coming in terms with life that you know whether you are exposed to it or not every night you go to sleep and That's really what the non-existence is.
What is there to fear?But at the same time, you know, there are people also who brag that, oh, no, I don't feel. I remember someone on the meeting telling about this really famous Jewish rabbi who had a good, big, big following and preaching and teaching. He was a fantastic speaker. And then he got sick and he entered the process of dying and he was in absolute terror. He was petrified. He was screaming and crying. He was so anxious. He did not want to go to the beloved father that he was preaching everyone to love and long for. So, again, the body-mind and its expression is the mechanical appearance.
Sometimes there is a lot of anxiety in the system and that's just how the machine is programmed. Sometimes there are coping strategies and mechanisms. Sometimes there are helpful beliefs and people hang on to the belief and it makes their transition really smooth. Another person I knew believed in Jesus. And she knew that Jesus is standing there with open arms. The only worry she had is who is going to look after her husband who is on wheelchair. And she was dying to Jesus with longing and relief, not a fear at all. But again, this is a helpful belief.And there's nothing right or wrong about any of it.
It's just a part of the expression of the play. But yeah, we are exposed to that message. We can look from the different angles. We don't need the crotch of a belief. And what Jenny was saying first, and then Isabel built up on it a little bit, you know, the idea of this moment now being the eternity, of no lasting permanent state of achieving some supreme realization, lasting supreme realization that I am now enlightened. It's even, you know, it's even possible. It's a ridiculous idea that there is a state to be achieved by me. It is just this present moment and whatever appears. And sometimes there is more of the patterns appearing, more of the thinking patterns appearing, more of the covering up of that screen.
And sometimes there's less of the covering up of that screen. And sometimes when there is a lot of that mind activity, mental looping, obsession, paranoia, self-sacrifice.centeredness, the attention is lost in that seeming identity of the me and there is psychological suffering. There still is the pure existence. Without it, there could be no identification. But when there is less mental activity, the clouds disperse and there is more spaciousness and there is more respite and there is less suffering. But again, there is no me being more or less realized. There is no me being trapped in identity or being free from the identity. The freedom is for no one.
The freedom is there. It is to be recognized by no one. And sometimes there is no free attention to rest in that space like awareness. It's just the content. And who cares? It's just what's appearing. And yet, having said all that, there are wildly around the world repeated breakthrough moments which break the structure of persistent identity. And that happened to Bob and that happened to myself and that happened to, you know, there is peeling of an onion type of a process of moment to moment realization that, oh, there's no one there.It's just patterns. But there is also the might appear a moment of like an explosion or breakthrough when the penny drops or when the landing happens in which that rigid structure of persistent identity is broken and it never arises in the same form.
And the belief that I am the body-mind or I am the person inside it is frankly not available anymore in that biocomputer. There is still activities going on. There is still pleasure and displeasure. There are still responses with shame, guilt, anger or whatever the response is there. There are still behaviors that may look very, very personal. But this underlying structure, this underlying software narrating and relating to some mental image as... As the core identity, that one is dismantled and it doesn't reestablish itself. But sometimes it does. And slowly, moment to moment, oh, look, how Bob was saying it, there is no one there. Was this bloke right or was he wrong?
Let me see. Let me have a look again. And then who is looking? That is just looking.And what that looking finds, no one there. Okay. So I was looking and I found no one there and I realized that no, there wasn't I looking. No, it was just looking. And nothing to be found. Like the quote that Tanya always brings up, Tanya, maybe you want to step in and bring it back, you know, that from the beyond words, beyond mind. Are you there, Tanya? Well, I am here, but we actually have the editor of Beyond Words, Beyond Mind online. I can see him right now. It would be lovely to hear from you, Gilbert.If you can.
Would you like me to say hello? Please. Hello. Hello. Hello. Are you well? Yeah, I'm okay. Can you give us something? Can you? You got something in your pocket for us? Yeah, sure. There's nothing to get. You know that. Yeah.Well, what was the question you were asked? Something from the book. Oh. I think it's from... I think in that book, one of the first lines in the first few pages, there's a line that says, keep seeing that there is no thing that sees. That's the one. Uncompromising pointer. It's so on the button. And the instruction is very clear. Keep seeing that there is no thing that sees.
