Bob Adamson

Well, one question that pops up now and then is: is it appropriate to reveal the whole ‘truth’ or is it best to give just enough information to allow a gradual discovery to take place?
- The implication or belief is that one needs to, somehow, 'reach a state of awakening' before a complete understanding reveals itself. The guru plays the role of being an awakened one and the seeker plays the role of being one who wants to awaken. – Both roles are a display of ignorance, ignorance of what truly is – yet the role of the guru can be played knowingly and that active ‘knowing’ is suffusing the ‘exchange’.
- The whole drama of 'virtual' and unsatisfying devotion, a servile attitude, is the guru-disciple 'thing' and it all revolves around this unquestioned belief - this indirect indulgence in a mind game and that is ignorance.
- It is all unconsciously taken for granted that this 'play'is how it is and there is no other way to proceed from right here, right now, (as IF there was somewhere to go and something substantial to get).
- It is rather unpopular to point out that the whole thing is an error or just uninvestigated 'stuff' - and that the fact of pure seeing and knowing are right here, right now, prior to whatever appears - it is that immediate pure functioning that has been ignored 'for too long'.
- And the 'spiritual empires' crumble without all those time bound beliefs and that is why the 'average guru' will not point directly - appart from the fact that he is ignorant of the error himself.
If he reveals (and he does unconsciously already) that he does not actually ‘own’ that ‘state’ of enlightenment, which his followers believe he 'owns', then those seekers may well all disappear into the distance, going in search of another who does ‘claim’ to have what they want. – The one who is free is not interested in ‘holding the ‘seekers’ company any longer than is necessary. – The popular word for spiritual meetings is ‘Satsang’. – In my experience, these Satsangs are just an ego display of spiritual specialness.



Well, lets explore a little further.
Does the capacity of the ‘student’ play a significant part in what we call ‘self liberation’? - It appears like that.
Ultimately, no harm done, either way, it is all just how it 'appears' to be.
What is is always what is and the appearance of what is is just a transitory way it appears. - The essence is unchanging, yet invisibly so.
The apparent journey of ‘gradual awakening’ and the apparent ‘sudden revelation’ are both appearances in ‘time’.
The ‘clear moment’ of 'seeing through' is from beyond ‘time’ and that 'pure function of seeing' is always present as THIS moment.
The word 'moment' implies 'time'. - It is just a word and so is the word ‘time’. - It is all words and the way words are put together in a 'certain order' apparently offer to us a particular meaning.
Each teacher expresses ‘knowledge’ in his or her own way or manner, or at least that is how it appears.
In relativity, I can speak of my case, although I do not take the stance of being a teacher, I have a tendency to 'spill the beans', expose the whole charade.
- That tendency wins me no friends, if you know what I mean.
Branded as a rebel, it seemingly increases a sense of separation that does not actually exist. - It is of no concern to me.
That 'rebel' appears, maybe because ‘I spent’ around 20 years (time) dabbling in secret knowledge and indulging in a kind of frustration of being ‘so close’ and yet ‘not finding’. - I have no interest in mind games that do not release the one apparently caught in it. – Is that familiar to you, no?
Ultimately it is all ‘as it is’. – “Water finds its own level” as the old Chinese saying goes.
It would seem that only when a seeker has exhausted the path of ‘selfish pursuit’ and ‘personal gain’ and in ‘not finding’ any satisfaction that lasts, only then is there a willingness to ‘cut to the chase’ in an impersonal investigation of what this consciousness is.
The average ‘person’ will not go near the foundations of belief in the ‘person’ that they think that they are. – The average ‘spiritual person’ 'plays around it' as long as there is some ‘special-ness’ still feeding that ‘self centre’.
The ‘teachers’ from this lineage, Siddharameshwar, Nisargadatta, Bob Adamson, all cut away or expose the mind game by pointing directly to the essential nature of (your own) presence.
In a one to one conversation with any of these ‘teachers’ there would be an ‘exchange’, a conversation and that would reveal the appropriate ‘information’ to be given.
But you can be sure, that things (would) quickly come to the essential point.
You are not be asked to ‘go the long way home’.
The immediate presence, the actuality is always pointed to.
Telling you that you must 'do this practice' and 'use this method' would not come up and the concept of ‘ten years in the future’ would be dismissed as a dream or as fanciful notions belonging to ignorant gurus and their devotees.
If you read the transcription from Bob Adamson’s meeting below this note you will see how directly it is presented.
In reading Bob Adamson’s book, you will be introduced to the concept of “Intelligence Energy”. Instead of using the word ‘God’ Bob prefers to use these words, intelligence energy’ to point to That which behind or within all things and all actions etc.
In my own case, this intelligence energy 'took me' through all those years of inner work and struggle, and on to 'where I needed to go' and by some miracle, I found some members of this 'living lineage', each one was clearly a living expression of 'what' I was looking for:

