“Truth or reality cannot be stored, cannot be amassed – it does not accumulate. The value of any insight, understanding, or realisation can only be in the ever-fresh presence of the moment. Yesterday’s realisation is not a bit of good – it is dead, it has lost its vitality. It is useless to try and cling to or hold onto an insight, understanding, or realisation, for only in its movement can ever-fresh and new insights of truth or reality appear. The idea of enlightenment or self-realisation as a onetime event or a lasting and permanent state or experience is an erroneous concept. Understand-ING or know-ING is alive in the immediacy which can never be negated. The emphasis is on the activity of know-ING which is going on as the immediacy now – not the dead concept I understand or I know.”
Bob Adamson
You realize there is not a thing you can say about it. But you can’t deny the fact that it still is as it is. Realize you can’t negate your being, you can’t say, ‘I am not’. Realize that prior to the mind there is always that pure intelligence or knowingness. Just come back to the sense of presence that you are, and realize that that is birth-less, deathless, timeless, spaceless, bodiless and mindless.
There is no relationship between apparent seeking and realization of liberation. In the dawning of that, you realize that any direction you go in will always be in the mind. What ‘way out’ of the mind is there? Full Stop! Realize that all that is happening is conceptualization.
Realize there is only now! You can realize just how much takes place without the use of the mind. Realize that the functioning is happening effortlessly, without any ‘me’ involved. Realize that before anything can be wrong, there has to be thought.
We are not realizing that we were whole from the start, that we never have been separate. When you realize that you never find an answer to it in the mind, what happens? But realize that thought has come up spontaneously, effortlessly and intuitively on that what you are.
You realize also that you can’t cut space; you can’t grasp space; you can’t stir it up; you can’t do anything with it. The same applies to this awareness. See that and realize that you are the emptiness itself, the no-thing-ness.
“Just realise you are dreaming a dream you call the world and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another. Love all or none of it and stop complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that needs to be done.” Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“I AM not speaking to any body; I AM not speaking to any mind. I AM speaking to THAT I AM, that I AM. To that PRESENCE AWARENESS that expresses through the mind as the thought I AM. Just THIS, NOTHING else.”
Bob Adamson
“You will never ever find the answer in the mind. Mind is to grasp things, it cannot comprehend the no-thing.”
‘Knowing’ is what I call intelligence – not the intellect but 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, that is all acquired, conceptualized, words stuff. It is the basic activity of knowing, something that is happening now. It is this energy or life force or whatever label you want to put on it and it is functioning in the immediacy of the moment. That is what you are.”
Bob Adamson
“Subject-object thinking seems to cover the natural state (awareness). But without awareness, thinking could not take place. Because thinking appears in awareness (like a cloud appears in the sky), realise that thinking is in essence awareness. Understanding this, thinking cannot obscure awareness.”
Bob Adamson
“Whatever is translated or conceptualised as other than presence awareness need not be resisted, but simply recognised as it is – pure presence awareness appearing as other – always, only and ever That. Knowing that, conceptualising falls away and bare awareness remains unconcerned with thought. An effortless being – just this.”
Bob Adamson
“Because awareness is self-existing, there is no effort needed or anyone who can make an effort to get it or lose it. The natural state is never lost. It is not an appearance and therefore can never disappear. It is always the same – it is not an entity. Realise that the conceptual thinker and conceptual thoughts seemingly obscure the non-conceptual natural state. Pause a thought even for an instant and the natural state is fully evident. STOP and SEE. In the seeing, pure awareness gets used to itself.”
Bob Adamson
“In recognising presence awareness, there is no thing to see, just natural non-conceptual seeing, as it actually is – without subject or object. In seeing this, the realisation is immediate – that what is labelled as awareness, consciousness or mind can never be formulated as either a subject or an object. Being empty of a subject or object, it is emptiness seeing – cognising emptiness. Emptiness can never be emptied of emptiness, nor can it be filled by emptiness. With that concept cancelled out, only the wordless, thoughtless, indescribable emptiness remains. Not a vacuum or a void, but a vivid self-shining, self-knowing, self-aware emptiness, like a clear sky full of light. See for yourself – no one can do it for you. Immediate simplicity – continue to see that the seeing is continuous. Any doubt, question, or argument, and the conceptual seeker seemingly appears again. Yet in that seeing, non-conceptual emptiness remains undisturbed.”
Bob Adamson
“It’s an illusion that ‘you’ exist. The entity ‘you’ is imagined. Imagining that ‘you’ exist as something or someone separate is the cause of acceptance or rejection of something known. It is illusion telling the story of its own deception. The knower and the known are just concepts seemingly dividing natural non-conceptual knowing. Believing in the thought ‘I am’ gives seeming reality to the objective world which is constantly changing, yet everything in essence is that changeless natural knowing – nothing else.”
Bob Adamson
“Self-shining presence-awareness requires no effort. There is no need to try to do something with the expectation that suddenly awareness will be there. Presence-awareness is always here and now whether it is recognised or seemingly lost. It is not something that can be created or destroyed. Conceptual thinking is like a cloud that seemingly blocks the sun. Being at ease in non-conceptual naturalness is presence-awareness, already here and now. Re-cognise again, and again, and again, and despite what is appearing and disappearing, the knowing it is always so is constant. Self-knowing, self-shining – just this, nothing else.”