Now, how do you do that?Well, you can't do it, but there's an openness. And the value of any pointer is not in collecting them as these are my favorite pointers and these I don't like these too much. A pointer is a pointer and it's pointing at something and all the pointers are basically pointing at the same no thing. But the only value in a pointer is in recognizing what it's pointing at. And the moment it's recognized.You don't need the pointer anymore. And it's interesting, Nisargadatta said once in, I think it was in I Am That, he says, the external guru is like a signpost. A signpost.
You don't kneel down in front of a signpost and start worshipping it and kissing it and putting flowers around it. It's a signpost. So a guru is someone or You can't even say this, someone. A guru is the remover of darkness. But generally they point at the ineffable, the inexplicable, the no-thingness. You can call it whatever you want. You can call it awareness. As soon as you label it, it becomes a concept and a thing. And that's why it's absolutely pointless in worshipping a messenger. Because if you worship a messenger, you're guaranteed to miss the message.So it's just useless. So, you know, Bob, what an amazing, gifted man from a common background, working class, sure he was shearing sheep and working.
God knows, I mean, he could have been in a coal mine for all I know, but he was an ordinary guy, an Australian. He spoke ordinary language. He very rarely spoke any of the Sanskrit words. He might say Shachitananda now and then or whatever. But generally, all of his pointers are in ordinary, everyday language. And that's the beauty of it. And it's also a kind of a trap because, you know, the intellect says, well, it can't be that simple, you know. But it is. He would say there's nothing more simple than simple. So he had this amazing gift of just pointing. And he understood very clearly that most of it went over people's heads.
But that didn't stop him. He would hold the meetings three times a week and he was there and he was like a solid thing that was not really perturbed by anything.All sorts of things would be going on. But, you know, that last book that was made is called Leave It As It Is. Leave it as it is, unmodified, uncorrected, whatever else it says. And, you know, I remember having that in mind once, and I was watching Bob in one of the meetings, and I thought, this is how you live. You know, you're not correcting anyone or modifying it or telling people to do something. He's just leaving everything at it is.
People could talk all sorts of shit and crap in meetings, but, you know, he would direct them back, you know, to something more fundamental or whatever if, you know, if that arose. But he didn't care. As long as there was no physical violence, I saw physical violence in one meeting and he interjected and he stopped and he threw somebody out. But generally, he just let it all flow, leave it as it is. So it's not a... It's not a sort of a thing to live by, but that's, you know, the understanding that there is no me, there is no separate person, then, of course, there's no one there to...intervene or interfere or change things.
It's all spontaneously happening by itself. And this is what I said, everything is spontaneous. That's a challenge to anyone's intellect because doubts of, oh, no, no, you know. But the thing is, the belief in me, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. I've got all these experiences and I'm sharing them, you know, to free other people or whatever. It's the intellect, and the intellect is limited. This is what has to be understood. The intellect is limited. It has its limitations. Language has its limitations. But intelligence has no limitations. It's there. It's running the whole thing. The entire universe is moving upon the emptiness, which sounds very poetical.
But that's it, this empty space, and the universe as we know it is there, and it's a movement of energy. So when we start to investigate, well, what am I? You know, what's this all about? And people who suffer psychologically, they have got a big investment in finding why. You know, I remember.When I first started going to Bob's, I was going every meeting for a long time. And every now and then somebody would come to the meeting and they were suffering. They had intense suffering and they were deadly serious. They weren't there to fuck around and waste people's time bragging about their spiritual experiences or whatever.
They had questions and Bob recognised it straight away. In fact, most of the time when new people came in, he'd say to them as they came in, he said, oh, where did you hear about it from? You know, where did you hear about these meetings? And that was his way of finding out where they are in the scheme of things. And he was a master at reading, reading people and reading body language, the whole thing. Nothing would get past Bob. If you were in a bad mood and you came into the meeting, he knew. He wouldn't necessarily interfere, but he knew. And one of the things that Bob, I'm rambling a bit, but everyone seems to do it here, so I'll get away with it.
One of the things he used to say was, if this understanding is uncompromised, you can see where people are coming from.And that is absolutely spot on. And it's far more devastating in one sense than it sounds. Because, you know, like if the understanding is clear and one's paying attention to somebody you're talking to, you know where they're coming from because they're telling you. It's coming from a certain place and it's full of me usually. It's all about me. And then people play funny games. Oh, I've seen through the me. But it's all bullshit. It's me, me, me, me. It's all self-centered activity. And what's on offer, you could say, what's possible for us is to watch the mind, see how it operates and become very familiar with these apparent games that the mind is playing.
