This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original (above).
Beyond Words, Beyond Mind Written by Sailor Bob Adamson Investigating A reference point or center with any substance or independent nature cannot be found. Only emptiness, nothingness, not knowing itself as emptiness, knowingness, only emptiness itself suffused with knowingness, intelligence. Just as the sun suffused with light is self-shining, keep seeing that there is no thing that sees. See that seeing of itself is happening naturally and the recognizing of the natural seeing will appear to last longer. The realization will dawn that it is always and ever happening quite naturally, though seemingly clouded by thoughts. It is the base in which things appear and disappear, yet it is no thing.
In seeing that the reference point, self-center ego or idea me, is actually insubstantial, without any independent nature. The actuality, then, is like basic space, emptiness, nothing. There is nowhere for a thought, feeling, or an emotion to attach to or fixate on. So with no point or reference it is realized that the emptiness has the capacity to cognize or register what is, just as it is. It is understood that what is being believed to be me, a reference point or an ego, is only recalled images, thoughts, etc. So thoughts fixate on thought. Thought being energy resists thought, energy. And through that conflict, energy resists energy, there arise more thoughts and feelings, such as anxiety, fear, sadness, depression, etc.
Living seems to be a struggle, rather than the effortless flowing of the natural state. Thoughts and confusion subside naturally, if there is no point to attach, themselves, to. They arise in emptiness, without a center, and dissolve in emptiness, without a center. And just as the sun's rays focused through a magnifying glass on a spot on the body will burn, without the glass the warmth naturally spreads evenly over the whole body. The moment of recognition that the emptiness, space-like, no shape, no form, no center, no circumference, is suffused with knowing, the capacity to cognize or register, is the release or freedom from the bondage of belief in the idea or concept of a center, of a separate entity, individual, a seeming person.
That is pure knowing. Many names are put upon it. Godliness, oneliness, awareness, wakefulness, etc. I like to call it intelligence energy, the activity of knowing. The term knowing is not meant to imply a knower or the known. Neither does it mean what was known, or what will be known. It means the actuality that is happening right now. Knowing implies intelligence, an activity taking place presently. An activity implies a movement, vibration of energy. Hence, intelligence energy is the activity of knowing which is life, this living expressing, vibrating into the myriad energy patterns, which includes thoughts, feelings, etc. This appearing and disappearing is the whole manifestation, yet in essence, ever remaining pure, sat chit ananda, being knowing, and loving to be.
Just this, and nothing else. The reference point, or self-center, can be likened to a reflection in a mirror. A reflection has no substance or independence apart from the mirror. It does not contaminate the mirror in any way. The reflection has no validity whatsoever, apart from how it appears in the mirror. So, it is with the self-center, or reference point, or ego. It is only a pattern, a thought image, appearing in the cognizing emptiness, and just like the sky writing from an aeroplane, it dissolves into emptiness. The energy of belief, more thought patterns, and the fixation on it, seemingly keeps the appearance there longer than it would naturally be there.
The naturally relaxed cognizing intelligence, knowingness, registers the fact that all appearances in emptiness can only in essence be emptiness. Just as it is, with or without appearances. Left as it is, without any support, it can only dissolve like the sky writing. Non-conceptual awareness. Just this. Nothing else. Utterly open and wakeful. Natural mind is self-knowing awareness or wakefulness. Meaning, right here, right now, you are that sense of presence, even before, and as, it is expressed as the concept I am. Recognize this, and you are immediately face to face with natural mind. Non-conceptually aware, without any conceptual subject-object thinking taking place. Because of non-recognition of natural mind, the fixation on duality, subject-object, is taken to be real.
Because this is continually happening, the natural unchanging mind essence is missed or overlooked. Thought chases after thought like a dog chasing its tail. No other can do anything for you, as there is no other and no you. But in hearing or reading this, the thought may arise, through the resonance or recognition, Hey, wait a moment, I see that the answer is not in the conceptual thinking, subject-object, for the pointing out is always about non-duality, pure subjectivity, or self-knowing awareness. In that moment there is an empty awareness, the essence that registers or cognizes everything, just as it is, non-conceptually, including the concepts, thoughts, or activities, everything.
Look, or as the ancient scriptures say, come face to face with your basic essence, bare livingness or awareness, or nothingness, emptiness, your original face, space-like awareness, clear and empty, nothing to do or get there, as there is no there. Concepts and seeming things appear in that original face, but its self-shiningness is never contaminated or corrupted by the appearances. Just like no reflection, reflections in a mirror contaminate the mirror. When the thought, I or mine, or any other belief or concept is not taken to be the subject, then there can only be a subject-less, object-less awareness. When the subject-object thinking is happening, the basic emptiness is seemingly obscured, and your original face, emptiness, is masked by an imagined one.
Seeing, hearing, all the functioning, is effortlessly happening. The thought, I see this or that, or I think this or that, etc. appears, and with that, the unquestioned subject-object duality, subject-I-see, object-that or whatever, which is the cause of all our problems. Seeing has seemingly been divided into seer and seen, thinker and thought, etc. On being pointed out that there is really no division, that the seeing-thinking is all there is, in which the thought, I see, appears, the seeming subject, and the thought, I see the chair, the table, or whatever is being objectified by thought, both seer and the seen appear in the seeing, it is known without a doubt that the seeing cannot be divided into seer and seen.