The third one I met was 'Sailor Bob' Adamson. He has been giving talks in Melbourne for around thirty years. - The message is basically the same. - It appears to have refined itself into an inescapeable 'pointing out', for anyone that really pays attention with a genuine interest. - Many of you are familiar with how this thing expresses through me, Gilbert, but I want to share a transcript I did yesterday of part of a recent meeting at Bob's. - It was hearing these similar 'pointers' that 'awakened' a deep interest in myself and led me to a thorough investigation of the sense of self and of what the mind believes is real. - Here is that transcription.

December 2006:

Questioner: So, awareness cannot know itself. - So, that which it knows cannot be it.

Bob: It is self aware. - Self-knowing. - But that, which it knows, is it (also) – but not as it is appearing or (what it is) known (as).

- That, which thinks it knows it, is it also.

Bob: (Long pause) - You can never get around it with a concept or grasp it.
We get this word ‘awareness’ and try to define it and make something of that.
It is just a pointer and not much better than a lot of the other pointers.
What is the actual experiencing there?

Q: Of awareness?

Bob: No, just your actual experience – what is going on?

Q: I would say that it is projection, when we recognize that it is projection.

Bob: No before that. - What is the actual experience there? - Can you say you are not?

Q: No, you could say that that sense of ‘I’ is not.

Bob: That sense of ‘I’ is not but there is still ‘seeing’ there.- (you are) still hearing, breathing, heart still beating. - Thoughts may start coming up on that and then pause for a moment. - Could any of that take place without that knowing that you are or that basic being or life essence that you are? (If we have to put a concept on it)

Q: I would say that it couldn’t happen without ‘knowing’ being there.

Bob: Well ‘knowing’ is what I call intelligence. Not your intellect. Intelligence.
That is the activity of knowing – intelligence energy. - Knowing is an activity – of something that is going on in the immediacy of the moment. - Any activity is a movement of energy. - Not the content of knowing, I know this or I know that, than is all acquired, all conceptualized, all words stuff.

The basic activity of knowing. - You are not knowing a moment ago. - You are not knowing a moment in the future either. - It is going on in the immediacy of the moment, so its an activity – something is happening now. - It is this energy or life force or whatever label you want to put on it. - It is functioning there in the immediacy of the moment. - That is what you are.

You can never encapsulate it in a word or an idea.
Well, have a look at that knowing – thinking is taking place in it. - Seeing, hearing, heart beating, the whole lot is taking place in that knowing.

Questioner 2: Bob, these are senses, the seeing, hearing.

Bob: That is how they express through that pattern we call the body. - But you see, what you call these senses, if the life essence was not in the body, what senses do the body have - without that life essence?

Can the corpse see or hear? - Can the corpse be aware, can the corpse feel, taste, touch or smell? - (No) So it is not in the body, it is in that life essence itself.
For it to express as a feeling, taste or touch, there has to be a pattern for it to function through.
It is like a computer, you have all sorts of information in the computer. - It is useless without the power surging through it. - Take that power away and the keyboard won’t work, the screen has no images, no words, the screen is dead – the whole thing is inanimate. - This body (of ours) is just like that.

That intelligence energy form a pattern, just like it forms (all) lots of appearances.
This particular pattern has the capacity of ‘reasoning’ and that tree out there has no capacity for reasoning but that pure intelligence functions as a root stretching out to find moisture or food in the soil. - It will go down between rocks or whatever it needs to do to find what it needs. - The branches and leaves turn around towards the light.

When the cold season comes, the sap stops running and the leaves fall off.
Spring comes and buds and leaves form. - Fruit contain the seeds for new growth, new trees. - It is all within it, innately within it.

But then again, cut the root and what good is the tree? - Branches and leaves wither and it is dead.

Q: So in meditation, you have a feeling or a thought, you just label it ‘thought’ or ‘feeling’ or ‘shame’ or ‘guilt’ or whatever. - Then you let it go.

Bob: What if you don’t label it?

Q: I want to get the connection here, you say everything is energy, patterns. - So whatever feeling comes up and I do not label it, just let it happen, that is a different thing (than what I mentioned before). - The Buddhists say just label it and see it for what it is and you say “Don’t label it”. - What about this?

Bob: Well, if you are not labeling it, you are really seeing it for what it is. It is just pure intelligence energy. - When you put the label on it, you have got the concept of what you believe it to be.

Q: So why do they say to do that?

