Could you please comment?

To Gilbert
– Hallo, In the last few months, I've been reading up on various Advaita websites, just seeing what it's all about, and I saw your comments about the 'non-dual’ mind state.
- I absolutely know the experience of "Empty Awareness" or whatever people want to call it, and I could 'go there' as a kid at will, but I never thought it was that big a deal, I just thought it was the 'background hum' of the life force (which seems to me, a kind of content-free 'Intelligent electricity') and that individual consciousness isn't anything bad - It's just a naturally occurring DNA program, an evolutionary tool for the on-going survival of the organism.
-The life force refracts itself through the biological form that it grows (as our bodies - the hardware, so to speak) and has evolved (with it) 'pre-installed software' in the brain (like propensity for language, archetypes, ego-creation etc) which when activated, constellates a mental 'ego structure' to give ongoing stability (the sense of an "I”) to the individual's psyche over his/her lifespan. - This starts forming at about 2 years old.
- Individual mind is formed in the empty space of (what I call) blank awareness.
Before that, the baby has no sense of itself as separate from its surroundings. - But this "baby" mind (which some people call "oceanic" or "unitive”) is in error. - The baby is in fact separate, and the DNA-activated ego program (The "I") is a necessary corrective.
I totally understand that "empty awareness" is the base line of our experience and we cannot reduce consciousness any further as it tends to dissipate into the oceanic emptiness - (The old ice cubes in warm bath water analogy!).
- It's a bit like a collection of crockery realizing that it is all made out of clay, regardless of its shape or function. - What I don't understand in "advaita" (or similar spiritual or religious models) is why this non-content, empty awareness, is a desirable state to 'abide' in and why individual reality is seen as akin to a dream.
- It has taken countless millennia for individual consciousness to evolve out of this amorphous 'sense of being'.
- Our true nature is both oceanic and individual and neither is 'worse' than the other.

- Life is an evolving intelligent energy, expressing itself in both impermanent phenomena and as a more permanent source.
- Both are equally 'real'. - I feel that your more 'spiritual' model contains a lot of "spiritual story". - Once you know you are both 'empty awareness' and singular individual mind, what's the big deal? - Why the need for the ‘spiritual’?

- And what difference does it make?
- Could you please comment?

- Thanks for listening (reading) - Michael.

Gilbert replies: –
No ‘story’ will ever satisfy – and doubts arise - however, what you are may resonate with an intelligent expression, something that 'rings true' and that ringing true bypasses the normal grounds of conflict in mind, and due to being caught in the realms of belief we are now so used to being with conflict internally and externally - even though there is no separation between inside and outside.
No story has ever totally satisfied the mind and that is why the search continues for so many as it does (all in the appearance of things in time).
- When any desire is fulfilled, there is a momentary absence of desire - but it soon returns because the fulfillment is only transient and the mind will not stay still in that fulfillment.
So having a fragmented sense of self, the desire to be whole arises naturally but it is a false premise - a movement attempting to be stillness. (Common meditations techniques are a good example of this)
Our true nature is already Whole - it is the Totality of What Is.

