This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
Yeah, too many little things to remember. And one more person coming in. Oh, yeah, there we are. Welcome. And okay, so yeah, back to the basics. It's just for those who joined right now. We were starting from the fact that it's been a year and a half since Bob passed away. And 18 months, it would be over. We honored a couple of days ago on our evening Zoom. And then we started chatting about the time. What is the time? Where is it? How can you experience time? Can you experience yesterday? Can you experience a year ago or five years ago? What is it now? What is it?
What is that fleeting memory, something that we call memory? What is it and where is it? Is it happening where? Is it even in the mind? What is the mind? Is it happening in the head? What is the head? Is there a head?So those are questions that may seem ridiculous. Of course, there is a past. Of course, there are memory. Of course, they're in the head. Well, really, this is what non-duality invites people to question, to look. Yes, in the dream, there is a body, there is a mind, there is a head, there is a past. But if you look at the dream that you had last night, or night before, or any dream that you remember from the past.
How does the time appear in the dream? What do you know about the buildings and people in that dream? Have they ever been built? Who built them? Where are they? Do they have any solidity, any substance? Do they really exist?And in the dream, they look solid. You can touch them. You can hit yourself. But there is no solidity. In this dream, we insist that, yes, things are solid. We can agree on it. Everybody can touch the same thing. Well, but so it is the dream at night. And the time, you know, the time at night, the buildings haven't been built. The trees didn't take 100 years to grow, and yet they appear in the dream.
You can climb them. And here we assume that, yes, everything had the beginning and it progressed through time. And 18 months ago, there was Bob with us and now he isn't in a physical form. Now he is a memory. He is a fleeting memory. Where is it? And what is that memory?The memory must still elicit some strong feelings, may elicit the feelings of gratitude or may elicit a feeling of disappointment or grief or whatever it is. But again, what is that feeling even? What is the whole incredible manifestation made of? The time is made of... Nothing of mind of the mental images the feelings what are they made of again the interpretations mental images this is this is really what it is all about The way the world is constructed, the way the world is perceived, is through that interpreting device.
Ah, we also mentioned the cat was passing by and the cat got scared. The cat has no idea he is a cat, he's got no identity and he's got no desire. To form one. And we humans, we are looking for ourselves, we are looking to find home, we are looking to be authentic, we are looking to come back to ourselves, so stay in touch with our soul, or be guided by our higher self, and all that nonsense. The animals have no clue. They live in the natural state, in a state of persistent sense of contentment. And when there is discomfort,in the animal's experience. It is addressed by the instinctual mind, so-called.
When there is cold, the animals look for shelter. When they're hungry or thirsty, they look for food and for drinks. Without complaint, the body is moved by discomfort to find comfort effortlessly without complaining there is no sense of dissatisfaction well apparently the pet animals are a little bit of an exemption because they are under strong influence of the human mind which is which has this additional layer of complexity to it coming from the symbolic language, coming from the capacity to interpret everything, to not see things as they are. But to interpret them. This is good, this is bad, I like this, I don't like this.
In relation to me, this matters and it doesn't. This is important and this is not important. And this is important right now and this will be urgent tomorrow. All those things in animal world, they just address whatever appears in the awareness. The energy is moving through them, us them.And there is intelligence in nature and the same intelligence and the same nature is running every show through every vehicle, human body as much as animal body. But again, that additional layer of complexity, that additional layer which enables us to experience sense of separation, sense of psychological suffering, And of course, the other side of the coin, which enables us to realize that it's just a dream.
And the separation is just an illusion. And psychological suffering is just an appearance.As far as we can tell, cat living in the moment without any time, without any memory longer than three minutes, as far as the device, the machinery that runs the cat is involved. So we have the capacity to remember sadness. So we can know when there is a joy. We have the capacity to see the dark and the light and have preferences for one and not the other. We have the capacity to dream of separation and to realize that this was just a dream.So this is how everything really make a deeper and more profound and more beautiful sense in nature.
When in the bigger picture, we see how the whole world, how the whole experience is constructed. And it is constructed. You could just, yeah, the cat is actually harassing. Harassing. Hey, mother, right now. Yeah. Yeah, you can just.Come on, come on, Pesto. Don't you see? He's not a cat person. And by the way, we may repeat our names. There's Hyman here, Tony, Chris, Cliff, Joe, Joe, Ben. Yes. And then we go back to the way the whole magnificent dream is constructed by the symbolic language, which Bob sometimes used to refer as losing the paradise in a way. Because before language, and then you can see that beautiful cat again, doesn't have symbolic language it can still meow it can still communicate very well what he wants her but it doesn't have a symbolic language which enables him to think in an abstract way so that abstract thinking is the fruit of the tree from the knowledge of good and evil that took us away from the paradise.
Suddenly we can think about that which is not. We have mental image. We can create a symbol because of that fruit of the tree of knowledge. Now we can create the fruit, the apple has shown up. Now where is the apple? There is no apple. But everyone knows what I'm talking about because we have symbolic language.layer of conditioning in that whole biological machine, which is language, which is the large language model, which enables abstract thinking, enables imagining that which is not happening, no apple, and yet. So when we look further, how that abstract thinking, symbolic language created the psychological suffering by learning words one after another, a little child which was born completely innocent, completely clear.
Experiencing present moment as it is seeing hearing tasting touching smelling just like this cat having no idea it is a baby having no idea it was a little boy or little girl having no idea what it needs no idea full stop there was no ideas It was instinctual behavior. Breathing was happening in this little body. Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling was happening. It wasn't interpreted to the extent it is later, when the interpretation, when the mind developed, started distinguishing sounds, distinguishing colors, distinguishing shapes, and then later on labeling. Labeling shapes, labeling feelings, emotions, relating those feelings, communicating and usingthe word I. Initially little child says, Bob used to use the little Johnny, so little Johnny wants to pee, little Johnny wants the lolly.
