This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
Put it back to Facebook. Oh, something happened here too. Dean doesn't want to be part of it. No, he feels not needed.So we are in life. And we're going to say our names. We have John with us on Zoom. Oh, thank you. For now, and we have Ben, Michael. Same. And we got us, Kat and Tanya, we have Bob in between. And that's that. This one's not quite working.Okay. So, as usually, anyone would like to give us a start? Would anyone like to take a chair, swap a chair, and give us a little introduction? I'm looking at Anita for whatever reason. Yes, no? No, yes?
Actually, I have to... Please. Yeah. Okay. You want to start? I'll just kickstart it. Kickstart it. Yes. Come, Charlie. We just started. Have a chat. You want to? Oh, I said, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think so. Hello. Testing. Hi. Hi. So an interesting thing occurs. Just to say up front, I have a cancer, a blood cancer where I need to have transfusions regularly. And when the transfusions are needed, I'm totally like a fall off a cliff. I'm totally worn out and I can't think and I can't even walk straight. So the interesting thing through... The experience of non-duality and the direct experiencing of an awakening into non-duality is that the awareness is not affected by that.
The body's doing this crazy stuff and it's, you know, it just...gets on with that you know it's doing stuff and then you try to ameliorate the symptoms and things but but the reality is ever-present is awareness and that's not affected by it it's not affected by an anemia or cancer sometimes when the when the signals are very strong coming from the body it can appear to be to override or to dominate the consciousness but in fact awareness never leaves it's just magnificent it's very much easier to deal with I think so yeah so that's my little bit of a spiel I think it's really interesting because as this progresses and as the body is doing its thing awareness is not affected still you know it's just clear and there's no separation between self and anything else it's just a magnificent thing really the dance of life and then again like who is doing that dance of life not me Yeah, so it is just throughout living, throughout the story of this life, things change all the time, right?
Even with children, then with adults, and then old, you know. But the awareness is never affected by it.ever stable, ever present and stable. How effective are those things? That I find a relief and a joy, even when you're feeling like having blood pumping to you, you know, it's still like, it's just joyous. Life is a joy. Really, just the intensity of livingness is the joy. I'm not saying any particular thing in life is a joy, but the intensity of lifing is so sweet, you know, regardless of what's going on in the body, even the intensity of that makes it even more sweet. It's just a really beautiful, beautiful thing to experience.
So I thought that would be a nice way to start it for anybody else. Hello, Tony. Yeah. You know, like this life, the story of this person goes on and on. No, that's my seat.It's that on my bag. It's that on my bag, baby. I'm sorry. Sorry, my name's a particular name. Okay, yeah, no problem. Yeah, so even though the story of lifing apparently goes on and on and on, this happens and that happens and this comes and that goes, the stillness or the ever-present awareness, again, is not Christopher's way. Just remains ever present. And that somehow lessens any identification with suffering. It just lessens it or dulls it off the suffering.
There is still suffering, of course. But, yeah, so it's just an interesting path to walk at this stage of life. Because there is lifing, ever-present lifing. It's very nice. Anyway, and I'm not doing it. It's just happening. Absolutely. Okay. Anybody? Would you like to? No. What was life in your life? Yeah, there's no feeling of awareness. It's just it's beyond feeling.Awareness is just ever-present. It really is like the screen, ever-present. There's no end or beginning to it. It's ever-present and can only ever be in the present moment. Where else is there to really experience? Awareness except in the present moment and on top of that is this great dance of life this beautiful life thing sometimes it's sad sometimes it's painful sometimes it's ecstatic sometimes I'm asleep sometimes I'm that all happens and it's like an unfolding But for me, I think a richness has occurred as a result of that being more aware of the consciousness.
There's a richness of life regardless of what's happening. There's a richness and an intense dance of energy or whatever it is, which is just a sweetness. It's a sweetness. In all its forms. And that has been quite a miraculous thing to happen at this stage of the year. So you just don't get caught up in the thoughts as much. That's it. You don't believe them. Oh, yeah, I know. I do that all the time. Shut up. Let's get back to living, you know.Yeah, so anyway, I think that's really a thing because as this illness progresses, it will take the body's life eventually. It's lovely to know that it doesn't actually affect consciousness at all.
Yeah, it doesn't affect the awareness or the consciousness. It remains unaffected by that. It's beautiful. Yes.Lucky. How do we get it? Yeah. Where do we get it? If you don't get it, just, you know, you know. The answer to that. I want to know how do I have what you have? Well, it's present in, it's ever present in everybody. It's just I think we start, we believe too much in the story of the mind's telling us. We identify it, that there is a person and that, you know, it's a female and male and this age and you're doing that, got that job and blah, blah, blah.
Those things are also true, but they're not the deep truth. And the thing is, we all have, how can we be even... How can anything happen without consciousness being there, without awareness being there? Nothing can manifest without awareness or consciousness. How can anything manifest without it? So when you see that, I mean, for me, there was a specific... Period of about three or four days when the mind totally disappeared, just shut up and disappeared. And the body slept, the body did its things, but the consciousness was unbroken even through sleep. Lasted four days and then the mind wandered back in. But having been seen at a deep level, and I don't thinkI'm not sure if people need an awakening experience.
I can't even say that. I think it's so close and so intimate and so always been there that awakening experience, I don't know if that's even necessary really, I can't say, but the... Once deeply seen can never be unseen. How can that be? Because it's our true nature. So, you know, like so many people, like Bob was one of them, but also many of the great people around the world who have had, and people who have had awakening experience may have had a history of meditating all their life or yoga or some kind of practices or something. Never had an awakening into consciousness directly through that necessarily.
But who knows what effect that had? Or are some of us orientated in life this way and others not? Who knows? Life is just such an amazing thing. Who knows if the man driving the tram is going to have a mindless episode while he's driving the tram? Who knows? I haven't heard of it, but maybe it happens. But, you know, so getting it is, you know, it's like Carol says too, if you thinkyou want you're going to get something then that it's that's not the consciousness speaking because it's ever present that is the mind or the person or the ego thinking there's something to get when there's something when all it is is about stepping back behind the mind really in some ways you know behind the mind before the mind I mean, for the mind, prior to, that's right, prior to the body of mind.