You are obviously not stupid, intelligence is there but the quality of information that has been handed to you or that you have found is a mixture of accuracy and a lot of erroneous stuff – that is not so unusual.
Consensus reality is a fabrication – Common mind agreements are just a ‘virtual reality’ which has no foundations anywhere but in the minds of men. – Virtual reality has become an obsession recently in the techno-computer world. – It appears that people ignore reality in preference for what is conceptually fabricated and that includes all information. - Watch the popular media and observe the biased presentations of supposed facts etc.
Fact: 'People' are ignorance - a 'person' is a fabricated entity with no grounds in reality whatsoever - that is why clear information about Non Duality is an apparent threat to the belief system.
- Why bother what any others think and sprout about?
- It is all stories and all stories 'depend on time' and in the telling of them, they infer another time, other than this moment.
Fact: - There is only this moment and that is an undeniable fact, one that no one can prove or disprove - such evidence can only appear in mind and time - such fabricated evidence is a mere pathetic shelter for the mind, an umbrella in the down pouring factual evidence of reality.
Spirituality is all bullshit (well, mostly). - Most spiritual 'people' in my experience are so flighty and oh so 'virtual reality' and they hide from their own shadow.
- I have little time for spiritual pretenders and their gurus.
- I have not said or even suggested that I am spiritual or that I have attained any special state.
- I do not suggest that any state is preferable to any other.
- I do not suggest that anything should be done, except to ‘see into it all’.
- In life we apparently 'do' all sorts of things and yet when it comes to an effortless seeing through the habitual mind stuff, it all seems to be too difficult and impotency engulfs the seeker. - The seeker is impotency and the seeing is not done by the mindset of a seeker.
The seeker is a phantom only.
- Yet right behind that facade is the pure functioning of 'seeing-knowing' - or space-like awareness.
So, what you truly are is not ‘a state’. - But all your descriptions of yourself refer to states and qualities that are all transient. - Is that what you are?
- All states are just energy patterns and they 'appear' to 'come and go' in this changeless presence. - All you need to do is witness that fact a few times and the whole story of a 'me' begins to fall apart.
What you truly are is not coming and going - it is ever present.
- Usually, that is far too obvious to notice-because the mind is occupied by a constant flow of thoughts and in the middle of that is a 'me', which is engaged in those thoughts.
Some call that identification, which is the assignment of ones identity onto 'things'
- And in that conceptual realm we take our self to be that activity - but it all disappears every night in deep sleep.
Common beliefs about the way things are is actually upside down and back the front but few will agree because it is too challenging. - Only direct evidence in direct experiencing can dissolve those habitual views.
Cognition is 'a stillness' and a movement - Nirvana and Samsara if you like to call it that.
The capacity of cognition is from beyond that pattern (that movement) called a 'person' or an individual, body, world etc. - That is why we observe it all - (That may be too subtle a point).
- There is no choice in altering anything in that pure cognition. - It is untarnished by anything -always clear -always present. - The reference point in mind of being a cognizor, seer or a 'me' is 'in time' and that is what appears to 'cause' all the problems (but only for that 'me').
Cut to the chase - All there is is seeing - knowing. - That direct functioning cannot be turned off or negated-by any thing, and you know that 'you are'.
- Can you stop being?
- Can you stop knowing?
- Can you stop seeing?
- Can you stop that registering of impressions back in that space of knowing - where you are seeing from?
You can't get behind that. - Is there a problem in that, in the space-like awareness?
- Only when it vibrates (in time) into the pairs of opposites as the content of mind, does an apparent problem arise - a fixation and a time bound conceptual 'entity'.
Stop thought and it all disappears.
- I do not detect any serious question in your email.
Life will provide a conflict, inner or outer, and from that a desire will arise to escape from that conflict. - That is the drama of life (in time). - Life in its immediacy, and life is ONLY the immediate, it is not a drama - it just IS as it is.
The one that wants to escape or 'to know' is a fiction.
- Knowing that and/or not knowing that are quite different 'situations' in the relativity of it all.
This so-called 'teaching' is vastly different than most others. - I am sure that very few recognize that fact. - If so-called 'spiritual people' knew of the potency of this teaching, they would flock to see Bob in the hundreds. - I have done my best to spread the word but my website is just one amongst hundreds. - Even to get Bob's books published was extremely difficult and to get bookshops to order them is even more difficult.
But I deviate from the essence of it all.
- This teaching says one should investigate - investigate the self-centre and see what is there.
In making that investigation with some genuine intent, then 'something happens' and it is far beyond anything one can anticipate or imagine.
- It is really far too profound to have some idle chat about.
- Warm regards - Gilbert.