And then at some point around age two, two and a half, little Johnny has grasped this next level of communication in this large language model and relating to it as I. Pure subjectivity of I. This is I. This is not little Johnny anymore. Now I'm a big Johnny maybe. And it's I. It calls itself I. Even though everyone else also calls itself I. What a big leap. Mommy calls itself I when she says something. And Daddy and everyone else. And now this is I too. This is the point, the switch, and they say mirror test. When the child starts recognizing its reflection, and identifying as this body-mind.
The identity gets created, and now everything from then on is related to that identity. Initially, the identity is not very solidified. It's just the body-mind. And it is a handy identity for the sake of communication, for the sake of navigating that little body, navigating around the corners and stairs and... Going around the desks and tables and stuff. So it makes.sense and then as the body grows up the little body grows up as the identity develops as more apples is eaten from the tree of knowledge of a good and evil more interpretations is added the large language model is growing more words is learned more memories is created that mental image of a child grows And now the child doesn't associate itself only with a little body.
Now there's also mind. There's also thinking. There are also past memories, their feelings, their desires, needs, wants. Everything gets labeled, so everything becomes real. The beliefs. People often have the very strong identity associated with their belief systems, whether it is a religious belief or scientific belief or conspiracy belief, it doesn't really matter. Or other form of identity they form about themselves. You can see how growing up, being exposed to the environment, the identity forms. The identity forms through imitating the parents. And if the parents didn't have it that easy, well, the child will be emulating that uneasiness, that emotional uneasiness. And that's the early coding of that whole body-mind machine.
So it is really deeply ingrained.pattern that is hard to even see through less alone challenge in any way and challenging pattern may or may not happen throughout the course of life but if you see how that identity got built how it got formed and how it would be completely different if you had different environment different parents different influences different weather You will have different personality. You will have different fears, hopes, desires, different perspective and different interpretation. You might worry less or you may be attracted to different music or different food, different taste. You would be a different person. So are you really this person? Is really that costume or that mask of identity created by the environment, who you really are?
Is your way of interpreting the world who you really are?And if it is not, what are you then? If you are not your thinking, your values, your cherished beliefs, what are you? If you are not that mask of what I want, what I achieved, what I would like to brag about, what I'm known for, what I'm better than you are in or with, my talents, my gifts, all environmentally developed, all random, really.If I'm not that, what am I? Mind has nothing to say. Because everything that mind has to say will be based in that interpretation. Mind is language. Mind is the conceptualization, interpreting. So if you are not that, what are you?
I used to believe that I wasn't the body because the body is changing. That was quite easy to see. And I knew that if the body was disabled or sick or weak, I wasn't there any less. I was always present. But I used to believe I was my emotional self. I was my vulnerability, the fear of being rejected, the fear of being misunderstood, the fear of being generally the anxiety, the social anxiety of not being seen for who I am. I didn't know who I was, but still had a fear that people will mistake me for something else and will not love me and all that.
But what is this? This is also just a feeling. This is also just a fear arising, the survival fear. You could easily see the fear of survival in animals. It's not really, they don't label it fear. But if there is anything arising in the environment,the environment that is less than optimal, they will move to more optimal. So if there was anything in my environment as that child arising, as causing that anxiety, the body would still move. It would either challenge it in some way or it will remove itself. But the narrative kept going. The narrative kept that narrative, kept that feeling alive, kept that feeling strong and kept that suffering intact.
So when I met Bob nearly 11 years ago on my individual meeting here with him, I told him this was what I believed I was. I was that emotion. I was that core of vulnerability because it felt alive. It felt that this was the aliveness. This was like, what else? If I'm not that, what else? There's nothing else. There is just that outside costume and that inner. identity. And at the same time, as I was actually exploring the ideas and sharing it out loud with Bob, it became clear in an instant that outer identity, which is the bodily costume, and the inner identity, which is the emotional sort of a body or costume, were equally just a flipping changing dress of Maya, something that wasn'tpermanent, something that was cognized, I could express it, I could describe it, I was aware of it.
How could that be me? If there was something I was witnessing, I would have to be prior to the arising of that anxiety. To actually see it as an anxiety. So this one was an easy way to... What happened?Wow. Okay. That's a good pattern breaking. Let's see if anyone has anything to say on Facebook. No, there are no comments here. Anyone have questions from the Zoomers, maybe? And anyone maybe have questions from you guys? Please. I'll share. Thank you very much. Thank you. Saying it. Yeah, it's often something I ask. Myself is what is memory. And the memories come up and, you know, where from?
And I have memory of different events and I have memory of what I was doing five seconds ago. You know, sometimes I think I am what I remember. And, you know, it can be a trap getting into memory or story about the past and all sorts of feelings come up, resentments or desire or whatever it is. But, you know, it's a great thing about consciousness is that ability to seemingly store memory and recall memories.And even in the dream state, I think, you know, that's what I'm really amazed by. In the dream state, there's memory too. There's places you go, this has been my experience, it seems like there are places I go in my dreams that are sort of similar to places I've been in reality, but they're different.
But seemingly in another dream, that same place comes back again. It's like these memories... Can come, but they have a very ethereal sort of,reality in the mind that you're not concrete and and they're you know as we all know memories can change and memories can be changed so you know and i sort of think that about reality like right here right now is all there is and it seems concrete But when I leave it, is it still concrete? Like, is my little house the same now here? I can only recall it sort of in a ghostly sort of way too. It's got no reality in this.
It's seemingly in front of me and consciousness is directed at it. You know, I'll remember, I think I'll remember where I put things in the kitchen, but I'm not sure if they're really there until I go home and check and then I can say, oh, yeah, there it is. Or the other day I thought I was just telling a couple of people I thought I'd lost my film festival pass and I was sure I'd put it here in my top pocket and I couldn't find it and I'm in a panic thinking, oh, I'll have to ring them and get a new pass and I'll have to cancel the existing pass.