And, you know, I understand that, you know, like I said, I had a direct experience for some days, but some people have, you know, their mind never comes back. And Raman and Maharishi, supposedly his mind never came back, but he still yelled at people and threw things. And to announce his cow in law. Yes, that's right. I don't know if he's mindful of it. Well, you know, it's all fraught. You know, the Indian story is all fraught. But, you know, it's only all that happened there is to reveal that it was always there. It was always there. And maybe some practices which just shut your mind down, some meditation practices.
I don't know. I can't say that one actually leads to the other, but there may be something in there. I had many years of yoga and meditation and stuff. But it was nothing in those techniques that brought that experience, that showed me that experience. But who knows if that was just part of it, you know, if that's our orientation.Some of us have this experience in this life and maybe or some of the practice we did somehow opens. No, I don't even think that that's that. Because it's so intimate. When you see it's the most intimate relationship you have with self. And it's ever-present. You know, that's the place where you know, you know, I mean, all the other comings and going in life, you know, all the things we do and all the people we meet and all the conversations we have is something, but the intimate...
Close relationship that one deeply has with oneself, not the chattering mind, not the commenting mind, but something just below that, deeper than that. And we all have it. I mean, the mind will always try to say, oh, yes, but, you know, if we did this technique and I went over to that place or if my relationship was better, I said nothing like that. But who knows if some of us are just orientated in this life or some others aren't. I don't know. But I know that it's closer than your mind. It's closer than the mind and it's ever-present and we all have the same thing.
We all are part of the same thing. There's no separation from this. There's no separation. Maybe, you know, what's his name, that silly psychologist, you know,45 days to all that. He says, if a million people wake up in the world, the whole lot of us are going to flick. Who knows? Maybe that's true. Something about, you know, something happens in a butterfly effect, you know, that might be like that because we're not changing anything in ourselves. We're not getting anything. It's just coming back into what has always been there, like you said, prior to the mind. Yeah. So it is, now as this body becomes more frail, it is very, so enriching and so, wonderful to not identify with the body and suffering or less identification.
I would say a lot less. As I say, sometimes when the body sensations become very loud, you know, like when I need a transfusion, I am going to, you know, my heart's going to give up if I don't get one. So sometimes like that survival mechanism kicks off and says, right, do it, you know, get on to do something. You know, the body responds. It has to do something. But even in that, still there's awareness which is untouched. Yeah, it's amazing anyway. Okay. I think that answers your question. Thank you. There's still any period where the mom might There's still any periods where the mom might.The mind does have it out.
For you, is it? No, it just doesn't happen. No, there's a dance. What I feel happens here is there's this wonderful dance of energy and things, but there's an awareness of the dance always, ever present. But there's an interaction in a dance which is so sweet and such. Not always, you know. I remember the last time I had a fight. It's a potential. But basically it's just a sweetness of livingness that I experience. And I think that is so sweet because there's this consciousness that's ever present. About the fact that everything is changing. Everything changes. It's absolutely reliable. Everything comes and goes. The body comes, the lights, the friends, the furniture, everything.
The cars. Everything comes and goes and that's a dance, that's a movement. I suppose that's what it is, isn't it? It's movement. That's a movement and it's wondrous to take part in that movement but there's something that sees that movement that isn't moving constantly at the same time. It's so beautiful. So no one's seen can't be unseen.I can't, except maybe if some of the stimulation from the body clouds it for a short period of time. But I can't even say that, even when I'm so weak and I can only just make it to the hospital. Awareness is still present, not affected. Awareness can't be affected like that.
So, you know, it is a beautiful, wondrous mystery and a beautiful dance, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden it's not something we can give to anybody, not something you can find, not something, you know, practices you can do. No, ever present. It's intimate, that sense of intimacy that is the closest than anything else that you've ever experienced. But we all have that. We all experience that at different times. I know I did throughout my life. You know, when there's a closeness with the self, when you're on your own or you're not being stimulated by something. It's a closeness and just the mind might be having a story or having a chatter or something, but there's something that sees the mind.
And that is ever-present, yeah.Yeah, I hope that answered that question. Thank you. Well, there's a lot more fun in life, I have to tell you. I have a lot more fun. Less suffering. That doesn't mean suffering disappears, but there's a lot less suffering and much more fun. That's why we love hanging out together as non-jewelers, right? It's a lot lighter and we don't take things seriously. Yeah.You want to go back and swap a chair? You know, you never know. You didn't fall, did you? No, no. Okay, thanks, Philippa. Yeah, it's nice. Thanks, Anita. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, Anita. And we have three people with us on Zoom, and we have another...
3 to 10 on Facebook live and this is where we actually yeah I'd like to highlight the joy of sharing that which is prior to the mind prior to the thinking that love of being that everyone experiences right now nobody has the knife on the wrist there is a love of being and even if there is something obscuring it that all my life is shit that this is wrong or that is wrong if those things could be resolved you would still experience that love of being if there is you know the preference for being here the joy of sharing the aliveness of of being immersed in that miracle of existence the might be and this is really the source of psychological suffering things that are appearing on the screenscreen that obscuring it like for example and this is beautiful demonstration anita cancer for majority of people this is oh you know what's going to happen to my kids what's going to happen to the world i don't want to die see how you know the demonstration and we had that with bob as well of embracing the situation is there a cancer if i don't think about it It's a condition which is given credibility when the thought is believed.
But in a moment-to-moment experience, yes, the body sometimes is a bit weaker and it needs the blood transfusion. And sometimes it needs another way of attending and it will always. Rise the attention, it will always flash the red light if it needs the attention. Same with the navigational system. If anything needs addressing, if there is even in that, because it can't be separated, also the body and mind, they just one unit really everything the whole world the whole the whole experiencing is one unit nothing can truly be separated and if you doubt it bring up what can you separate and we'll just look into it together the thought oh yes what if my future is uncertain Well, guess what?