The mind is not playing games. It's not even a mechanical thing. It's just thoughts appearing. But when Bob was a master at pointing things out, he would say, can you think a thought?If you're deadly serious, you're there because you're suffering psychologically and your life is fucked up, then you're paying attention. And he asked the questions like, well, can you think a thought? So, no. That's an insight to recognize that you cannot even think a single thought. That's an insight that can change your life, can turn your life completely around. But if you're not paying attention and it's just all going over your head, then nothing's going to happen.And Nisargadatta said, you think they are your thoughts.
No, they're not your thoughts. Thoughts appear on consciousness. That's another pointer. You know, the person, Bob would say, well, it is the person. The person, the word comes from persona, which means mask. So this me is a mask. It's an interface between an apparent inside and an outside so that we operate in society. We have this persona. Some people are very articulate and have a great personality and they can talk freely with anybody. Other people are more timid, you know, that there's some dodgy shit going on. It doesn't matter. What's necessary is to watch the mind, see how it operates. Be conscious of the consciousness, which is another point from Nisargadatta.
Be conscious of the consciousness. What does that mean? I remember when I first read that.Be conscious of the consciousness. It's like Bob's question, what's wrong with right now if you don't think about it? You have to pause the thought. To be conscious of the consciousness, it closes the separation. It closes the gap between me and other. It all collapses, but it's a non-event. You know, it's like nothing happens. And the great sages say nothing ever happened. So there it is. Nothing ever happened. And another story that I heard of Yudhishthira Krishnamurti, He went to see Ramana Maharshi in the last years of Ramana Maharshi's life, and he said to him, can you give me enlightenment?
And Ramana said, yes, I can, but can you take it?That's a funny sort of story. But the essence of it is that the personality, the person can't get this. It's a fiction. As Bob would say, that me is a total fiction. Not a little bit of a fiction and a bit of reality. It's a total fiction. And he even explained in his spiel how that comes about. The little child sitting there looking at something in the room and says, oh, that's not me. Oh, that's not me. That's not me. No, it's all not me. So then we go about trying to secure that me by acquiring and adding things to that.And it's like the I am, you know, and Nisargadatta pointed out that the I am is the key, the I am-ness, the sense of presence is the key.
And that's what Jesus was talking about when he said, you know, I am the light and the way, whatever. He wasn't talking about himself as a person or personality. He was talking about the I am-ness. That sense of being. And if you're earnest and you're serious about this, and you sit with that beingness, you realize that the being doesn't have any language, it doesn't have any words, it doesn't have opinions, beliefs, or any of that crap. It's just silent, silent being. And the I is a single word. I is a word. I, which represents identity. I being.The being is silent, the I is silent until it starts adding onto itself.
I am a man, I am a woman, I am an Australian, I'm a good fellow, I'm a bad fellow, all the rest. So we end up with all these stories which you've acquired from the world. Of language and people and then we suffer because it's not our true nature and we end up in this world of competing and and fighting with others and you know families and friends and whatever and it's all a fiction it's all a complete fiction so it's about coming back to thatNaked awareness. What am I? Am I the body? I'm told I'm not the body. Am I the mind? I don't even know what mind is apart from thought, feelings, emotions, images.
So it's like, you know, I've been around this stuff for, like, I went to see Bob in 2000, I think it was. I've been around this stuff for a long time and I've seen so many people come and go. I've seen all the bullshitters and all the... You know, the decent sort of folk come and go. I've heard all the bullshit and all the experts and nobody comes anywhere near Bob. Bob was just pure, you know, he had his things, you know, everybody has their shit. But, you know, his essence was there and totally available to everybody. And even in the last period of his life when it wasn't so good for him, he was still there, available.
He made himself available. The same happens with Nisargadatta. He was even holding meetings, I think, in the last days of his life, laying in his bed. And it's not a choice made by a person. A person would say, ah, fuck it, I'm not doing any more meetings.You know, you can all piss off. But it's about sharing that life. As long as there's life, then there's that connection we have. There's no disconnection, so it's life that we all share. I think Nisargadatta says there is only life. There is only life. And the basis of that life is intelligence. And the basis of that intelligence is the activity of knowing.