Maybe you put it in your bag. No, I'm sure I didn't put it in my bag. I'll check that when I get home. I'd better ring them. No, leave it till tomorrow and see what happens. No, I'm sure I've lost it, blah, blah, blah. The mind's going on and on about it. I get home and I check that bag where I was sure that I didn't put it and there it was.So the memory was really faulty there, but I get dragged into the story about, or seemingly the mind gets preoccupied with the memorised story and plays around. But, you know, I'm not, I realise that now that, you know, after looking at all this that I am just the here and now, I'm not the memory.
So that's what we think we are, I think. You know, we're told that as a child, you're like this, you should be more like that, blah, blah, blah, remember that, and drag these memories around and you apply them all the time in life and take them on board. And I think that's what makes us different to cats in a way is that that stored identity that's built up and memorized and recalled and shared with people. It's the difference between, well, seeming difference between humans and animals that we've got the conceptualizing mind, but what else we've developed is language and the ability to pass on these concepts to other people and share those concepts.
And a big thing about life, you know, it's about becoming a teenager and everything is building up that identity and saying, this is me and this is where I stand, this is what I believe, blah, blah, blah, which are all memorised ideas really. Come to it, to who I think I am or did that?really happened in my childhood? Is that what made me what I'm like today? Blah, blah, blah. What a big story about that. Then I'll talk to my sisters about it and I go, no, that didn't happen like that. That was completely different. It was blah, blah, blah. It happened to me like this.
But all ideas, it's just... Just this and nothing else but then the mind will come up and try to alter and change it and take us on another little journey no you really like this and what about that and what about that person from yesterday or that that nice woman you met yesterday or whatever off the story goes and maybe this maybe that whatever but it's it's fascinating stuff i love the looking at memory and uh so-called time yeah how we organize all those memories i think i'll leave it there anyone else like so sometimes especially lately i'll wake up with a chunk of the dream that i had the memories of like you know the dream pretty clear and yeah like it's sort of normal but some of some sort of
but out of whack, it's some weird stuff happening too.
And then like while I'm awake, it just continues on. Like, you know, there's just like, and exactly the same stuff is going on and the story's continued in exactly the same way as it was happening in the dream, but I'm fully awake. And it's kind of like there's almost an impetus to continue it just to see how it goes and how, you know, you're just hooked right into that. But it's not you hooked, but that just continues, you know, as if there's a really, you know, this desire to continue. But it's continuing by itself. And it's exactly the same as it was. It is the dream.
And you're awake. So it's just all the same. It's just energy. Yeah, it's just the same stuff, you know.Interesting. I'm not talking about the mind, but you said something about, you know, the tree doesn't say that I don't like the weather or what a cat does. And it just made me think that in a sense, I wonder if we put ourselves all in a box in some manner or form because we can all be programmed. I think a tree can be programmed. You know, you can put a tree in the wrong environment or the wrong place and it will work out a way to adapt, you know.
So I think, you know, us humans are doing the same thing. We're trying to work out, you know, whatever's coming up is we're trying to work out how to adapt or how to change. And you can put a cat in a box in the sense that you can put it in a home where it's got to use kitty litter. And usually it likes to be outside. Anything can be trained. I just find that a fascinating thought, you know, what to say. Yeah, just fascinating. It's not about the mind. I don't know that that's about the mind. It's just about why are we trained? Why? Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, I just find it, especially the tree. When you think about the tree, so the tree finds it can't get water, it'll pull out another root somewhere and it'll take that root and go off somewhere and you walk down the street and you see concrete. There's all this concrete and then you'll see these little green things coming up because they're plants, because they know how to do it, you know, like naturally. And so naturally us as humans, so it's inbuilt in us to naturally want to shed whatever.Shed. We're shedding. We're shedding our concepts, you know, our beliefs. It's a natural. Because I thought maybe it wasn't natural.
Maybe it is. That's my thing for today. Yeah, it's quite beautiful the way the, you know, the adaptability to go to my machines. And it's quite justifiable, too, if you think of, you know, that. Actually, I had a text message today in the morning from someone talking about the preferred ways of expressing that presence, that presence of awareness, that beingness, that aliveness. I call it sometimes luminous radiance because it is radiant and it is luminous light. It's light in a way of lightness. And he put out a few different words that other people use, other teachers of his. And then the last one, he says, boundless radiance, which is, so Jack, if you are listening, I'm acknowledging boundless radiance sounds pretty sweet.
I like it too. The liking, disliking is again the lens of the mind. You know, some people may prefer the word God. Or omnipresence, omnipotence. The problem with all those different words is that they always say it, while it is right here. It is this. It is singularity. It is immediacy. It is...I am. It isn't it, the intelligence, it, the boundless radiance, it, the God, the omnipotence or the beingness. It is I, really, the funny word I. It is here, the direct experience of being present and being conscious, being awake right now. Awake to the dream, this dream or the dream at night. Doesn't matter what the dream, what the content.
But being conscious of that content is a direct experience. It's not an it. It is. It isn't it. It is here. It is now. It is the I am. I am conscious, I am present, I am awake. Now, the ideas that the mind offers, I am a person, I am not the tree. Those are just thoughts. The adaptability of the tree or of the person, even the narrative coming up, anxiety, or people are going to judge me, I better shut up, I better not say a word, I better not, because the whole spree of emotional torture that comes up from the mind is also a survival mechanism.