Bob: You will have to ask them. (group laughter)
This intelligence will still bring up the concepts that are needed for the functioning in the activity of the moment – but you haven’t got an entity in the way that is saying “It shouldn’t be like this” or “I don’t want this” or “It’s going away and I want more of it”. - That is constantly interfering and causing the conflict. - It only does that because it is not recognized that that is ‘it’ also. - There is nothing there with any substance or independent nature of itself so it could not be anything separate from That (Intelligence Energy).

So if reference points come up, they are not hung onto. That is part of what it says in Hsin Hsin Ming – “Hold no opinion for or against anything”. - (note: ‘The Great Way” - read the whole text from link on this website)

It does not say “Don’t have any opinions”.
If you look at it closely, all your problems arise from that belief in an entity that has got some power of its own. - That has become the self centre or the ego.

It is simply a reference point. - It has no independent nature or substance – it is just a group of thoughts.
(Without all that) You are in the natural state – that natural functioning is going on.


Gilbert's note for today:
Your mind is like a bucket suspended in a flowing waterfall.
It is constantly filling up with thoughts and images.
You identify with it all and feel unsatisfied because nothing stays put.
It is all replaced constantly by ‘new input’ (even though a majority is stale old conceptual nonsense).
If you turn the bucket upside down a clear and empty space is clearly present.
This taste of clear presence is not restricted by the form of the bucket.
In fact, that clear and empty space of knowing, includes within it the waterfall. - In fact the whole universe in appearing in That. - (That is just unacceptable to the intellect until the potency of the fact hits home)
A master may say, “Identify yourself with that vastness – that is your true nature”.
It is more direct to point out that you ARE that and that no process of identification is actually needed at all.
Yet, paradoxically there is ‘no one’ that can ‘do’ this.
It is!
When it is realized that all concepts, no matter how refined they may be, they are all just appearances in ‘what you are’.
You cannot discover what you are – you can only see and know what you are not.
In seeing that you are not whatever appears – it flips over and you see and know that you are all of it – all inclusive as the actual 'presence' – the immediate living presence of ‘what is’.

'Who' is going to cross over to 'where'?

Gilbert,
Hi - My name is R........, I hope you'll take a moment to read this and maybe offer a few words/pointers.

I've been reading a lot of your writings and they are some of the clearest I've read.
- I've been studying Eastern Philosophies since I was about 12 and for the past couple of years I've been reading Advaita Vedanta through Nisargadatta, Stephen Wolinsky, John Wheeler and a few others.

I feel I have a pretty good understanding of what all this is about -basically I am awareness and have always been. - The world presented to me through the senses is not what it appears; in fact it is emptiness which appears solid. - I understand on the level of the mind that all appears in this awareness and awareness is not affected by the manifest world. - In fact, I've recently partially and sort of experientially gotten that the world moves, not I. -It is just so backward to what the ordinary view of the world is that I just don't trust it.

That's where I'm at a stopping point. - I "know" this world isn't what it seems, I seem to have a lessening of attachment to this manifest world.
But I've not noticed a realization or dropping off of the sense of I.
It's definitely still there.

I'm beginning to sort of experientially feel that the body is acting on its own; thoughts are appearing out of nowhere, not something I'm doing.
Is this "movement" a natural and gradual process that helps the sense of I fall away or am I off course somehow?

Once again, I've decided to attempt to contact you because I've found what you've written to speak very clearly to me. - I've found Nisargadatta to be a sort of hammer that hits you in the head over and over, which is very necessary. - I've found your writing to be more of a knife which cuts deep. -The problem is I don't feel I've crossed over to the point where I'm experientially getting that which I always have been. - I'm still, for the most part, relating to the world in which this body lives, acts and suffers.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. - R......

Gilbert's Reply:

'Who' is going to cross over to 'where'?

See it is all just concepts.

Drop the concepts and what is left?

Naked Presence.

You are that.


R's response:
Gilbert,
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. - I'm sure you get a lot of emails.
When I boil it all down and just ask myself "What am I?” - I find I have no answer. - Of course I can say - this body, a father, a network engineer, an American - but I know these are all just my outward "appearances", what I've come to be. - This is all I can say.
I find that this question delineates the outside from the inside - the "outside" answers are all obvious. - The "inside" is what my mind doesn't seem to be able to see. - I don't understand what I'm supposed to see or answer to the question "what am I?" other than that which appears as "my" life.
The mind seems to give up or get frustrated at that which is apparently not obviously there. What comes to me is - the mind is trying to objectify that which is inherently subjective. - But the door or the key, "What am I?" just seems to be another concept.
Something that immediately drew me to your words was "the Absolute Moment" or "the Timeless Moment." - I can somehow feel that this is true, that this moment is the same moment as the first moment, and the contents of that moment are changing but the moment doesn't. - In other words, there is no past or future, things aren't rolling to the past with the future coming
soon. - It's all still the same moment. - I get that somehow.
If "I" or this mind can't see it or experience it, how is it known?
- How can "awareness" know itself without the mind being involved?
Once again, I greatly appreciate your time and willingness to help. - R.