And that activity of knowing is all there is.Everything you see, perceive, feel, it's via that activity of knowing, and it's all transient. It's all spontaneous and transient. Nothing accumulates. Nothing gets stuck. It's a flow, ever fresh and ever new. And the person, the personality can't even come anywhere near it. people who, you know, sort of seem to be very egotistic about their understanding of non-duality, and they'll tell you all about it, like I'm doing right now. But, you know, it's not about that. It's not about that. It's about being silent in yourself. Watch the mind. It doesn't matter if there's a lot of thoughts coming and going.
But be conscious of the consciousness. And then ask the question, where am I seeing from?Where am I seeing all this from? And a thought will come up, you know, I'm seeing it from here. But then where are you seeing that from? And it will form another reference point. And where am I seeing that from? Which is neti neti. Nisargadatta talks about neti neti. I'm not this. I'm not this. So whatever comes up in the mind, you negate it. It's easy to negate thoughts. Not so easy to negate emotions because once that's going, you know, it's got a life of its own, it seems. What's wrong with right now if you don't think about it?Well, nothing.
So I'll leave it at that. There's nothing wrong. You sorry you asked me now? Absolutely. Huddly. Yes. It was brilliant. Love it. That's so good to hear you, Gilbert. It's really good to see you too. And actually, my video is going in and out. Is that happening to anybody else? Are you there? No, no, I think it's okay. Oh, it might be me. Maybe, yeah. It might be my wife. I love those, love all the stories, the bomb stuff. It's so good. Beautifully delivered too. Yeah. Hearing a good speaker with what a treat. So good. Just really. You can praise me all you like, but it won't find a place to land.
I don't have the time or effort to blow smoke up anybody's ass so you can relax. That's not what I heard. Really? The rumours are about. Cheers, mate. Come on now. Wow. You have to tell me some of this shit. I don't know. You know. Yeah, I don't think you can take any credit for the way you deliver the pointers. You are not the doer. It just flows. And the fact that the body possesses the capacity to deliver.with clarity and confidence is also not a credit to you. So the smoke is blown to not your ass. Yeah. Well, I might add that, you know, there's so many pointers from Bob and Desikadada and Siddhartha, but, you know, one of the things Bob pointed out, he says, once you see that something is false, you can never believe in it again.
This is like a cosmic law. So, and it's so spot on. Once you, you know, who believes in Santa Claus any longer? It's the same thing, you know. Once you see something is false, you can never believe in it again. And it's the same with the pointers. Once you recognize what the pointer is pointing at, You can't forget that. It's as though it becomes a part of you. And you're seeing, you're recognizing what, you know, not as a thing, but it's like a basic principle that's active in you, which is the activity of knowing. You know, a young baby, my grandson, when he was very young, he's two years old now, it was such a pleasure to be with him.
That child consciousness, complete innocence and yet so open and so different from being with grown-ups, you know.just a complete absence of judgment or criticism or whatever else goes on in people. And what generally, you know, most people are not aware of what's going on inside themselves generally. And it can be seen. It can be seen and it can be read from somebody who can see. They can see everything. You wouldn't believe, I mean, The things that one can see about other people is mind-blowing, but it doesn't give you the right to talk about it with them, especially with them. And you shouldn't talk about it with other people because that's being a nasty prick.
But everything's on display. Nothing is hidden. You know, if you think you have got some hidden stuff, no, it's not hidden. It's, you know, every, it's in your tone of voice. It's in the words you choose. It's everything is there, you know, and conceitedness and vanity and all the rest of it, you know, it's not just in the bathroom, in the mirror, you know. You know, you're walking down the street and there's a mirror, you look at your reflection in the mirror as you go past, you know, checking your mask is not sticking out too much or your coat's on properly or a man checking his tie, you know, or his hat or whatever.
That's all. Conceited vanity.And if that's running your life, you're fucked. Gilbert, Gilbert, sometimes, my darling, I wonder if you're talking to a mirror. I am. You're my mirror. Indeed. Come on, she's prettier. But that was a treat. And I'm going to read a couple of comments that we have here in the chat box, because I think there is, I wish we had more time because I would actually invite everyone to highlight and bring back what resonated and what really stood out. And we still have a few minutes to do that, but I'm just going to include the comments because we have, Hank says, the body mind wants to survive.