Because for that presence, that witnessing presence, that consciousness, that pure potentiality of experiencing what Bob used to call intelligence.energy the energy that is potentially there space like experiencing and expressing itself through the channel called the body the body of the tree or the body of the cat or the body of the human it needs that body alive obviously through the dead body there is not much i mean expression is still pretty good it doesn't complain the life having the tree decaying and having all those different fungi breaking it into pieces or human body decaying or being burned there's no complaint in nature that energy is never destroyed when the body is destroyed it isn't destroyed when the body is cremated it wouldn't be destroyed if the whole planet blew out in 2 000 pieces energy is undestructible it would exist as a potential and as that potential it finds its ways to express and one of those ways is the body it dreams itself a body in this dream we call it it grows itself from cell from a little cell it grows in time because the content of this dream is the idea of time that is part of the projection that is part of how the whole shebang has created because of the timeline everything growing slowly and coming taking shape as this But the dream at night, the body that is moving around or climbing a tree, that body is a different body than the one that is lying flat on bed with the eyes.close and is not speaking it isn't the same body and yet the consciousness is using the dream body to fly or to jump or to run if you ask yourself in the dream have that body been born well as cliff as you were saying there's snippets of memory still being used so it could probably tap and say oh yes yes i was born let me wake up a little bit more of a frontal cortex and it will imagine that i'm the same person But really, in the immediacy of the dream, you don't know.
There is so much to respond to that the processing capacity that is used to create the identity most of the time isn't available. Even in the lucid dreams. You may have superpowers of changing the weather or manifesting whatever. But if you actually ask yourself, how did I get there? That may not be available because it's a different sort of a setting of the projector, the dream world, the frontal cortex that... Contains all that memories isn't as awake as in that so-called waking dream and still the machine is projecting is creating the world within the world like right now we can talk about the apple from the tree of of knowledge of a good and evil and we can just symbolizeThis is the beautiful apple, biting the apple, and we can even salivate thinking of a juicy apple being beaten.
And apple isn't even there. We imagine it, and that is another layer of the multiverse. The capacity to imagine the whole past experience as mental image imagined the whole future the worry whatever can go wrong doesn't exist here it exists as the imagination the whole body its capacities to remember the past and to imagine the future, its sciences and its conditioning, its religions, its preferences, conspiracies, beliefs. And I love, Joe, when you say that maybe it is natural to shed this rigid costumes of beliefs. In some cases, and I've been working with elderly for some time when I lived with Bob and we needed some extra income and some extra experience, some embrace that aging process by shedding.
minimizing, dropping away the rigid beliefs. There isn't energy in the body to defend those fixed ideas anymore. So they just drop away. But there are some that the mind is so dysregulated and its grasp is so strong that they get...more rigid, more difficult and rigorous. And then sometimes dementia set in. And parts of the brain responsible for the capacity to relax, embrace and blend in the environment gets damaged first. So that survival anxiety and rigidness stays. In some, the dementia appears in a way that this one goes, and the melty sort of trusting and surrender is left. So even watching this, the way the mind came into existence, the projector started creating that overlay of the reality.
so-called reality equally valuable it is to watch it decay and stop the projector deteriorating with aging when the memories are not that accessible maybe long-term memories yes but the short-term questionable seeing how the experience of the world depends on the mind depends on the mood Depends on conditioning. Seeing that all this is completely conditional, is completely environmentally created. Just like the context in the dream, the context in the world. How could that be you? How could that be the core or the essence of what you are? Isn't it a part of the mask, the costume? So what are you under?What are you without the mind?
And what is the mind? All conceptualization, all interpretation, all thinking is the mind. But we can maybe allow the amount of the mind just for the thought experiment that the cat is using. So the hearing, the processing, the seeing, the tasting, the touching, smelling in the immediacy. That experiencing is available. What is unavailable is imagination. Cats don't imagine what is not happening. They don't imagine yesterday, which is not happening. They don't worry about tomorrow, which is not happening. They are grounded in the present and they are responding in the present. Their senses are all open. There is a sense of hearing the cat above Cliff's head there.
Seems like she's sleeping. But she's actually, you touch her or you clap the hands and she's super alert. She's always. Yes, she's completely alert. Yes. So that level of being completely present with what is happening, rather than being completely present with what is only imagined. So putting the experiencing, the direct experiencing first,like everything else in nature, rather than putting what is imagined first, which is the human trait. Humans, because the mind is so beautiful and so entertaining, and it has such an incredible capacity to create the multiverse, of this amazing channels bible and the apple and the tree of knowledge wow where is it imagine on the channel one okay my mom and her issues channel two again now yesterday channel three you can have thousands of channels that you can flip through you can't They just arise.
There's no I controlling what am I going to focus on. If there was, well, obviously, like Bob would say, if you could think your thought and if you could choose your thoughts, you would only choose the absolute blissful thoughts and you would just... But because thoughts are not chosen, they again, one with the environment, there is no separation. Did you want to add something, Cliff? Yes, please.Yes, it's just the whole thing about separation is a mental sort of concept. It's how the mind sort of organises. There's me and there's you and there's this, there's the tree and there's the cats. It's all consciousness and it's all happening.
Quite naturally, you know. All our thoughts are natural too, like thinking, even thinking that you're separate and stuff like that. It's natural. And memory is universal, really. I mean, how it's used or how it's applied. Is different like judith was talking about trees and i'd read something really interesting about trees and vegetation just these experiments have been doing with mosses and things like that about how they function and they now know that mosses do have memory like plants have memory and can use it to their advantage in things like you were talking about finding nutrients and stuff like that and now with agroforestry and stuff they're understanding about forests that trees share their nutrients with each other and the older trees look after the younger trees just like we do and we think oh i learned how to look after children but that's just natural you know it happens that we have generosity and lookafter each other and stuff like that is part of the functioning.
And, you know, cats, you know, they mightn't conceptualise exactly the way we do, but they do have their own things that they think about. Like they know the way to the food bowl and stuff like that. They know what will make you angry and all that sort of stuff. It's all naturally occurring. And yet, you know, it seems like a big, oh, animals have feelings like they were talking about on the radio today. Like, oh, this is a big, is this some sort of huge discovery that we've worked out that animals have emotions and feelings? We used to think people that were a different culture of us, like the natives, the Aborigines, about 100 years ago, they didn't think they had emotions like we had, you know.