There's no future that is not uncertain. And more, there is no future, full stop.Now, this is a source of distress for that algorithm which is designed to keep the body alive so that the experiencing can keep going on. Because without the pattern, without the body-mind, there is no experiencing. There is just the eternity of... Nothingness like they poetically say but it isn't even that because there is no one who even could potentially label it or imagine it there is just there isn't there is nothing that can be grasped in any way but in the direct experience of right now there is a pattern appearing through the pattern and as the pattern there is an experiencing going on and now the experiencing through that labeling machine is divided this is me this is not me this is my this is my condition my health condition my financial condition my relationships my problems my my world my room my this This all comes later.
When the baby is born, none of that exists. There is no separation between me and the world. There is no my body and your body. There is just pure experiencing. And as the machine gets more and more updated and upgraded and more programmed, the further division.As the large language model grows and grows and grows, suddenly the worlds are appearing within that growing capacity to imagine. We can all collectively imagine another country, another location. Another person who is absent. How incredible! You know, the animals who are living in the present moment with their five senses, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, they don't have the capacity to imagine another location, another entity.
Or another object or another time. Even a referencing to the past, you say, oh, dog remembers me, he saw me before, he recognizes me. No, this is not the memory the way we understand the memory. This is the trained behavior, a stimuli response. And the stimuli that is familiar, the response is such. So the memory,
even that even when we conceptualize and even if we see the way the whole manifested world the whole projector how it got how it got into this right now this richness this capacity to live in the live not leave but to experience living in the past or future in a trauma or in the story or in the huge context you know of some cosmology or science or any sort of context which only exists in the imagination, only exists in thinking.
And you see that and wow, wow, this is incredible. But if you don't see that, oh my God, this is real. It's really happening, you know? There's really, the risk of nuclear war is right in the air. This is true. And the abuse of children and all those things, shit, you know, you can't dismiss, you can't say this is not happening. Oh my God, it is terrifying. We are not here to say what is and what isn't happening. We are here to point into the contextual, collectively,how you call it, the phenomenal world collectively believed into existence, phenomenal world, agreed upon reality. Like, you know, 300 years ago, the agreed upon reality was that, or four or five, whatever, that the, you know, the sun, moves around the earth and then before that oh there was the angels there in the sky and the devils there agreed upon reality today is the religion called science religion that says that only measurable objective experiences are real and subjective experiences are not verifiable therefore they are unreal And how about even objectified world is still experienced subjectively?
And it all vanishes the moment we do the beautiful Bob's experiment. What's wrong with right now if I don't think about it? We can literally pause the world for a moment. And subjective experience, the experience seeing, doesn't go anywhere. Even if that basic screen is wiped clean, the awareness of existence doesn't go anywhere. Even if there is no seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, even if there is no thinking, no...imagining future, no imagining past, no imagining other locations than this and other entities than this. The subjective experience of being alive and the appreciation for that aliveness and the intimacy of that direct experience of aliveness, the sweetness of it, regardless of the condition of the body, is still here.
It never goes anywhere. And landing back bringing even just a little bit of relaxed attention back to that source of light that from which the whole projection stands because in your direct experience really is there a moon if you don't think about it in the direct experience without the thought without mental image your parents your spouses your children are they really present experientially without the means of imagination or mental projection image or thought Because if you see this, you can see how that whole software lays over that interpretation, that thick layer of constructed reality. Constructed in thought, in mental images, in those agreed upon realities.And when you see that, this is not to say, oh, let's stop believing in it and then all the abuse will disappear.
No. The dream goes on. But then there is a real possibility of leaving the dream. Rather than being crushed by it, identified as a tiny little ant, completely, you know, as a person, as a body-mind, as an entity, as a little me inside somewhere. My God, I'm completely at the mercy of the whole dream. Every one of you can reject me and not like me, and it will be crashing. And Putin can push that button, oh my God, the whole dream disappears, completely at the mercy. Rather than realizing that constructed reality, as beautiful, rich, dense, and deep as it is, this is the projector is not to say you are God you are doing and do it better no there is no doer there it is the whole the whole transformer Bob had this metaphor about you know putting a thousand volts through the globe that can only hold like 12 volts it would blow it straight away but putting thousand andinto seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, imagining, and there's so many layers of thinking.
Oh, suddenly that thousand volts of pure aliveness is nicely dispersed for all those channels, and it doesn't blow the fuses. It is... But still, it is the source. This is the projector and this is the projected. And it can't exist. They co-arise simultaneously. The projection doesn't exist without the projector. And the projector cannot stop projecting because that's its nature. So the dream goes on. The moment the body, the energy is cut off, the whole projected world is stopped. But right at this moment, it is going on. This one is seeing the room, is seeing the light, is seeing the little prisms, colors, smudges and things.
And they are co-arising. Projector and projected but there is a registering capacity there is the emptiness there is that witnessing which sees the co-arising moment to moment or not even a co-arising it sees them already being present This is already present. This is already present. Simultaneously, they are present. But prior to that presence,There is that knowing, there is that empty screen you were talking about, there is that sweetness of pure being that when Michael asked question, how does it feel? It doesn't. It doesn't. There is no feeling to it. There is a knowing, but even the knowing is not the type of a knowing that you know that is day and not night or you're female or male.
It's a different type of knowing. It's the undeniability, but it's not asserting anything as an object in consciousness. It's not asserting any state that this is a state. It feels like that when it's present, when it's absent. No. It's like when you look at that cat walking around. You can't say that this cat is unconscious. But you can't also say what the consciousness of it is, what your consciousness is. It's a subjective experience. Oh, you can put some measurements and see the brain waves or brain activity. Okay, but that is secondary to the fact of consciousness. Before the brain was formed, that life essence was already working, dividing the fetus into the...you know dividing that that cell of the sperm and ovum into two and two and two and it already had in that little algorithm called rna and dna it already had the prescription of how it is going to grow the brain So it's not that the consciousness start generating waves because the brain is there.