Gilbert, - Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my thoughts on your writings. - I really do appreciate it. - I have one last point, so let me cut to the chase and not indulge in idle chitchat.
- This is what is not understood: - Non-duality seems to be suggesting (sorry about the words, but they're all I've got!) an "awareness" that is not dependent on anything but itself. -What I don't get is: My sense of "I am" is being cognized by a kind of witness 'awareness', a sort of "knowingness". - But in order for any of this to occur, there must first be 'aliveness'. - Livingness itself must be the mutual condition of awareness. - If you're not alive, you're not aware.
- I don't get the implied premise in Advaita etc that this awareness is somehow not interdependent on biological aliveness. -(Even the deep sleep dormant 'non - I am state' is still actually alive.)
- The "God" mind, just there as an amorphous source of beingness and not dependent on anything, seems to be an explanation in the Hindu Advaitan spiritual tradition, and Nisargadatta's "that" (the'non-content/baseline-awareness’) seems to make just as much sense from an evolutionary/biological point of view: - The awareness in the organism experiencing its own original source. - Gosh, it's a bit difficult to get this across........
- But I have found your writing to be interesting on this subject of 'source', and that is why I have bothered to get in touch with you.
What actually is your experience at the deepest 'baseline' level?
- Can it be described? - Perhaps I've missed the point of it all, because I haven't experienced 'bliss' or deep peace.
- To sum up: For there to be the "knowingness", there must also be organic aliveness.
- Do you feel that this is correct? - Sincerely, Michael

Gilbert writes:
There is no one to experience anything as something separate and there is no deeper or shallower in 'What IS'. - There is presence and 'space' itself appears in this knowing presence - in that space objects, matter and gaseous substances appear - the whole universe.
Every speck of matter is potentially known by that which contains it all - space-like awareness. - Awareness is not limited to individuals at all.
Those (including gurus and teachers) who pretend to be special because of some attained state are really just 'clever obstacles' on your pathless path.
In taking oneself to be the body, the view is limited to one organism and so the view is naturally limited - but that intelligence energy is appearing as all things including all sentient beings.
The Knowing knows the organic - the organic knows nothing.
The living sentience is the knowing-ness - presence awareness.
A dead body is organic - but the eyes can't see etc.
The microbes in that dead body are alive and they consume that body - so LIFE is still there and everywhere.
Livingness, the life force is not negotiable.
Awareness is not negotiable.
Oneness is not negotiable.
The First Instant of Knowing is the pure functioning of that cognition - you can't get behind that.
You are That – Not Two-ness.
All the apparent parts of the universe are appearances of or in One Pattern, One Substance, one Fractal, if you like.
It all appears out of nothing and returns to nothing - so it is nothing - nothing but the one essence, appearing as this and that (many).
You are that knowing essence. - Whatever the mind tells you, in its translating mode, is just a concept and that concept can only APPEAR in non conceptual awareness.
I say, just be the seeing-and see that everything is registering in that cognizing emptiness.
Warm regards - Gilbert

To Gilbert,
Thank you so much for answering my email. - You inspired me to actually call up Sailor Bob in person in Australia, and we spoke for an hour. - He pretty much said what you wrote in your email, but at greater length. - It really helped me, and I saw clearly that the "I" is a fiction and that my awareness was usually wrongly and exclusively identified with it.
- He pointed to my natural awareness of 'presence of being' and said it (or I) was (IS) THAT.
- Full stop.
Stay with it, let it re-orientate me to understand that life lives me.
Not the other way round. - Apparently, it's not a mind or thought job! - I feel quite humbled at the moment, and glad there are people like you out there who are able to pass this message around.
- Well, I do hope this 'sticks' and "I" don't forget it all by next week!
Thanks once again. - All the best, Michael.

Gilbert: - Hope is useless - Knowing is all there is.
- You ARE THAT and whatever forgets or remembers can only be a limited transient view in the mind - In the mind it will constantly vibrate into new patterns of explanations and they all can only at best be a pointer at THAT - the source of all that is.
That is why Bob says: "Start from the fact that you are That."

The habitual stuff kicks in and a seeker will then say "How?" - And that question is the mind vibrating into a 'time realm'. - So knowing is foregone once again, seemingly.
So, to really get what he is saying one needs 'to BE That KNOWING presence' and see clearly what the mind is doing.
- In being that 'space of registration' everything falls into place, it flips over, so to speak.
Some have taken this advice and found that they are not that limited being that they believed that they were. - It appears that many need to be shaken up or in a crisis for that clear intention to genuinely investigate arise - the intent to really look into things and SEE what is....no matter what.