Yeah. It's just we're sometimes blind to how universal the whole functioning is. Fun amazing anyway that's that's beautiful that's that's beautifully put and it's just such an incredible um thing to highlight how everything is natural and universal and it functions of its own you are being lived literally life is leaving you just the same way it leaves the trees And part of human functioning that is the same as in nature, justpresent responding to the environment and that additional human functioning the capacity to imagine what is not happening flip that channels of future and past and memories and context you know my whole relationship with the world with humanity or with jobs or with politics or with health or with money wow so many incredible worlds in that incredible entertaining system not even here it's not in the head it's here everything's here but even like conceptualizing the mind being somewhere in the head or conceptualizing those multiverses of imagined worlds being in the head is is an approximation it is part of the contextualization and conceptualization and other difficult words that they use for it.
Yes, so the simplicity, recognizing immediacy, the simplicity, immediacy of direct experience, just like the cat. What is being heard? The sounds, the background sounds, the sights, you know, what's happening in the visual field, what's happening in the body, the breathing happening, the muscles, the smelling, the tasting, the touching, all of that natural functioning, no different to anything in nature, natural state, easy, relaxed, always. With that sense of again eventhe idea of trusting comes from the mind being distrustful and now relaxing and trusting but it is practical for the for the you know for the human pattern to just finding that layer of relaxed trust that if thought is required it will arise it will appear if anything in the environment needs attending to it will make itself clear it will make itself known like that vacuum cleaner falling in a cut jumping straight out it couldn't predict it it would be no point thinking about it or imagining it or projecting it but humans because they have this wonderful capacity to imagine that can be utilized into creating fantastic you know with building the civilizations creating the tv which is a reflection of the mind with thousand channels on it and the different movies and stories and stuff fantastic if it has its right place if it is being utilized to enhance functioning wow we could celebrate it forever and ever but seeing the flip side of that capacity to imagine to engage with that which is not happening being the suffering suddenly it gets so much energy you know someone offended me yesterday it didn't happen but it's just an example so someone offended me yesterday and i'll be obsessing about it and i won't sleep at night because of that and i will be uh creating a story and it willfeels so real as if it is happening right now and it is not it is just a mental projection it is just an imagination it is nowhere to be found but it feels real it feels serious it feels urgent it causes suffering and now i want out oh yeah With the thoughts that are popping up, like you were saying, they emerge naturally to help you, or thought happens that way.
To know which ones are more organic and are going to help you and the more necessary ones, is meditation necessary to see those a bit more clearly, or is it not really that important? Well, nothing is right or wrong. You know, if you are moved, if life moves you to sit and watch the mind, all the meditations are a form of mind training. So trained mind may be actually nicer mind, but is it necessary? No. Because there are situations where you know like dropping down of even crazy mind bob had a person here uh he said he'll come one one of those days uh who's diagnosed schizophrenic in the in in in the closed up setting his mind can go absolutely manic and he goes out on the streets and he lives there and yeah But there is enough of a relaxed attention.to see the craziness of the mind work.
And it is always absolutely at peace. Will the meditation help him? It's impossible with that type of a mind. Yeah. But if it was, who knows? I mean, in my case and in Bob's case, meditation, you had the mindfulness. You were even training people in that, right? Yes. So in some, you know, like life story, there is a natural attraction towards it. And it happens. And I've been exposed to absolutely wonderful ways of meditating and stilling the mind and silencing the mind. And I was only too sorry at that point, because it was many years in my life, to not have an insight to look who is looking at this point.
Look who is training that mind, who is observing the sensations on the body. Where is that core of attention or consciousness located? Because if I would see at that point that all that mind following the instruction of looking at the candle or chanting the mantra or watching sensations around the body, that mind is busy with the simple task and it is disciplined. You can train that discipline in the mind. And it is an absolutely fantastic thing to have the mind disciplined and committed and focused and the attention is trained and all that. But not having the insight to actually look where is thatroller of the mind where is that knowingness coming from where is it located and how do i know it is here because it's always here so whoever's like sort of witnessing the actual body awareness is the real the real core so sort of whoever's sort of like you know the witnessing of the body awareness you know what i mean does that make sense yes yes yes see whether the mind is engaged in in following the crochet or jogging or playing chess yeah if there is enough of a free attention like silently witnessing all that the mind is doing whether it is meditation or whether it is watching netflix or whether it is whatever the mind does if there is enough of the free attention just resting silently and seeing oh mind is going nuts you are not your mind anymore the identity with the mind is broken yeah whatever the mind does is actually quite fascinating.
I do also have, I assist with trauma release therapies sometimes. And it often happens, I always had this hypersensitivity since early childhood. I pick up some of those things and then I close my eyes and I process it within my body. He does that too. And it is quite intense at times to see is like almost one could say not my mind, but the truth is there isnothing that is not mine yeah i am the consciousness so everything that arises is arising within me is the transformation of what i am but seeing those kind of almost alien energies through my body is like wow this is wild and being curious about it they actually just show up make an appearance and go away yeah so it is is it meditation one could say that on the deepest level recognizing yourself to be that silence stillness no thingness not even a presence
It's not even an entity, just no ink, not I know or I see or I witness or I experience.
No, just the background. And it's not even to say I am the background because I can't say what I am. But you know, you obviously know. Yeah, that's really good. Thank you. Thank you. On that, it struck me about saying, I feel that simply saying, being aware of awareness is a good way of putting it and realising that that is really... If there's a who, and that's another conceptual idea, but that's who you are. And I think the Sagar Datta says it's closer than your heartbeat, closer than your breathing, you know. It just is what is, is what you are. And then the mind comes in with all its ideas.