Gilbert:
When you ask 'what am I?' the concept will slide away eventually and what is left is 'seeing' - 'naked seeing' - THAT is your true nature - presence awareness.
-'You' cannot experience ‘what you are’ – not as an objective ‘thing’.
You are ‘the experiencing’ which is ceaselessly present. - It does NOT come and go - concepts about it come and go and because we identify with them all, it seems that we are those 'things'.
The mind will keep trying to objectify even those subtle insights that come.
Whatever comes, it must surely go. - Watch them go and know that you are never any of them.
You are that which never budges - but you will never know it - because you are it and the mind can only re-cognize 'things' by comparisons. (mind content is known by what?)
Everything is THAT - I am THAT - no difference.
So the clear and present evidence that I am looking for is clear and obvious and yet it does not move - so it remains a mystery for the mind - the mind will not sit still - and 'Gilbert' goes about whatever that pattern is seemingly engaged in.
What of it is real?--ALL of IT--and none of it.
This Moment is the Absolute Moment.
Yes! - THIS moment - seemingly fragmented into time lines and space patterns.

Where does it all APPEAR?
Nowhere else than in that clear and empty space of KNOWING presence that you ARE.
How do I know this and why am I so sure of it?
Because Bob Adamson 'pointed' this 'body mind' called Gilbert to the non objective fact of 'presence awareness'.
The world will not disappear--as long as the body is there; there will be at least a rudimentary 'identity' called 'I'.
It is a servant--and a practical application tool--useful in the ordinary sense.
If it takes the role of being a master, then trouble will surround you.
Look into it and see through it--as often as you can--it will become as if translucent, transparent.
It will be seen that it has no power of its own--with no independent nature and is not a separate entity.
Knowing that, it can serve you well. - Not knowing that it all slides into hell or relative realms of suffering.
Be ruthless--do not become like a Buddhist and get attached to all sorts of paraphernalia--and so seemingly become an antithesis of what the Buddha pointed out.
Be ruthless and see into it--over and over. - As Bob simply pointed out to me "Just look - take a look and see" (if what I am telling you is true or not - and I did take a look and the rest is history)
Read Bob's books, or mine if you wish, and get soaked in the 'pointers'.
The mind will start to think along the same lines and then you will start to see the truth of the pointers--not as pointers but as direct evidence in your own experiencING--always present tense when speaking about it and always the primary movement of knowing.
Always present--that is what you ARE.
Everything else--and I mean everything--everything else is an appearance in what you ARE.
As Bob says, start from the fact that you are THAT--that reality of presence--and then everything falls into place--in a split second.
In that split second 'time' collapses and it is known that I have never been in time at all.
Then, later you (may) realize that you are not IN anything--and everything is IN you and it is all equal. - All 'presence', appearing as this and that.
I was 'able' to see what Bob was indicating ('after' my 'clever esoteric attitude' was dropped).
- No one else could do it for me yet it is my own light that sees and Bob made that fact clear to me - it is a mystery. - It is significant that Bob was the only one who did not expect some reverance from me - he just 'pointed' over and over and over again with whatever was necessary - not in some mechanical way - he was (and still is for anyone else) listening to 'where I was coming from' and then 'pointing' beyond that to my true nature.
- All those previous years of absorbing very subtle esoteric teachings - none of it helped to bring me to the understanding I wished for until I met Bob who is uncompromisingly clear and present and his words carry that same clear presence. -
Overwhelming gratitude settles down and equality with the integrity of presence awareness is found to be one's ordinary awareness - no big deal.
To say 'I have realized' what Nisaragadatta and Bob have been pointing to, may sound 'too much' for 'seekers' to accept. - But that sense of presence is not concerned with what others think. - Since that is where they are caught, I can only share through these notes and let these others know that it is not beyond you to simply BE what you ARE.
Read Bob's books. - It is by NO accident that I took the trouble to transcribe some tapes of Bob's meetings to make the first book 'What's wrong with right now?'
There are many good books from the ancient texts that a clear and precise but there is no book like Bob's 1st book, which is in contemporary language with pointers in ordinary language.....
So-so-so potent.....and each pointer delivers you back to that clear and empty space of knowing presence that you ARE.