It enabled the whole brain. It is prior to everything. It is the substratum, is the base. And it is, as they say in Christianity, omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. There is no way that anything or anyone could possibly be excluded. So you are that. You are that omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience already. That life essence animating you, beating your heart, creating thoughts, giving you a possibility to overlay the immediate experience with the imagination of past and future and trauma, relationship with my boss, relationship with my children, all that. It's only possible because that thousand volts is going through the system. So what are you? Are you the system? Are you the imagined layers of traumas or conceptual image which has been formed and updated through the years?
Or are you that which is always?always here the pure voltage not even thousand it's just pure voltage of life Yes. So if it's accurate, if the screen is accurate, yes. Where does this weakness come from? Yeah, beautiful question. Lovely, lovely. I'd say the simplest answer is... The sweetness really comes from the contrast to the suffering. So it's close top. It is. Yes, like, you know, when you look at the newborn baby, when you experience yourself as a newborn baby, there is neutrality to it. There is not a particular pleasure associated with just being. It's like... It's just pure open curiosity. What the fuck? Sort of a...
It's a recognition of the love of being. That's it. Sat Chit Ananda. Loving to be. I don't know where it fits in. It doesn't fit anywhere. So you're right. Sweet is a word. It's a sound. And it can mean sweetness. Lots of different things to lots of different...I understand what you mean when you say sweetness. Just an appreciation, recognition of a loving to be. Oh, wow. Wow, this is freaking amazing. It's amazing. I mean, I experience sweetness, but it's just the logic. You're right. Do you understand? Yes. Given you say blank screen and pure awareness. Yes. So, yes. Say sweetness. Yes. It's still mind. Yes.
It's true. Yes. All of it is. Anything that changes comes and goes. It's all in the tree. And it's perfectly fine. No, you know, loving to be doesn't exclude being human. This is the whole thing. It's the whole play. Multifaceted. Being, being. The whole shebang is worthy. Just on the projector, a question on the projector, because that kind of implies that there's some sort of will in the projection or that there's some sort of control or some sort of purpose. Can you speak to that? Does it? Does it? I'm asked. No, no, it doesn't. I don't know, I think sometimes. When the mind's switched off, like, where's the projector?
Yeah.This is just the joyful dance here. I don't see space, green, all that. I just think what seems when something is sort of less clouded, it might appear closer than, you know, talk. Yeah, I guess mine's switched off right now. There isn't a sense of a screen or, you know, at all. But little smiles come up, a feeling that later might get described as comparative joy.No screams, no weenus, no conscious. You don't see that stuff. It's just all powerful, almighty, all knowing. That means anything can be right. So why not have purpose? Why not create something beautiful? Why not? And so it's just, I'd like you to talk to that really, just in terms of.
Why not? Because you can get a lot of stuff in mind and believe you can. Generate a beautiful world and create a good world. Yes. I'd like you to speak about that because there's all beauty and all happiness in people. I was curious. It'll come and go. It doesn't matter. Have the most beautiful concept about why we're here. What the purpose is, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. It might change tomorrow. You might revisit it, rework it. What does it matter? It doesn't matter. You can pretend to believe in such and such at this moment and to be changed the next. They say, you know, don't hold, hold no concepts.
Don't buy into the illusion so much you believe it to be what you are.see that all that what I am comes and goes, the description. It's a beautiful question, though, because everything is good to go as it comes. It's just, and it's going to be gone in an instant, yeah, and it doesn't matter. What you believed in 10 years ago is, you know, not what you believe in right now. And what you believe in right now isn't what you believe in right now. It's just gone, gone, gone, gone. It's that in between what's past and what's not yet arrived. That's it. And we use the word now.
Yeah, there's the thing for here is that there's an energy in the life. Life is full of apparent energy. I say apparent because who knows what it is really. But there's a joy in that, you know, we feel heat, we feel cold, we feel emotion, we, you know, we see each other's eyes. All of that is an energy thing. And the sweetness for me lies in the dance and the way it unfolds and I have got nothing to do with it. There's nobody who owns it.You know, I may make a decision to go down to the shop and get some food because it's like a survival signal.
But it's the sweetness of the dance of energy. It's a dance of energies and whatever that is. Energy may not even be that. Completely precise but there's some actual life in I mean how can we deny it no it's just this beautiful moving constant it's like that's why I call it a dance it's like a dance and you know we're getting engaged in the dance or sit this one out and watch what's going on so Yes. The sweetness is it could be nothing. Exactly. Stillness, it can be completely still. And not, but as a human body we have eyes and ears and things, so we're still picking up sensory information all the time, even if you're still meditating with a still mind, something, you're going to get an itch down.
Or whatever, you know, it's like something's going to happen, I've got to go to the toilet. So there's always some stimulation coming into this thing at some stage, you know, at every stage, even in sleep, in actual fact, even in sleep.You can't own it because it's just bloody well happening. And not resisting. If you resist and want it to be something else, that's suffering. That's the root of suffering. I mean, you might like to change things and make things better for somebody or something. That's a different story. But resistance is, oh, no, I don't want it to be like that. That's the root of suffering.
Whatever that is, right? And the way out of suffering in this moment when the resistance arises is realizing that resistance is also not you. The resistance is arising spontaneously. It is just another wave of arising. Just like the pleasure is arising, the sadness is arising, or cold, or noise, any experience arising that wasn't there a moment ago, and right now it has arisen, it's a phenomenon. And it's arising by itself. You can't think yourself to resist them. It's just the same way as you can't think yourself to pleasure. And then people will argue, no, I can write affirmations, I can do it. But there is a thought, inspiration or anything that arises completely kind of objectively from the outside to even stimulate that action of resisting or affirming.or pleasure.