You know, oh, no, that's really me, or I should have done this, or maybe this, or whatever. But just being aware of those. And then you catch the mind trying to take you out of just being aware into the story, and you go, oh, hang on, I'm off on that trip again, you know.Just to see this. I wonder if anyone who is on Zoom would like to check in something or people on Facebook. Otherwise, you're both Dino. Okay. So we covered a few topics today. Yeah, we started off with time and then, you know, the view of perception. I guess this whole, you know, probably should start the meetings and it could be helpful because you can, you know, you can look at things and examine things and apparently explore things in many different ways.
But ultimately, Bob used to start the meeting, he'd start with the fact that you're already that. And, you know, it was just like your existence, your presence alone is the very fact in which the whole universe appears. And it's a really good starting point, a simplification and an absoluteness of the reality. It's not something to dismiss. But conventionally and traditionally, you know, people will then say, yes, but, and then the whole.story comes and the whole all the explanations start coming with it um and all the um and and we started off by talking about um time and and there's a there's a consensual reality for example as everyone can can consent that there's a top a clock that ticks And if you notice carefully in the language, which is your narrative is a language, language is like symbolic.
And what you call mind is a bunch of these symbols. And they're strung together. And seemingly strung together and implied in this is time. Like even I'm going to eat pizza later. Like if I have a narrative of that, in that is already the implication that there's a now and there's a future. And time is so delicately woven in the language itself. That makes it seem so real. And it's agreed upon generally. It's consensual. Everyone agrees. But the fact that we are that, we're starting from the fact that we are that, that automatically wipes all that is so immediate. That there is no place for time, there is no place for interpretations of that.
It is just that, without any of the linguistics, without any of theof the symbolic words, which are all going to describe that endlessly. And then, you know, and then we also talked about, so time can be wiped. And then we sort of talked about memory a little bit, which was, you know, it's intriguing. And how can memory exist? You know, and there's an appearance of a memory. You can remember your wedding day, for example, and if you're having a fight with your partner, that memory will be a certain way. If you're getting along fabulously with your partner, that same memory is going to be completely different again.
Memory is, and where does it appear? It appears in that as a symbol. So it's completely and totally unreliable and anyone can see it and everyone can experience it. Everyone knows that. And yet the reinforcement of it, the apparent reinforcement, seems to make it real, gives it some sort of substance, some sort of reality, some sort of visceral quality that this is me. And it's just so whimsical. It doesn't hold any ground. It has no substance. Or any real structure once it's, you know, like it can just easily be exposed. And so ultimately, like with this, back tothe symbolic language, the greatest symbol in all the language is the symbol of me, myself and I.
That is the central assumption in the whole language itself. And everything is revolved around that. There's me, my thoughts, my feelings, my body, and my world in which I see, I feel, I sense, I experience. And so this assumption, and this me in my world and my body was... Brought up, was born, had these experiences and that experiences, and all of a sudden, you know, embedded in all this is the assumption that it's continuous. Like there's continuity, there's time, there was a direction, there was a projection, there was growth, there was all these different things. Back to the fact that you are that. That is beyond all ideas of any conditionings, any growth and development and, you know, the different memories and personalities.
And, you know, yesterday you were a good person. The day before you were a bad person. The day before that you were an average person. Which one are you? You can't be any of them. It's so obvious that you can't be. Any idea, you can't be any belief, you can't be any memory, you can't be any thought. The thoughts are projectedsymbolic. The thought of a tree is not a tree. It's a thought. And if you even, it goes even further, like the thought is really describing another thought. So that's quite wild in itself, isn't it? You're not, you're not. So if I describe a tree, I'm describing a thought of a tree.
You know, so it's descriptions upon descriptions. It's turtles upon turtles. It's, it's, so all these kind of, so time can easily be exposed, like, like exposed to be, all there is, is this immediacy. And this is not to like, to dismiss that clocks exist and the relativity of this manifested universe and with people and time and who are born and die. And the whole story, the whole story is symbolic language, is that whole language in all the stories. But when we start from the fact that we are that, there is, it's almost, it's inclusive of all language and yet it can't be touched by any language, any word, any description.
It's the existence itself in which all descriptions and all languages and all perceptions are even have the even sense of the appearance, that's the exact word, the appearance.They all appear in that. You know, even as these words come out and these sort of so-called explanations or descriptions are even expressed, there's no belief that there's someone speaking some truth to someone else, because there isn't. There's no one that knows anything greater than anyone else. And this is like a play, you mentioned the word energy before, and everything could be put down to energy. And you're talking about like meditation and witnessing meditation, witnessing thoughts, like the act of witnessing.
The witnesser, the witnessing, the objects being witnessed are all made of the same energy. And this symbolic language is all vibrations of words, of symbols, they're all energy. The sense of a body is energy. It's where is it or to whom or where does it all appear? It's an appearance. It doesn't appear to anyone or it doesn't appear for anyone. It doesn't appear in a particular place or spot. Like there's no beginning. There's no start. There's no circumference. There's no central point. There's no layers. Like you could describe layers.And you could describe width and dimensionality and distance and continuity in all those things. And yet, where are they?
Like in the experience itself, there is just this. And you are that. And, you know, and that is that. And, you know, non-duality is, you know, this meeting is a reminder of that which is beyond remembering. It's a reminder of that which is essentially everyone's nature. There is not an everyone to have the nature because there is just this. So you mentioned, you know, the no separation. How can there be any separation when there is only that? That appearing as every expression, every shape, every pattern, every form, every colour, every vibration. In whatever way that vibration appears, whether that vibration appears as a witnessing, whether that appears as an object, whether that appears as a thought, whether that appears as a tree, whether that appears as a higher dimensional frequency or as an alien communication, whatever, it's a vibration of energy.