Warm regards - Gilbert

Water - Life

News: I am pleased to inform a few, who may be interested, that a new book is now available - It is "George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia" - George Adie was my first teacher and this excellent book will be of interest to anyone in the Gurdjieff 'Work' or who comes from such a tradition. - It is not Advaita or Non Duality as such. - George's wife Helen Adie played Piano for the 'movements' group and a CD set is also available. - Helen played with such feeling that it was impossible to remain unmoved by the music. - I have very fond memories of them both and grateful for their influence. - If you ever read the book mentioned above or hear the music I speak of, you will understand something of what I am attempting to convey.
You can find the necessary links about these items in a google search. - Gilbert

Note for today:
Whatever you see, by its very definition it is an appearance. – One could say that it is all appearances only. – One may then ask, so what? – Another may say that such a statement is trivial like the saying about “Is-ness” - So what? – “It just is” – So what?
That is fair enough. – Then in the next moment that same ‘mind’ will come up with a ‘confliction’ about something in that Is-ness. – Something is particularised and objectified as being good, bad or wrong or right or whatever. – That too is just as it IS. – So what? - It can all go on and on ad infinitum. – So what?
The ‘devil’ and the ‘angel’ (the extremes of polar mind) struggle for supremacy and a permanent status, a holding ground in the mind.
– Nature will not allow anything to stay firm and unmoving, no matter what it is. – A thought or attitude is nothing but an apparent energy pattern and the continuity of any such thing is only apparent and completely depending on the energy of belief and ones attention. – As soon as something else comes along, that pattern is losing ground and it vanishes.
This is why these modern gurus and teachers grasp at surrounding themselves with devotees, just so their ‘image’ can be automatically ‘supported’ by the group attention. – All this activity attracts the attention and sucks you into believing that it is all real and not only that, that it is supremely real and even labelled as ‘the enlightened state’.
For the individual, all this noise and racket keeps the mind busy with the apparent process of believing in ‘something’. - When questioned about what it is, the answers are vague or fanciful notions that have no ‘ground’ in ‘the clear and present evidence’
of ‘This Moment’.
It would appear that the mind wants to believe in all these erroneous notions and its fabricated reality – which is nothing but a dream state of mind.
If you do not get to the roots of this ‘being sucked in’, how can you emerge from that hypnotised state? - However, the one that is believed in as having the possibility of emerging is a fictional character also and belongs to the dream.
– Have any of those characters, in your dreams, ever been sitting on your bed waiting for you to wake up?
Some 'seekers' have seemingly fallen into the belief of having transcended the drama of life and have made a career out of it by setting up shop as a guru.
Even some of the more innocent ones, are still dreaming of changing ‘the world’ into a better place. – They write books about that and so suck in more and more followers, all based on a dream state of mind.
All these cartoon characters promote their own methods and practices and multiple subtle exercises to capture the intellect of their devotees.
Now, it may seem that I am making a big deal out of all this, but I assure you that it is no big deal, because it is all ‘of a dream’.
It appears that devotees imitate their gurus simply by association and a few are granted ‘special status’ and of course that keeps the others ‘trying’ to attain that mezzoteric level.
Now I can teach a parrot to say “I am That” but it is truly meaningless or at best a funny joke. – Repeating the words of your guru is not going to change anything but in the dream, the dream character may feel elated and fulfilled.
– The parrot is a parrot and it makes no difference what it says or ‘appears to say’.
So, the ‘highest’ and most respected ‘teacher’ you can think of and the most ‘evil person’ you can think of are actually equally ‘appearances’ which appear nowhere else than in the clear and empty space of knowing that you ARE.
All effort to realise that are totally useless – you ARE That.
But you cannot build a spiritual empire on such direct revelations.
This ‘teaching’ is not a teaching at all. - It is simply a ‘pointing’ to That which already IS.
Any re-arrangement of the pattern in mind called a ‘seeker’ is completely useless but who wants to know that? – Try as long and as hard as you wish but know that it is only in the partiality - that ‘pattern of changing’, that changing pattern, which is already flowing just as it does with no consequence whatsoever within what you truly ARE.
Your natural state or ‘presence’ is all inclusive and formless – Clear and Present Evidence of its natural freedom. – That pattern called ‘me’ will never recognize its own origins.
Let me risk talking about my past for a moment. – During my ‘esoteric period’ I was taught many things which are generally held to be secret and beyond the grasp of the common mind. – Many exercises were given, some very difficult and subtle. – Many of the subtle sensations and inner movements were brought into view.
- It was a ‘rich time’ of experiences – relative experiences. – The mind loves to build up stories of personal advancement and achievements. – Obvious ego displays were shot down without mercy, so one appeared to learn how to negotiate the difficult territory. – The power of attention 'appears' to expand as one consciously receives hither to unnoticed impressions. – All this is what is termed ‘inner life’ – Esoteric life.
During this time, there arose notions about how 'ordinary people' appeared to be in a state of hypnosis and unaware of their mechanical lives.
– This brings a sense of being ‘special’ and that sense is all added to the self centre, the ‘me’.
– Of course it is all just elaborations, embroidery upon that sense of separateness - and so freedom eludes one indefinitely.
Some time after my teacher died, I left that group and dealt with the stigma of being an ‘outsider’. – What became almost immediately apparent was that I felt a sense of freedom, relative of course, but there was a definite sense of escaping from a treadmill to nowhere. – Then something miraculous happened - I was being given a copy of “I am That”. – What Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was pointing out in that book struck 'a note' in the heart of my being. – So much so, that I picked up that book (2 volumes) almost everyday for 4 years (that was stage one).
'Stage two'- That lead me to India to see Ramesh Balsekar, who had been an English translator for Maharaj's meetings in the late 70’s. – In Bombay, Ramesh 'demonstrated' to me his understanding of this 'living teaching' through a lengthy conversation with me on the first two days I was there.
– 'Stage three' was when I followed up a lead given to me in India about an Australian called Bob Adamson who had been with Nisargadatta in 1976.
– I have spoken at length about meeting Bob elsewhere, so I won’t go over it all again.
So, it was in meeting Bob and through clear talks with him, plus a few other factors, that assisted in my making an investigation of my own consciousness, which revealed all my concepts and left the mind clear and empty (for a few moments) and in that emptiness, I found that I was still present and aware – nothing touches what I am. - That clear and obvious 'taste' did not leave me again.
That taste is beyond ‘words and telling’ and even though one can speak of it, it remains beyond language and notions of any kind of transmission.
(The relativity called a ‘seeker’ knits all its moments of ignorance into a garment and then wears it, saying “this is what I am”.)
All experiences depend on ‘this moment of experiencing’.
Experiencing (present tense) itself depends on nothing at all.
It is an aspect of what you ARE.
You can know nothing about it apart from that which ‘appears’ in it.
That is the paradox and it confounds the mind until it is seen to be unnecessary, conflicting reference points in mind.
That which appears in awareness is all transient – there are no exceptions whatsoever.
Nobody ‘gets’ enlightened. – No one is a seeker.
– All that happens, is that the mind drops its long standing fixation with mind content.
– This cannot be ‘done’ and all efforts to ‘do it’ are counter productive.
This is the ‘water’ that is offered – drink it if you wish.
– It is all water, water ‘anyway which way’ you look at it.
- Enjoy.