So in a way, if I believe I'm the doer, I decide whether I go to the toilet, whether I have tea or coffee. For me to decide it, the whole world had to align. Every single force of the appearance, including my childhood, my culture, my upbringing, my peers, everything has to go and contribute to that particular outcome of that infinite calculation of that process. So it is the illusion that this is I. I am resisting what is arising. Oh, it's winter, it's cold, I'm resisting the cold. That's fairly easy, but it is no different to resisting the fact that my boss is going to fire me and I'm going to be destitute and I'm going to be poor and I'm going to need to get the bank loan and all that stuff.
Or I have a cancer and I'm going to die. Any resistance that is arising is not done by me. It is just the effect of that algorithm trying to perform its job, what it has been designed to do. The moment I realized that this is perfectly...natural outcome of the processes that are completely beyond understanding because they're just too complex and i'm resting back and looking and saying wow that's the response interesting That resistance isn't my resistance anymore. It is what arises. In this way, I am the cognizing emptiness, registering the arising resistance. Now, because it isn't mine, it doesn't relate to me. It is completely...
Objectifiable phenomena it isn't personal anymore it isn't serious anymore and even if that again relates to cancer there is a there is a physical pain arise the body is responding I had a stomach ache yesterday it was crunching all the body crunching It is arising in consciousness. It is registered in consciousness. Is it personal? Is it me? Is it I? The pain is still physical. But I used to have the attitude whenever I would catch a flu or whenever there would be some sort of a misbehavior of the body 20 years ago, I would have absolute serious, deep resentment to being such a weak person.
Piece of shit not worthy to survive you knowIf I was the animal living in a bush, I would be eaten by predators. I would just die a miserable death. That's what I deserve. Seriously, there was a belief in that. Imagine how would that impact. I know. How would that impact the healing process? I was sick every six weeks. I was catching every bug ever. Now I haven't been sick in six years or so. There is no, and even if that discomfort arises, it isn't personal. Nothing is personal about whatever arises. The attitude completely dropped away, that sense of involvement, that amplification of psychological suffering coming from the identity, taking up an identity of a weak body or a stupid mind or the ugly face or whatever the identity says.
It dropped away. Who are you without your identity?And isn't it peaceful and blissful and serene to have no identity, to have no idea who you are, what you are, where you are? Just be. And all that weight dropping away. Weight of me being not enough, being human. I think nationality is truth.Where is the suffering now? I think we have. Bill says, the mind cannot grasp that one looking and the thing seen are same movement appearing. Yeah, absolutely. Co-arising, interdependent, the projector and the projected. Both noticed, both registered. And James says, what is beautiful has its opposite. Pure, non-conceptual awareness has no opposite. Yes, and that's a great point.
Also bringing back, you know, the sweetness. Sweetness has the opposite, right? Bitterness. But at the same time, there is an aspect to that ananda aspect, which is often obscured. And the moment obscuration drops, the lightness comes. The moment heaviness is dropped, lightness feels quite blissful and light. And it is not to say that it has ever been gone or away. It just seemingly has been obscured. That lightness of being, the delight of existence, that Ananda, element from Sat-Chit-Ananda, has always been there, seemingly obscured. So when the seeming obscuration moves out of the way, that is the natural state. But the moment the whole heavy weight drops, it almost feels like, you know, you were anchored to the ground with a heavy iron chain and suddenly got cuts off.
So the instant feeling is like floating up to the air. But that's through the contrast. If the heaviness, the extreme suffering, being on your knees in the darkest night of the soul, suddenly stop, the system registers elation, ecstasy. But over time, it wears off. It becomes normal, ordinary. Just everyday garden variety, like Bob would say, presence awareness. She knows the word. Yes, she gave us the word. Yes, a beautiful word. What is it? You know what? Contentment.Yes. It's contentment. Nothing wrong anymore. Yeah. I think in Buddhism they occasionally come across, we are happiness. That is our nature. In other words, happiness is not like, well, I hope so much, that kind of happiness, I guess.
Joy of being. Joy of being, contentness, sweetness of recognition of life. And there's words to describe it, but it is sort of the natural state, really. Look at the cut. That's the demonstration. Yes. Content. You content first. You do. I content. Yes. Bob said that light satisfaction. Satisfaction. Yeah, Bob said, do you just feel like a light satisfaction? Something like that. Yeah. Light satisfaction. Yeah, it kind of marries the contentment. Or nisargadatta, there is nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong. Like, you know, if you live from that sense of identity as the mind, and the mind is the algorithm which is designed to keep you safe and keep you thriving, so it follows the sweetness, it avoids the bitterness.
If I am my mind, I'm constantly complaining. This is not sweet enough. This one may be sweeter. The grass may be greener somewhere else. Constantly chasing better experience because that's what the algorithm is designed to do. There is no mind in the pure present.moment when there is no thought when there is no future there's no past just this there's no need for that algorithm to run so if i'm completely immersed in that identity I can't stand the present moment, the radiance of being. I'll constantly project, no, not this, no. There must be more. There must be a better experience around the corner, a more lasting sense of peace.
That sense of peace right now, that sense of contentment or nothing is wrong, No, not good enough. Only the mind with the language can say that something is good or not good. Out of the mind back into the core the essence the heart nothing's either good or bad nothing right right or wrong there is nothing wrong with this moment so if there is any sense of anything wrong that means there is subtle identity identification with the body mind The moment it drops, just exhale it.What's wrong with right now? Dive into that peaceful depth of the ocean of being, depth where there is no movement, no ripple, no wave, no complaint, no mind, no thought.
And there, you're still existing. You're alive. You're radiant. There's contentment. There's nothing wrong. And it's never not here.Come on, questions, sharing, ideas, highlights. So when you say there's nothing wrong, even this very moment. Yes. So when we say there's nothing wrong in this moment, sometimes I get confused about whether I'm experiencing in that moment pure awarenessthe blank screen or this the mind body not doing the good bad thing. Yeah, you see the confusion is showing up. The content of confusion is secondary. Whether it is awareness or consciousness or whether it is complaining or not complaining or whether it is Monday or Sunday, doesn't matter what the content of it is.