And everything is energy. Every bit of it is energy. There is nothing that excludes it.energy. There's nothing. And this is another way of speaking, I guess. There's no one here saying this is the rules and life is like this and reality is energy. It's not. This is just whatever is being expressed now. And describing it as energy is also another view, you know, really. It's another lens of description. It's another symbolic language. And yet, you know, as we know so well, like this is our way of... One of the ways of communication. And the other forms are the non-verbal, which, you know, there's a resonance on some levels that some maybe can be measured, most can't be measured, others are unfathomable or knowable.
That resonance is a vibration. And people refer to the heart. People refer to it like it's a place of the heart, not the physical heart, but a heart place, a heart sense of...What is it? Knowing, existing, being, the core, the core, the loving to be. And, yeah, so, you know, I find these meetings an opportunity for that resonance to resonate with itself as itself, with the heart of all hearts, which is everyone and everything. And expressed through everyone's description, everyone's expression in its own unique, beautiful, wonderful way, and all the intricate woven details of, you know, a time of the ideas that know me, the ideas that there's, you know, It's just, it's amazing.
Like, have you noticed that, you know, if you've had a, if you've been in a car accident or some accident, time slows down completely. And there's a process that the mind actually speeds up its processing capacity, which gives the idea or the impression that time is actually going slower. Or when you're sitting there bored and time seems to go slow and all these different everyone has experienced all these different incidents and know that time can appear in so many different ways. But what we talk about in non-duality is that there is only this.So there's actually, all those appearances are included, but yet what is this is timeless, is actually timeless.
Even though we can share and talk endlessly about all the different perceptions and shifts of time. You know, you drink a coffee or take a stimulant or a drug or become sick, and all of a sudden the chemistry, the biochemistry in the brain changes, and all of a sudden the perception field changes and life, and all of a sudden you're a bitch, and here's this and the cat, whatever, like, you know, like... It's so, how could you be that view? Or you've said that that offended me now or didn't offend me before. And now it's, you know, I speak in this way to highlight that.
But I know that I can't be any of those things. And that's the real freedom. The real freedom is, that's the freedom. That is beyond all limitations. It can't be any limited to any belief, any structure, any fragment of time, any memory. Any particular view of perception, any point of view from, any point of view, it can't be restricted to any of that. And that's the beauty and celebration and the resonance of this message and the group.That's all I've got to say. Thank you. Wow. Earlier what you're saying not just later but you were recently talking about squish time i was thinking more about like squish space because um if you know things on a macro level appear to be dense and objects but as you know as you get it down to the microscope you get more and more gappy the further you get from the sort of reference point at the top you know the micro level and um So it's kind of like what the ideas and concepts that arise to they're like the squished together references out to a lot more gappy stuff that sort of out there.
So like I'm incredibly conceptual, like like an N and then Myers-Briggs, you know, very, very big picture. So I'm often thinking back to the first principles, which are really squished together, the macro version of. what's actually like not really that much out there, you know, just the squished bits. So it seems like something more solid and something more real. So in a way, concepts and objects are kind of at the same level. They're just all at a macro level of squished energy. And then, you know, as it all filters down, there's a lot less out there, you know. Please. I know I've asked this probably every time I come and I somehow forget the answer, but so how does one proceed?
Yeah, wonderful question. Who's the one to proceed? I thought you might say that.No, but like when Dean was speaking, did you like... There was resonance. Yes, I felt good. That's how one proceeds. Look for what resonates. Well, I felt like a heart connection. Like I wasn't... Yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah, but the mind... Not all concepts. Yes. But there's no... Like they say, I am that, but isn't it just that? Yeah, it's just that. Yeah, so I get, my mind's always, so whatever the, even if Dean says something that resonates, my mind will scoop it up before too long and it's gone. I have comment about it, yes.
Yeah, so how does, so when I leave you today, what's... Yeah, let me read you a comment. Yeah, but I've listened for forever. I know. But the comment I just saw on Facebook is Jyoti saying, and this will be a really good answer to what you say, because, yeah, it's a valid question. Mind always scoop. Over what i heard it hundred times at bob's meetings yes there is nothing wrong with right now here but i'll go home and the mind will kick in and all that and all that and now geotis says here just wanted to share a recent experience There have been some intense and serious political issues emerging back in India that I was really riled up about.
But there was peace in the...background somewhere there was no guilt or shame about feeling intense emotions so see this is underneath the turmoil underneath the mind commenting on everything and always having an opinion and always comparing yes but when ding was speaking it was all okay because the resonance was there but now he shut up and now there isn't the mind always have things to say But underneath that chatter, there is a presence knowing of the chatter, hearing the chatter. Just like Jyoti says, there was a peace in the background somewhere in which the turmoil happened. You know, when you get, just get it out of your face.
Sorry. When you get whatever the mind is coming up with, their concepts, their ideas, their vibrations, there is energy moving. How do you know the mind is moving? You hear the sounds, the inner voice speaking, you see the mental images of what the mind is coming up with. How do you know that? How do you know that mind is actually active right now? Well, at that point, I think I am the mind. That's the issue. Yes, but if you were the mind, would you even know when the mind is active? Could you know if you were the mind? If you were the vibration, how could you actually hear the voice, the sound?
You must be prior.to it to even witness it and if you see the noise you see it from the silence you hear it if you see the vibration you you see them from the stillness realizing that if you see the mind somersaulting You're looking from somewhere that is not the mind to even be able to know it. Because mind is at this point an object that is being witnessed, being observed. You are not the object. The mind can tell you, oh, this is I, but hey, okay, how do I know this is an I? Where am I looking from? I'm looking at the objects. I'm not the object.