Are you IN the mind?

Email question:
Dear Gilbert, - I am new to this spiritual search and I came across your website. - I gather from what you are saying there, that most if not all seekers never become 'finders'. – Do I need a long association with the spiritual traditions to get this understanding of Non Duality?

Answer: - It so happens that many, after decades of seeking and no finding, get a shock that is devistating to that ego sense of being a seeker. - A moment of honesty strikes them. - They realize that they have acquired nothing but concepts and that those concepts are actually useless. - Without belief in them they slide away into the abyss, along with the idea of who I am. - To come across a message that points directly at your freedom is unusal. - Most take awhile to hear it.
- Even though it is innocent, your question is loaded with erroneous factors. – Let's break some of it down into those basic erroneous concepts and expose them.
– Some will insist that one needs to be ready for it. - They will send you on a journey of self discovery and then years pass and that is unnecessary.
Right here, right Now is always the case and your true nature is THAT. - So NO journey is needed at all.
- All these concepts can be revealed for what they are. - They all fall apart once they are examined – just like any belief falls apart when it is questioned thoroughly.
Your question: "Do I need a long association.....etc"
"Do I need…" – What you ARE is commonly called 'I'. – What you truly ARE is in need of nothing whatsoever. – That may sound more like a hopeful wish than a fact and the mind may react with a quick denial of such information. – Be vigilant and watch what the mind does. – It will lead you astray without warning so you have to be mindfully watching it. – Everything that 'appears' (all things are 'appearances') in that 'essence' that you ARE, Awareness, is actually OF the same Essence, so there is equilibrium in what you ARE. – Nothing 'outside' can truly disturb what you ARE. – Outside and Inside is only a long standing habitual division of THAT which is actually One. – One Essence - I am That.

Any apparent NEED appears due to some sort of differentiation and that is a perceived difference – quite natural from the ordinary point of view – a tree is not a dog etc.