You can see a subtle movement arise, wanting to know, wanting to grasp. What is it? Am I experiencing this? Is this or is not this yet? And this is like Tony was saying, you know, screen is just a metaphor. Space is just a metaphor. There is no screen. There is no space. It's just a metaphor. She says she doesn't see it. No one sees it. If there is anyone who sees the screen, well, you imagine it.So it is really just to, and I love having Tony here and having that precise contribution of that brilliant autistic mind, which doesn't go for all those metaphors. It goes to literal translation of how does it really experience me here?
I can't, you know, Tony, thank you. It's always, you always bring that really, really valuable content of that little flick of precision that is just gold. It has a subject arising. Yes, yes. And it is gold. You can't experience empty screen, Jane. You can't experience emptiness. Yeah. Because if there is you trying to experience it, it's already too late. It is already that the you trying is already the movement of the mind. That is registered and attended. If it's registered and unattended, And it just, that is just, woo, look at the light that's coming out. Like, you know, the way, and it's sweet, especially Tanya and I, we laugh a lot about that stuff arising, you know, whatever, the distress arising or the sadness arising.
It's like a ripple, like, woo, yeah, this arises. It's living in you.I said it's living as we know it. Lifing. Yes. Oh, yeah. You have the... I suppose one of the things that is probably in my way, and I'm playing with having heard what you've said, is just the concept of the path and the fact that there are many paths and the paths suit different ways of being. And I suppose at this point in my life there's a number of threads which have a degree of difficulty in this life, that's what is the experience. And it seems that in the process it is helpful. When there can be an experience of growth thathelps a sense of resolution.
And so when that resolution happens, it feels like it creates openness and it can enable a sense of freedom. And I suppose in the journey that I've undertaken, there's been a lot of stuff about the journey of the soul and reincarnation, what happens in the etheric. And it's a different perspective than is presented with what you and Rob... Yeah, yeah. No, it's a different realm because you are talking about the realm of the mind. This all exists in the mind. But some of it is to do with the journey of the soul. But I think one of the things that was said before was, who cares?
That's it. That's it. Like it doesn't matter. And maybe it's true and maybe it's not true. And, you know, I do weave in and out of that. And that feels helpful. But it seems like there's complications that are there in this life of this body-mind that need attention. And actually they require quite a lot of attention. And it's just how it is. And they get it, right? They get it. The mind of the...The body calls for attention and it gets it. Well, there needs to be action that's undertaken. Yes, that's what gets it. Things that need to be attended to. Yeah, it creates the thought and the action follows.
Attention is given. And then there is this movement in and out of, you know, the experience like now, it feels like I can sit back and rest in this lovely. Yeah. Expansion and then there needs to be focus. But it feels like the path of this body-mind that there is a journey, that there is a soul's journey. And so one of the things that pulls me in and out of some of the elements of this particular representation of the path is that there's a sense that the journey of the soul feels very real and it feels helpful and it feels like it's enchanting. But it also kind of adds meaning and richness to some of the journeys.
But maybe, who cares? Why not? Look, it's absolutely wonderful. You know, of course, the soul journey happens in time, right? So that is the answer. It happens in time. Lucid dreaming. My God, what a journey. Or paranormal experiences.Superpowers. What a journey. Journey to being better and better performer. Football player, artist, mother. It is absolutely not to dismiss that phenomenally wonderful, rich dance that life presents as the human journey, human story, progressing, learning, developing. Oh my God. Though first things first, if you find me the kingdom, all the rest will be added onto you, said Jesus. If you anchor yourself in the heart of hearts, this moment right now, and you see the progress and the soul journey, happens in your mind right now and you appreciate it to the fullest like wow what a beautiful beautiful wow i can tell you honestly and this is a story bob and i we had it almost a decade of the story of waking up every morning looking at each other and appreciating that magnificent magnificent story love story that we share the brilliance of life bringing us together me from the other side of the world by line of synchronicities and events releasing both of us simultaneously from previous commitmentsreally to the like two weeks difference where we were both released from amazing all story all existent in time all existent in the mind and loved to the last beat appreciated and and amplified to the point of like wow ecstasy no worries still knowing it is the story not killing one little bit of it realizing soul journey coming to the school learning growing towards a higher love and compassion like a buddhist teachings or or maybe deserving even heaven or working towards never incarnating again or incarnating as an angel,Yum!
What a wonderful, wonderful creation. The human thought with that, you know, universal theories of everything. Wow! This is not to invalidate any of it, but seeing them as they are in their true beauty and glory without necessarily being a slave to it. It makes it better. It doesn't take anything out. Or maybe it does. What do I know? It doesn't for me. It didn't for Bob. I think, you know, loving Jesus as if he was real, as if, you know, he would advise me what to wear tomorrow morning. And having the... Don't laugh. I actually lived in a community where everyone kind of... All right.
Okay. But it is quite a valid perspective, you know. And this brings a lot of love to life, a lot of gratitude, you know, imagining that loving presence of someone who is going to even advise me what I'm going to wear and feeling grateful all the time, blessing out all the time. Wow. Wow. What a wonderful way of life experiencing that human journey.Yeah, go on. Yeah, I just want to write down that, yeah, the apparent journey of growth, it's really a journey of releasing. It's like an unknotting of the dense energy into something more fun and free. Also, you know, the element of being an experiencer versus being a believer.see all of those mental systems, you know, the religions, even the story of the soul journey, absolutely mind-blowingly beautiful, or the story of incarnating over time, or wonderful, wonderful.