I'm subjectivity. In those moments and in every moment, moment to moment, when you see the mind coming up with anything, How do you know that it even happens? Oh, there is a sound and there is a mental image. So I know the sound. I know the mental image. Yes, but how do you know it is even there? Well, I just know. Yes, okay, so you just know. That just know is the ordinary awareness. And, you know, but the mind is distressed. It's yelling and screaming and it's anxious. How do you know the mind is anxious? Well, I just know. But is that just knowing of anxiety or anger?Is that just knowing in any way touched by it?
It's like if you just know the sky is cloudy and dark, the just knowing, is it cloudy and dark? No, it's just knowing. I think Cliff has something to add. Yeah, just on what you were talking about. Thanks so much. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, just something that I found really helpful was just to ask that question, which is the title of the book, What's Wrong With Right Now Without a Thought. If I just can pause the thinking for only for a second to start with is to just go,Without a thought, it's just awareness. It's just that awareness without a thought. And that's okay.
As soon as I start thinking again, all the seeming issues come back up. But just pause it again. Just be with that awareness and realize that there's... Sights and sounds going on in that awareness and that like I can hear cars and things like that in my picture of that awareness The awareness stretches out around me everywhere, out to the cars, out to the railway station. What's going on in this room is that same awareness, and I'm that. And then the thinking comes up. And then I go, well, who's doing the thinking? I think I'm the thinker, but I'm not really the thinker. I'm the awareness that the thinking also like the sound of the cars and the cats and all that is appearing in.
And I'm not really the thinker. I'm the awareness. I jump into the thoughts and think, that's what I am. Oh, that's right, I'm that person that's got all these troubles and I've got to get here and got to get there. No, no, hang on. Just come back to that awareness. That's what I am. It's sort of helped me to keep this.Yeah. No, just... Like am I like am I trying to I know I'm not trying to get anywhere yeah so I'm just confused because yeah and the mind its nature is to be confused yeah because its nature is to constantly process and find the deliverable answers that are kind of you know like black and white dualistic this is like this this is like that and what we're pointing to is is that silence prior to the mind so what answer it can deliver it can't so it's always trying and it's always confused
Because there is no answer in the mind.
The mind is noise. The mind is concepts. The mind is ideas. And the great perfection, Bob would say, is non-conceptual awareness. Awareness about the mind prior to the mind. That just knowing, you know, like temperature in the room. You don't think about it. But you just know the temperature is right. Or it might be too hot or too cold. Whatever it is, you just know. This is that just knowing. Or the seeing is happening effortlessly of itself. How do you know it is happening? Well, obviously. But how obviously? It's not very obvious to me that you are seeing. Well, but to you it's obvious. It's just there.
So that knowing is not dualistic. The mind wants to translate it and give it an explanation, give it the rule. Yes, I know because, and there comes, and there is an I in it, and there is no, and there is the division. I know that I am seeing because, but no, it is just knowing. Like in the dream when you sleep. The seeing is happening in the dream. Eyes are closed. So if you ask the mind, but how do you know there's seeing? Well, obviously, you know. But how do I do it now? There's nothing to do for the mind. That's the hardest bit. The really, really is no answer in the mind.
It really...It cannot. Yeah, it cannot. So the mind says, okay, how do I proceed? What do I do? How do I get there? So what should I do? Well, just breathe in and breathe out. Sometimes do nothing. John makes a good point here too. But if you step back from like knowing or even that, like when Cliff said, that's all I did, just took those moments when nothing was arising. And then there's no thought about the temperature or anything, you know, it's just, that's a memory that pops in later. Just go back to that. You can put post-its everywhere. Here the move is to release shit so there's more of that pops up.
Yeah, put post-its everywhere and do more of that. You know, that's all I could, I think that must be enlightenment. That'll do. Let's just see, you know, let's just keep rolling with it. Being around where more of it's going to pop up and just went like that, you know, and just quite happy with that, relaxed about that, you know. Just being in that awareness. I used to do it sometimes. I'd be, you know, I'm stressing out about something. Hang on. What's wrong with right now without a thought? No, hang on. Just come back to what's wrong with right now without a thought. And then it all starts up again.
It's better if it's half my life. Another one, a really good one that Bob used to ask you.Seeing right now, yes. Is it the thought I see that's seeing? No, it's not the thought I thought. I don't have to think I'm seeing to see. I don't have to think I'm hearing to hear. And the big one was I always thought I was the doer, but does the thought I'm doing actually do anything? Or I must do this or I will do that, is that the actual doing it? No, it's just thinking about it, the doing, the sapphirines, like the seeing and the hearing. That's beautiful.
And I don't know if it helps you, Ben, but it's taken me 20 years, so don't worry about it. You know, for me, I'm being really honest. I've been just as there. It's by osmosis that it's happened. Do you know what I mean? I've just kept coming back. You know, I just kept coming back. I keep asking the questions. I keep talking. That's all. And then it's just got easier and it's just something quiet. I can't tell you what it was and I can't tell you which little pointer. I can't tell you, was it that word? Was it what Cliff said? Was it what Kat said?
Was it because I did this? Dandy, why not? I just know I have more peacefulness than I've ever had before. And it doesn't have to take a long time. And we have John. Yeah. John says thoughts and ideas can never become liberated. And that is actually a beautiful point. And it envelops what Cliff was saying, what everyone was saying.Thoughts cannot get liberated. So that which wants to get liberated is not your true self. It's just a thought. It's a thought up entity. That which already is free completely to notice that seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling is happening is free. It's already liberated. It doesn't need liberating.
That presence. Yeah. And then the mind will still come and have some objections to it. And then seeing it as it comes and seeing it as it is an object coming in the awareness and letting it pass and not identifying as it, with it, as it. I have a couple of more comments here to read. Emmanuel says, oh, he says, thank you today, Rabba. And this is how you remind me of what I really am. Yeah, it's just a reminder because it's just a celebration of reminder of that, of that which is already free, bringing it back. And thank you, everyone. Thanks. Thank you. Back in the morning.
So much is coming.