So a need is based on a sense of a lacking of 'something'. – Then an imagination suggests that something 'out there' will supply what that needs for its fulfillment. – All of it is related to 'me' and that is a conceptual 'point' of reference, a phantom which can never be satisfied. – Like a ghost at a food festival, it can't digest or eat or retain anything. – Even the ghost's hunger is a phantom need.

You refer to "Spiritual Traditions" – they are all conceptual notions and they depend on 'time' - 'past' - 'future' and a mind full of conceptual nonsense about the 'present'. - The mind is loaded down by dead images and second hand notions and so the clear and present evidence is missed.

What you ARE is timeless.

You say you want to "Get this understanding". (a common mindset)

Understanding is already 'with you' as what you ARE.
There is NO Great Understanding. - 2 and 2 are 4. - That understanding is clearly obvious. - High and mighty intellectuals bind their minds with great conceptual postulations and so preposterous, pretentious attitudes flourish like bacteria in a cesspit. - They form clubs and institutes so that they can demonstrate their mental gymnastics with flare. - Degrees and doctorates follow and letters are added to the 'me's' name tag. - Fabricated identities that differ little from cartoon characters.
Ramana's "Who am I?" is a potent 'pointer' - "What am I?" is another potent question to ask.

It is only the erroneous beliefs in uninvestigated notions that 'appear' to bring conflict in mind. – The mind by its nature is a restless activity and as long as one takes oneself to be IN the mind, so the tossing and turning will 'appear' to dominate that 'me'.

The 'me' in itself is harmless and quite necessary for what we call daily life.

The activities of the mind are similarly harmless.

So, I ask one question: Are you 'in the mind' or are you beyond the mind?

As Nisargadatta says: The mind is a good servant – it is a bad master. (paraphrased)

So, the spiritual path is a dream and you do not have to take one step away from this moment. – In essence you are free. – All that is needed is to investigate that 'me', the one you think you are and what you are is found to be expansive and beyond the mind content. – Getting 'another' to recognize this is like trying to push the universe through the eye of a needle. – Seekers put up so much resistance it is a total wonder that any teacher even bothers to sit with them. –Such is the dualistic drama of life. – Enjoy it.

Thick as a brick!

NEWS! Contact address has changed (gilbert.schultz AT gmail.com) Exchange the AT for @ as usual in email addresses.

Todays Note:
So, you have been conned. – All your spiritual journey has been one big con job. – Because you have ignored what is clear and obvious, you have assigned ‘reality’ to another place, out of reach and ‘a deliverance’ into reality at some ‘future point in time’.
Gurus and teachers aid and abet this fallacy for their own benefit and since you are already partly hypnotized into all those beliefs, it only takes a few words to ‘push’ you ‘deeper’ into that ‘trap’.
If you come across a ‘message’ that threatens all those beliefs it is most likely something a thousand times more genuine that those ‘time bound’ concepts about ‘becoming’.
Becoming ‘worthy’ and ‘pure’.
In the ordinary sense those teachings are an absurd insult to one’s true essence but that insult is not recognized at all, while an identification with being a seeker is predominant.
The investigation of what this ‘me’, this ‘seeker’ is, is the instant dissolving of the ‘mirage’. – What happens usually is that the moment the mirage is seen through, a panic grips the organism and a turning away takes place. – It would appear that the truth is hard to bear. – Being wakeful is hard to bear without the luggage of habitual belief.
This is totally erroneous and actually back the front.
The truth is effortlessly supportive.
It is the baggage that depresses the mind. – Giving up that baggage appears to be far too difficult for so many. – However, that is erroneous also.
Seeing through the fabricated hold that this conditioned mind appears to be, is actually effortless and quite spontaneous. – The problem is that any contrived ‘act’ to bring about that seeing through is always conditional and bound up in concepts of time and ‘becoming’ free.
As Bob Adamson says – it is so profound that most miss it – “Start from the fact that you are THAT”. (THAT one without a second)
This pure function of seeing actually registers everything without preferences.
All the rest is in mind process and that is where the seeker is trapped, because the seeker is nothing but a concept about seeking.