If I appreciate them as an absolute magnificent work of art of the absolute, the beautiful face of that life essence, of that omnipresence, of that God showing up as this. I bow down absolutely in awe. But I'm not the identity following it. I'm not a believer enslaved to that religion or that story. I'm the source appreciating itself, myself. This is another reflection of who I am. I am the infinite reality, the absoluteness. And this is what came out. This is my beloved child. The story of radical forgiveness. I meet other souls to resolve the past.I love all of those stories without being a slave to any of them, without being a follower or believer to any of them, and appreciate them fully or appreciate just one.
Yes, this is my favorite. I remember that one. Oh my gosh. I remember maybe about 15 years ago, I had this really, really hard time. Affection with the idea of evolution of consciousness collective evolution of consciousness we all evolve towards being more compassionate more loving oh and i remember learning introduction to non-duality and looking at this and No. I don't want to give up on this. This is so beautiful. This dream is so sweet. I don't want to. I'm too attached to that. And how sweet, even that love affair with a story, with the philosophy is registered. Life doesn't mind. I could have stayed enslaved, this particular body-mind, enslaved.
As a believer into it, not a problem at all. There is no requirement and there is no necessity to see throughthat beautiful projection. A lot of people, and then, you know, Anita was saying about thousand monkey effects, you know, thousand people get enlightened. I presume being persistently in the natural state You know, every single baby, every single animal, every single, you know, plant in that, we already had that monkey effect and we already have that clarity and understanding deep in the bottom. And if there is an obscuration of the storyline that is subscribed to or believed, That's exactly how life is playing the dance and it loves it.
It loves being lost in its own delusions. That's the point of it. That's the point of the dance. There's no need for anyone to drop. There was no need for that character which appeared to be imagined, that character cat, to drop its attachment to the idea of evolution of consciousness. There is not such a thing had to happen. No cat needed to sacrifice the dream of evolution of consciousness. At one point, there was just a laughter in which it was clearly seen that that beautiful idea of cat the character and the beautiful idea of the evolution of the consciousness and every single beautiful ideasWe're arising in that right now to no one.
Every beautiful idea of Sim, of Anne, of Anita, arising in that which is prior to thought, prior to ideas. Idea of soul journey, of evolution, of the marriage, of any memory. How amazing. And if it is not recognized right now, and it is, it is registered. But if the obscuration of the identity just clouding that sort of realization that it is all known, it is already known, as it arises, it's already known. Every breath is already known. The temperature in the room is known. It doesn't have to be I register. No, there's no I. The knowing is already inherently happening right now. Everything is already arising in that knowing.
But whether the character drops and stop obscuring it or not, It doesn't matter. Because the character is just a phenomenon arising temporarily. I was watching the movie that I used to watch with Bob, those old black and white movies. I found the movie in the library. I subscribed to the library from 1927, before Bob was even born.A silent movie. Beautiful. It was no language. It was just the music. Oh, I don't remember. I didn't see. I can't even relate to any. I don't know the names of the actors. They all long since dead. Where are they? Where are the dreams? Where are the hopes? Where are the heartbreaks?
Where are their soul journeys? Where are their beliefs? They're Jesus advising them in the morning. The fears, the traumas. And that is what Bob would always say when we would watch those black and white movies. Where are they now? The echoes showing up on the screen of people with the richness and beauty gone, appearing as a shadow on the screen. This is a shadow on the screen too. That's not the bad news. That's amazing.Because that is, and remembering that this is going to drop dead, it may drop dead in a minute. Yeah, I've got the sign for you. Get the mic. I've got the same feeling watching Fred Astaire, who was an amazing dancer.
And who was the woman? Ginger Rogers. Not Ginger Rogers. It was... Citrus. No, it wasn't Citrus. It was... Citrus. Oh, yeah. The Spanish. She had an English name. It doesn't matter. Yeah, what's not? Amazing. But anyway, amazing. But you wonder, you do have these thoughts about them. Yeah. Just.It's nothing. Absolutely nothing. He's on a screen. It's like a memory. It's appearing on a screen. It's still, but you don't watch it again. It's like a dancing still. It's really interesting. He's on a bloody screen. Bundle of patterns and freedoms. Yeah, that's it. So if you believe yourself to be the pattern, inevitably you're going to fear death, aging, all of that.
Yeah, well, this was... the thing about some of these people, but Fred Astaire lived a long life, but some of these other actresses, you know, they were dead by 69. Yeah. You know, because they were right into, yeah, life is great. But when you're having a good time, it just sort of takes you away from you. There's no guarantees. There's no guarantees if you have a good life you're going to live to 89 or 96. This is the thing, the point on making a leader is that there was a lot of really behind the scenes, you know, it's all glamour, but behind the scenes there was a lot of suffering with some of these people.
It's, you know, suffering is a human condition, part of human condition. Yeah, well, there you go. Poof. But still, we can visit it on the screen any time. Exactly. Best Spanish dancer ever is Carmen Amaya and she just had a physical thing that just made her move and she had to move to like get over it and she's like the best like I'd say Spanish dancer ever you know amazing flamenco dancer went around Hollywood it was just yeah but it was a physical a package of physical crap that made her have to move. And then some other stuff that just made him move beautifully. Yeah, yeah.
This girl was a dancer from...From a kid who I'm trying to think of. But I can't still, you know, something. Exactly. Another three. And dream, the dream it is. And if you view it as a dream. Oh, you got it. Brilliant. Oh, it's a bouncer. You know, she's very up a lot with alcohol. And was gone before 70. I think if it's there.Amazing. And right now it's just a dream. It's a dream. Yeah. She is. You're having a dream and it's really good. You wake up and you think, shit, that's a dream. Yeah. Isn't the same in your own life, though? If you think back to the time that time dragged on, you thought you'd never get through it.
It was going on forever and ever. Maybe it was a painful physical thing or an illness or whatever it was, or emotional. It seemed like I've never, never, never. Now you think about it. It's the same thing as a storm. There's no time.I was just going to say quickly, what frustrates me about dreaming or sleeping is you don't know how much fun you're having until you wake up. It's gone out of my head. There you go. Somebody else.And when you bring up, when memories like Rita Hayworth, who by the way was the poster girl in Shawshank Redemption. Great. She was the poster girl in Shawshank Redemption.