Yeah, it is wired. Don't have to worry about it. And Jenny says, no belief in separate entity, just different density of patterning. Yeah, that's another pattern. And Jenny also says, Bob's ordinariness, extraordinary pointing, a couple of hearts of that, and conscious of the consciousness. Yvonne was highlighting that. And the end says, thank you, Gilbert, such a treat. And a couple of hearts and thank yous with it. And Yvonne says, please.Please visit us again. Yes, please, Gilbert. Yes. And Jenny also says only life, only love and sending heart. Yeah, it is a beautiful thing to just, you know, open up and let it flow, especially if there is, you know, some also some, you know, speaking capacity to really deliver it nicely.
So anyone would like to bring the highlight? Yeah, punch is good. Actually, yeah, good on you, Gilbert. Punching pointers are actually quite lovely.And I want to say something because, you know, what I really, really love from Bob, he has love for everyone, even seemingly people that they don't see it yet. Or people that go sitting on a pedestal somewhere and speaking. He has never bad meanings about, yeah, they shouldn't this and they shouldn't that. And that was so lovely from him, you know. He has love for every question. Nothing was too strange or you don't know it and you know it. And that was such a...
Precious gift until the end really that i want to mention thank you yeah thank you isabel absolutely he was the most gorgeous creation masterpiece of the absolute and he didn't even really bother with that uh little things like you know whether my ass stick or we had a guy here who was actually he was really funny he was sticking it onto tanya and i that oh you do your eyebrows you should not do your eyebrows if you have if you shave your face it means you're not enlightened if you wash yourself if you have a shower if you're wearing a clean shirt you can'tbe enlightened.
There was no possibility to converse with him because obviously there was no openness. But it was really funny because this concept that if there is a vanity left, you know, like my cat Pesto, eight hours a day he is licking his fur and he is clean and shine groomed because that's how the machine has been conditioned and that's a proof that he's not in a natural state hmm interesting concept because if there is no one there and the body is conditioned for doing the eyebrows or shaving the face, well, there's still no one there.recognition that there is no one there of course that's the that's the different story the mind may be so busy generating clouds and identifying with every threat of a story that is imposed on that screen then the realization may not be available and jenny says gonna go have a meeting in six minutes and belinda says cleanliness is next to godliness.
Yeah, and Jenny says, therefore, then no one can say thank you. Thank you happens. Go on, Tanya. This is beautiful. This is great fun. You know, live and let live. Live and let live. What's that story in the Bible about worrying about the splinter in your neighbour's eye and missing the pole sticking out of your own eyeball? Anyway, I was thinking of Yvonne's friend, you know. That she met in the supermarket, the guy who's been given the advice that he's dying of incurable cancer and nobody wants to be bothered with him and he's been unfettered now and, you know, he's living like there's no tomorrow.That's a really great pointer.
Well, there is no tomorrow. That's the whole point. That's exactly right. Live like there's no tomorrow. It takes you right back to there is no freaking tomorrow. Just what are you going to do about it? Unmodified, unaltered, unchanged. Let it be. With nobody seeming anybody has any requirement to fix anything, anyone. It's all taken care of itself spontaneously. Everybody relax.Celebrate. No good, no bad. Yeah, but think it's so. Yeah. Oh, God, this is a fantastic meeting. I mean, as well, I want to thank you for your spiel. I love the smiles and the laughter. So light and exactly what Kat said, you know. Energetically, you just, ah, it feels so good.
It's so good. It's great. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, beautiful. And the confidence. Bob used to say that, look, you are that. There is not a matter of believing. But sometimes the investigation has to keep continuing so that the confidence grows. And he says, you know, the questioning so that no one can, how was he saying, push you off your perch or something, something like that. The truth is, whether there is a confidence or not, there still isn't a self. But recognizing it moment to moment, persistently, until the investigation exhausts itself and is no longer necessary. Because there is nothing to question. There is no one to eat.even do to persistently look is not no longer necessary that basic structure that basic core of the identity is dismantled there is no one who needs to look any longer But until that happened, as Gilbert highlighted, keep seeing that there is no one that sees.
But who is there to keep seeing? Who cares? The seeing, the seeing that there is no one that does it. From any seeming point of view. Absolutely. Right? When there's absolute conviction, there's no one doing anything here. There is no doer. It's obvious. There has never been a doer. Never. It's just an illusion of this me, I, the ego, I, or whatever you want to call it. And the same for every seeming body else. Love you all. It's time to go. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. And yes, Gilbert, visit us again. It's nice to actually just share with confidence, favorite pointers and let people resonate.
And it's just such a privilege to just. Bring it on. Anyway. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.