Understanding from this that there is no subject or any object with any substance or independent nature that can stand on its own, apart from the awareness consciousness, it is realized that it is the emptiness itself, that is cognizing, as seeing, hearing, thinking, etc. There is no center, core or reference point to be fixated on or attached to from the erroneous belief in an imagined me, based on past events and experiences. All that ever is, is the cognizing emptiness displaying the capacity to cognize in all its diversity. Appearance, disappearance, like the ocean, water, is ever displaying its capacity to appear as well, appear as waves, ripples, spray, etc.
Ever changing, never changing, still only water. Elements, H2O, emptiness. The original state, emptiness, is like the sky. The cognizing capacity, intelligence knowing, is like the sun, naturally radiating energy. Just like the sky and the sun are never separate from each other, the cognizing emptiness and whatever appears is not two. An emotion is a movement of mind, not knowing itself. We get lost in the expression, like someone saying, I was out in the sun all day. You were not in the sun, you were in the expression of the sunlight. So we get lost in the experience, event, or conditioning, believing it to be the cognizing emptiness itself.
So it is, that in understanding that whatever appears is only an expression, an appearance of the pure intelligence energy, appearing as the pattern, it is vibrating as, the difference is obviously seen. Recognize that spontaneous presence appears with no self nature. It is beyond any substantiality or independent entity whatsoever. The root of emotion is attention in motion. Recognize from where attention is moving. In that instant, emotion dissolves. In the moment of seeing this, there is no thought. There is only thought, free wakefulness, emptiness cognizing. A thought is an expression of knowing, awareness. A translation into words, ideas, images, are seeming forms appearing in the emptiness, unmanifested intelligence energy.
Recognizing the essence, intelligence energy, emptiness knowing, the expression dissolves into emptiness. Like a ripple on water subsides into water, the emptiness remains just as it is. Everything is seen as it is. Visible emptiness, audible emptiness, silence, and the presence of the light. Everything is seen as it is. It is a play of the original wakefulness. We have been fixated on duality. Unfixated awareness is the answer. One taste means nothing is held. There is no act of fixating. The oneness is objectless, traceless. We may pretend that we have let go of dualistic fixation, but we may still believe in the concept of a state of non-duality.
In order to be truly objectless, it is necessary to let go of those ideas. An emotion is a movement of the mind, not being recognized as just that as it is. Desire is a feeling of attraction being translated into thoughts of wanting, needing, liking, etc. Anger is a feeling of aversion translated as avoiding, overcoming, getting rid of, resisting, not wanting, etc. Recognize the identity of that which thinks I. In the non-dual, how can there be the duality of realization or enlightenment or its lack? It is the same as the duality of the mind. In the moment of seeing that the mind essence is no thing to see, in that very instant, you no longer need the duality of something seen and or someone that sees.
Space is the absence of mental constructs, while awareness is the knowing of this absence of constructs. Realize the indivisibility of space and awareness. When the past has gone and the future hasn't arrived, present awareness is right here. It is unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. Presence awareness, just as it is, is the natural state, empty and cognizant. Knowing. K. Now. Ing. Seeing there is no thing to see, or no thing that can see, means that emptiness is seeing. Hence, cognizing emptiness. Emptiness cognizing. No thing seeing. Seeing no thing. At the moment of seeing that there is no thing to see, the seeing is free of thought, just natural awareness or knowing.
Seeing. Non-dual, one without a second. Presence awareness. Primordial purity. Intelligence energy. All these labels are pointers to non-duality, which means exactly that. Non-duality, nothing other. The oneness or non-dual singleness is not an entity. No concept can grasp it. Be untainted by the perceiving mind and unspoiled by fixating on the perceived objects. Thought is empty, the oneness expressing as thought, ideas, etc. Recognize the nature or essence of what thinks. Then the thought, expression, dissolves. Empty knowingness is as is, the actuality. Thought, image, the self-center, reference point, ego, etc., wanders in the clouds of thought ignoring its essence, original face, pure awareness, knowing, etc. Recognize this happening and the immediacy of pure essence is obvious and evident as is, clear and empty, pure knowingness.
Only this, nothing else. Original wakefulness. The key is to be free of thoughts and the three times, to remain in presence. Awareness, wakefulness. Thinking is the expression of knowingness, cognizing. It does not come from any other place. It is not independent. Re-cognizing the essence, the expression dissolves. Recognizing that thought is the essence, that spontaneous presence appears with no self-nature, that it is beyond any substantiality or independent entity whatsoever. Unborn mind or unmade, present wakefulness, consciousness, awareness, cognizing awareness, I am-ness, etc., is simply the experiencing right now. For example, there is hearing of sound. That is because of the present wakefulness in the body. There is that knowing essence animating the body right now, enabling the hearing to take place.
Without that living essence, the body is a corpse, and there is no consciousness that hears, no cognizing. The body does not experience. It is that knowingness or intelligence energy which experiences, patterns, vibrations. Leave the mind unemployed. In its essence, mind is unborn, non-dwelling and non-disappearing. Recognize self-existing, empty cognizance. It does not have to be made or created. It is not something new. It is an original state that is never lost. It merely needs to be known, the knowing itself, to be empty and cognizant. The mistake of duality comes about through not realizing our natural, non-dual state. There is no true existence of subject and object.
However, because of fixating on that which is experienced as object and that which is experienced as the subject, seeming duality of subject and object occur and is reinforced repeatedly, over and over, until it seems solid and real.