Yeah, she was. Anyway. When that, you know, it's. It's just a... But it's all imagined, isn't it? See how it's all, just as you're saying, the dream, the past, it's all imagined. All in the mind. It's all imagined in the mind. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But when you're kind of, when the focus of attention is on that memory, imagined scene, Well, you kind of miss what's happening now. Well, but as this human existence contains memory and imagination, it makes us believe that there is a story that ties up around memory and imagination when in fact... Even when you're watching the movies, it's in the present moment.
There's only ever the present moment if you truly investigate it. Yes. We have this beautiful facility of memory and projection. And when you really investigate it, you go, wow, this is amazing. It's destabilising.Sometimes because, wow, because so much of your security is based on an image of expectation built up of certainty and security. It's all false. It's all false and imagined, all of it. Yes, imagined, but I think it's also just part of the experiencing. And it's not separate to that, but truly when you investigate, we only can be here now. Absolutely. There is absolutely no other place that the dance occurs and the energy and the awareness exists.
The rest is this beautiful construct of the human mind and also not to be rejected. Yes. And where is the past? Yeah, where is the past? Where is the past? Right here. The past is only imagined now. Exactly. Wow. That's a lovely thing. Yeah, good. The unraveling is just the unraveling. There's no preference to like, oh, this is imagination, so it doesn't count. Well, this is, you know, this is the sky right now. So that person referred to a movie they saw once. That doesn't count. You know, let's just talk about the sky. You know, that's all that counts, the garden, nothing else. Yeah, it's not true.
It may be true for that unravelling at that moment, but whatever is unravelling, nothing's more or less relevant than anything else.It's just, there's no relevant. It's also this, you know, I've had this long, long, decades long, decades and decades of yogic practices and, you know, in traditional forms. And, you know, reincarnation is often brought up in that. And I had to let go of the whole idea of reincarnation. Because who was being reincarnated? You know, there may be something who knew can tell, but who is it that's being reincarnated? And when would that be happening? Yes, exactly. Where? Yeah, so many of those kind of pathways and things, when truly investigated for our exact experiencing, It doesn't mean, you know, that we can have all sorts of remarkable experiences in the moment which are beyond the mind and the body, but it can only ever happen right now.
The rest is memory or story making or... Projection yeah it's just a really interesting one and that's where the joy of lifing is is the fact of course there's nothing but now never can be anything but now yeah Yeah, all that can be happening. Anything can be happening, you know. It's ridiculous to dismiss ghosts and not dismiss the bus, you know. It's... But it's all absolutely unimportant.because there's no special concept of importance on any of it. It's just... Whatever comes up, whatever feeling it has, you know, is just what's there and that's it. And there's no thought about what that is, you know. And this too shall pass.
Everything, everything. Constant kaleidoscope, you know, you've got to go see Scott one somewhere, the kaleidoscope. Constant shifting with the little, the stones constantly shifting and moving. There's no stability in it. There's no stability. The only, that's. Only constant is that which you can't describe, right? Which you know, you can't not know. If you look earnestly. Also, if you're in the, if the, If the present moment, complete present moment, of course, like we can recall memory and even project into imagination in the present moment. But when you remove those pastimes of memory and projection, all you're left with is the present clear energy of the present moment.
Nothing else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is fun. Past and present and future and stuff. But present, man, that's where the source of life was.Yes. Apparent life force, whatever that is. Yes. Yeah. And see how you can question absolutely everything. You can question the labels. You can question your identity. You can question your story. You can question the validity of every complex thought system and imagination. But you cannot get out of the now. You can't question this. Try and get out. So this is the ultimate reality. This is the ultimate reality. And what shows up, how it shows up, how do I put meaning, what meaning, what, you know, that the whole idea of a journey and all that, it is secondary.
And it is changing. In a good mood, I have a good self-concept. In a bad mood, I have bad. In a good mood, I will subscribe to an evolution of consciousness. In a bad mood, the humanity is going down. It's going to extinct. Whatever. Secondary. But this moment right now, never changing. Always here. Always here is as if I am here I am this ever present yeah but what I am I can't say because that would be an object and I am the pure subjectivity in which all the objects are just flickering coming and going coming going Clouds in the sky.I think that's that. Unless, is there anyone on Zoom who would like to contribute something?
Anyone of you guys? Or anyone else? Last comment, question? Yeah, I just wanted to say, first of all, thank you so much. I mean, every word today was so beautiful. We could do this all night. I'd be happy. Maybe not everyone there would, but I would do it. But the feeling to me in the shift from kind of conceptual, knowing to being it really is that in one realm this realm of concepts like everything becomes a noun and i'm only seeing that i'm only seeing through nouns through objects and i can never leave that now world to the realm of like the verbs of being And then you realize it's just like, oh, it actually is being what you were looking for all along.
It's just, you know, just that paradigm shift, that little flick. And even then, it can't be labeled as being. There's still... An undefinability there. But yeah, that's really it. I don't know how else to say it, but it's a grammatical thing for me going from the verbAbsolutely wonderful. That is actually a wonderful, wonderful reminder. Yes, really. The nouns are the objects, but the verbs are happening, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, experiencing. Now, what is being experienced and who is experiencing? Interdependently colorizing but the ink is happening and that is a really really beautiful reminder how to actually bring yourself back from that paradigm shift of being an object to being the ink the process ink the living that's lovely highlight and thank you for that that's a Precious.
We're talking about the nouns, you know, namarupa, name and form, because the nouns are the form, but not the thing. It's an illusion. You know? Exactly. Yeah. No, that's really great value. I'm going to hear more of you. And Anita is going to do the on-notes with the gong. Yes, thank you everyone. And thank you, John. And thank you everyone who is with us on Zoom and on Facebook Live.