Sailor Bob – The Spiel 

30^th December 2018 – Only Self

(One could say, changing a line in a Beatles song, “See through the words, and you’ll be free”).

 It’s nothing new we talk about here. It is the base of all the great traditions if you look into them closely and see it there. It’s obscured by all the concepts that people put onto them that differentiate them from the totality, what they call in Hinduism non-duality. These days you hear about what is non-duality or what is duality but if it’s non-duality can you separate anything? What label you put on it is not it any way.

That’s why we say we can’t tell you anything and we can’t teach you anything. All we can do is point to it and ask you to look to where we are pointing to see for yourself. Most/all of us have been conditioned to look in the wrong direction. Before you had the ‘word’ you were functioning naturally and effortlessly and in the learning of the words we have taken on the image that we are something separate. And all the energy of belief has gone into that for the rest of our lives until something has urged us to move on and maybe brought you here.

So, when I say I am not speaking to any body or any mind I mean not that identity that you consider yourself to be. I am talking to that presence that expresses through the mind as the thought “I am”. Just this, and nothing else, the sense of presence, an awareness of being, an awareness that you are. This is the natural state.

You can’t say that you are unaware, so you must be aware, and that’s what we miss out on, thinking we have to find this awareness, this concept or a word that we have got to acquire. Or that we have to be aware of my Consciousness. But Consciousness means an existence. And all of you are existing right now. An existence fully aware that it exists. And isn’t that so? You can’t say “I don’t exist”.

You can’t negate your beingness. You can’t negate your existence. And all our thoughts are expressed through that knowingness, but have they corrupted that knowingness?

You are just fully consciousness of your existence, of your knowingness.

When you have investigated you see that that pattern and form that you take to be you is not your actuality. You’re not that body/mind. That’s the personal entity. It isn’t the awareness. Awareness is impersonal. The One Impersonal Self. We label our self to be the personal self and that self has to become liberated or realized. But it’s the wrong self that you are trying to fix. You are the impersonal one; that ego never had an existence in the first place.

And when you realize that you are that one Self that is patterning and shaping as everything, and the way it is doing that is how it is vibrating or moving in different shapes and patterns. It has never been anything other than its true nature, the one essence without any pattern, shape or form.

You’ve taken the words to be real. “You’re a good boy Johnny” etc. How many words did you have when you were forming in the womb? When you didn’t have a brain? The brain had to be part of that formation.

The Sperm and the Ovum, vibrating patterns of energy. Little micro particles of energy that you cannot see with your naked eye but fused with an innate intelligence. Infused with the knowingness, the beingness, with the loving to be. If it was just a blob and not intelligent it couldn’t have done any of that. Formed by the air and the food eaten by your parents that embryo came to be what you are today, but what did you do about it then? That form that you take to be you is not your actuality.

The Self that you take to be your self is impersonal, is the One Self. There is only the Self, but we take it to be the personal self, me, Bob etc. or whatever name you think you are.

And the first two years of your life, what do you remember about that before you learnt any words?

In the beginning was the word and the word was God. They are just saying that God is a word, not some great being out there in the sky greater than anything else. It is only that one essence expressing as everything, not two. Just pointing out that all these words we have for God are just words. All things that were made by him were made by the word. And there was nothing made that wasn’t made without the word.

See all around you in this room, all the different shapes and patterns, and outside, the trees and the space. They’ve all got labels on them, words. We know everything is THAT, that is a bird, that is a tree. We know everything is THAT but we put labels on them. And you weren’t born with any words. And you didn’t have any words until about two or two and half when that capacity of reasoning developed. And you started to understand what your parents were saying around you. They were speaking words. And with that capacity of reasoning you were able to grasp onto the word and to take the word as the thing. Instead of being the pure presence awareness it translates through the mind as that primary word, “I am”.

And every word that you have ever spoken or are likely to speak has been learnt, has been acquired.

As has been pointed out, you were not born with any words.

Adam and Eve were in paradise and they learnt words. They ate of the tree of knowledge, of good and evil, words. And that’s when they kicked themselves out of paradise, the learning of the words, and that is what we have done.

Now the words aren’t the enemy. They are part of this functioning now of the thoughts and feelings. They have not corrupted the knowingness. Understand that the appearance is not the actual and that is why the Buddhists tell you that all this manifestation is Maya; it is illusion. It is an illusory manifestation and it is transitory. It means it is constantly changing. It has nothing static about it at all. They point out that there is no static thing in this universe and there is no self-nature to anything. In Buddhism they talk of non-conceptual awareness.

Show me a word that is the thing. We have taken the word to be real and we have never questioned it. We have taken on this idea of the person. And realize that the person is a word. It came from the word persona or mask. So, we have this conceptual image, this mask. I’m Bob, the Australian the good fella, they don’t like me. All these concepts are added onto this “I” thought which is a vibration. And we try and give it some reality. A vibration. Realize that this conceptual image is a dead image. Because what you have added onto it, the names, the form, the ideas, your history, you’ve had a bad childhood and you are depressed, are based on past events and experiences. What’s wrong with right now if you don’t think about it? What image can you say you’ve got? It’s fresh and new right now.  It’s just as it is isn’t it?

And ‘what is’ means unaltered, unmodified and uncorrected. No preferences, no partiality, no comparison. What are you going to do?  Take on words and label the words.

Bob now continues to demonstrate once again that our life-long seeing and hearing and thinking that has happened naturally all this time has now been loaded with a conceptual self that is now believed to be doing all this, and this helps make very clear why there are in fact no Subjects or Objects.

The ‘Seer’ now becomes the Subject and what is seen becomes the Object. But can there be a Seer without the seeing? So, Object and Subject are just concepts. The actual functioning is the seeing; same with the hearing, tasting and thinking. Can there be a Thinker without thinking? This conceptual Thinker that thinks it does everything, don’t you wonder why it never works anything out with all these mantras, books and meditations? The Truth has been pointed out through the ages, but we never get it because we try and work it out with the mind. Is there such a thing as mind? Or body?

And all our suffering comes about by referring everything to this conceptual (non-existent) self. But Reality is always One, never two. A total omnipresent power. And you are that totality in this moment and have always been that same power that is moving the sun and moon and the tides. Isn’t there a great sense of relief in recognising that? It has the power to manifest everything in all of its diversity. If it didn’t do it there would be nothing. It has this innate intelligence, this cognising emptiness, and it is not us that has this cognising emptiness. It’s the emptiness that is doing it, the cognising. Even when we are sad, we know that it is the totality.

Our thoughts are just images without any substance whatsoever. A thought can’t do anything at all. The innate intelligence is expressing through you now and subtly telling you, “I am That”. I am that essence; I am not this body. Emptiness is form, said the Buddha. The form can be nothing other than the emptiness. All the disasters, Tsunamis and things have never corrupted the nature that you are.

Let the reflections on this screen come and go. Allow it to happen. Don’t resist or try to alter or modify it. It changes by itself and always has throughout your life. Look at all those past disasters from your life. Don’t go back there. Left as they are, they will move along.

The only thing you can ever be free from is the belief that you are something other than That.

You can only ever be the Absolute because that is all there is. They call it The Great Perfection in Buddhism. Can you add to the perfect? Can you take anything away from it?