Speaking in the relative sense, the average seeker is surely as thick as a brick. – Full of devotional nonsense and totally topped up with unbelievable beliefs.
‘Who’ is offended?
Now, let’s let it all loosen up and ‘talk in the relative’ for a brief time.
Notice how the following concepts 'sit with you' and also notice how the 'centre of gravity' shifts as the words shift into a less 'personal territory' further on down the page.
Petty minds will always blame ‘others’ for their own shortcomings. - True enough?
False superiority or ‘granted’ officialdom will always judge ‘others’ for those committed ‘sins’ that they themselves have in abundance.
– Add an official ‘title’ or an official uniform and things get emphasized rather dramatically. – The boss at work - The ‘officer’ that gives you a parking fine. –The good old church Minister, Vicar, Rabbi or priest with his higher, wiser than thou attitude. – Isn’t the old superiority complex really an inferiority complex in disguise? – Both ‘complexions’, of course, are misleading concepts or notions about one self. – All such ‘inner stuff’ is 'apparently' ‘producing’ more and more of a flourishing array of personalized drama and ‘problems’ for that one called ‘me’.
What are ‘your’ problems? -Are they anything more that ‘self references’ in ‘time bound mind’ with multiple notions of either some sort of threat, danger, loss or some notions of gain for that ‘me’.
Doesn't the natural world provide enough drama to deal with, without fabricating more.
The 'natives', the 'aboriginals' were living more or less in harmony for thousands of years 'before' we came along with all our 'greed' and concepts about evolution and our distorted ideas about religion.
Maybe our agression and implimentation of what we call justice is rather biased and 'missionary'. - We have an abundance of 'gadgets' these days. - Do they actually satisfy? - Or do they just bring more 'wanting', more 'seeking'.
We plunder the natural resources and imagine that no unwanted result will come from our greed. - These are touchy subjects and a lot of drama unfolds around these 'points' of conflicting mind stuff. - Does any of it get resolved?
The only power in any of it is the ‘potential’ from which it all arises.
- It is all appearances and no different than anything else that appears, since ‘all things’ arise from the same (unseen) potential. - Is God playing dice?
This moment right now is emptiness. - In that, memory colors the present with notions from the past and then this delusion of mind is what the mind believes is the present and that these ‘present conditions’ are a result of the inevitable proceeds of 'the past'. - The prison of the mind is just an attitude and an habitual way of looking. - Stop and see. - What is going on?
Investigate.
The mind cannot find the cause of its own ‘apparent’ existence.
If there arises a ‘search’ for the origins of mind, what one is may reveal its nature.
Its nature is not a ‘thing’ and its essential nature is that pure function of ‘knowing’.
In other words, all descriptions of it may be striped away but the pure function of knowing cannot be taken away by anything. – It can’t be denied.
In that knowing ‘space’ there appears a constant parade of changing phenomena, which we call life and the world. - These impressions are only traces of that movement of knowing.
“Awareness – ‘I’ – World” is a triad and each one is the other in essence.
Remove concepts of time and space and the triad dissolves into one essence.
In deep sleep, that movement slows to a faint pulse and so nothing is remembered of it on waking and it is the ‘habitual mind’ that fails to find names for those subtle impressions in deep sleep.
Who wakes up? - Who sleeps?
All of ‘our’ ruminating, amounts to nothing and yet in the knowing of that, there is no benefit or non benefit for anyone – It is simply knowing.
In other words, whatever is known is relative and it can only be known as content within this ‘moment of knowing’ which we also call ‘presence’.
All appearances are in relativity and so they are all transient appearances in ‘time’ and one could say that they only have any validity in their immediacy but even that assertion is only a concept. - The immediacy of right now is nothing other than the knowing presence that you are.
- There is no escape from that fact and it is beyond all concepts about entities or ‘persons’. – There is no need for an escape because in that fact there is no separate individual. – That apparent paradox does not even exist because all reference points in mind have no separate or independent nature other than transient appearances and they can only ‘appear’ in what we commonly call mind.
Now, are you in the mind or beyond the mind?
- 'Who' can answer such a question?
Surely what 'you think you are' is an appearance, a mere concept that appears as mind content.
It is not up to me to designate what you are but it could be said that what you are is that knowing presence, which you cannot know as any 'thing' with any independent qualities whatsoever, with no quantifiable permanence. - 'That', which you are, beyond all words, has never been anything other than that pure knowing presence that you are. - Out of that pure space of knowing the mind appears with its content and if one watches vigilantly without taking yourself to be an observer or even a witness, it is obvious.
- Some call it silence, peace or presence.
- That which appears to come and go is not it. - Even though the essence of it is that, the apparent 'coming' is actually a 'going' of what had occupied the mind and attention.
The whole spiritual ‘pathway’ with its 'teachers', 'pupils', 'practices and methods' and its multiple identifications with being 'individuals', ‘spiritual persons’ can never include any acceptance of ‘pointing out' the errors of perception or the introduction of pure 'knowledge’, since that pointing annihilates all ground in the entire realms of belief. - The mind may panic and run for cover.
What is it hiding from? - Reality?
How can the 'shadow' hide from the TREE that casts it or the Light that gives the shadow its apparent being?
When the 'ideals' of the seeker are investigated they dissolve.
No one wants to know and there is no one that could want to know.
- All there is, is knowing.
It already IS.
'Got it'?