Bob Adamson
“Recognise the naturalness that you are – pure, all-pervasive, space-like, ever-expressing, spontaneous presence-awareness, with no reference point having any substance or independent existence. Failing to recognise naturalness (the unity of appearance and emptiness, space and its content), delusion happens and there is a grasping of or fixation on appearance – me and the other, a seeming duality. Without that fixation, there is freedom as naturalness. Delusion dissolves and evenness (non-duality) remains – the natural state, simply this, nothing else. Naturally remaining as naturalness (equanimity), is the natural (effortless) meditation of no one to meditate and nothing to meditate on – of no trying to get or trying to avoid, just effortless being which is always already so. Recognise this again and again.”
Bob Adamson
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.
Some questions to contemplate
- Did you come here to learn or to get something? Something new, exciting, entertaining? Something you don’t have yet? Or to become someone?
- If it is sat-chit-ananda as Hinduism calls it – existence (being), consciousness (knowing), bliss (loving to be or stillness) then:
- Can you deny your being? (Can you not be?);
- Are you unaware? (Unconscious?);
- Would you rather be dead now?
- Aren’t you THAT (sat-chit-ananda) already?
- If is true what they say in the great mantra (Mahavakya) – I Am That – wouldn’t it be essential to look what the word ‘THAT’ represents?
- What is THAT in our language?
- What is not THAT?
- What is the word after all?
- What is the word “I” or “ME”?
- Where you born with any words?
- How were they acquired?
- If Buddhism points to it as ‘non-conceptual, ever fresh presence awareness and nothing else (just this) – are you not aware of this presence right now?
- What else do you expect if they say ‘just this, nothing else’?
- In Christianity we have Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, what does it mean?
- Isn’t ‘Omnipotence’ the TOTAL power? Is there any room for Higher Power, will-power, power of thought or entity doing something?
- Is there any other power running the universe, cells, atoms and your body?
- Are you doing (do you have power to do) digestion or growing hair?
- Are you doing seeing or thinking (how?)?
- Isn’t ‘Omnipresence’ the TOTAL presence? Can ‘you’ be separated or excluded?
- Isn’t ‘Omniscience’ the TOTAL knowing?
- Is belief ever the actual? (Example: Earth is flat, Santa Claus is real). Is that true when investigated?
- When we seek to become whole and complete – we want liberation – who is that for? Who is the “we”? Is there a personal self?
- Is the Person ever a reality? Where did that word ‘Person’ come from? Doesn’t it mean THE MASK in Latin? Isn’t it a Mask of a concepts?
- Isn’t the conceptual image based in believed past? Isn’t it dead? Is there freshness and newness in it?
- Relating to the false image, what are you going to liberate yourself from?
- What is to be realised?
- Liberation is to be from what and for who?
- Do you still believe you can find the answer in the mind?
- Do you think you can get peace of mind?
- What is the nature of mind? Can it stop vibrating between opposites and still exist? Can it work in any other way?
- What is there when vibration ceases for a moment or is not attended to?
- If there was an answer in thought, how long would that be valid for?
- Why hasn’t anybody found it there yet?
- Is the word – the actual? Can the word water – make you wet; or word fire – burn?
- Is it any different with the rest of the words in the manifestation? Are they the real things or just symbolic representations?
- Is this word ‘I’ or ‘me’ who I really am?
- Isn’t the manifestation a dream-like illusion projected and sustained by the energy of belief (attention)?
- Is there anything permanent or static in the manifestation? Anything solid?
- Do you have the same body you were born with?
- Where is that original cell (formed from joined sperm and ovum dividing into a foetus) right now?
- Did the body start then or much earlier? Did it start when your parents where eating food and breathing prana which enabled these cells to form or even earlier? Can you trace back the beginning?
- What is the body anyway? What is it made of?
- Is any of the elements in the body (air, matter (earth), fire (temperature), water, space) separate from the totality?
- Can you separate yourself from (remove) water (body is mostly water!), air, solids, heat or space?
- Can you live without any of the elements? Can you leave earth or space?
- Can you function if you stop replenishing them from the environment?
- Isn’t the body just a vibrating pattern of energy?
- When you break it to elements or further to subatomic particles, or waves, to pure energy – isn’t it as they say the no-thing?
- Isn’t it the same with every form in this manifestation made of phenomena?
- What is phenomena, how does the dictionary explains it? Isn’t it that, which only appears to be?
- So, are you this body?
- Don’t you call it my body just like my coat or my car?
- Could the body be a kind of coat or car?
- Doesn’t language suggest it when you say you are an owner of the body or coat or car?
- Who is that owner?
- Are you this mind?
- Don’t you say my mind, just the same way?
- Can you show me your mind?
- Is there anything else other than thought?
- What is thought? Isn’t it a subtle sound or vibration of energy?
- How did it all start after the baby was born?
- What can you remember without words, before reasoning and storing memory was possible?
- How did you learn you are a person? Who told you so?
- What else did they say you were?
- What did you add to it?
- What are you relating to as “me” right now?
- Isn’t it all relating to the past events? How else would you know what you like or dislike?
- Isn’t this reference point a dualism?
- Can there be a duality in non-duality?
- If ego is a problem, can you get rid of it? Who would be trying to remove it if not ego itself?
- Is there such a thing as an ego?
- In relating to past image of what is good or bad; and wanting to keep the good and push away the bad – aren’t we in conflict with what is right now? Isn’t it RESISTANCE?
- Doesn’t conflict make you anxious, depressed, and uneasy?
- Isn’t un-easiness a dis-ease?
- Isn’t all the psychological suffering a conflict or dis-ease?
- What if you don’t relate it to a reference point (me)? Where does it go?
- How about Nature? Does it relate anything to anything?
- Doesn’t it also vibrate in opposites, day/night, summer/winter – without any conflict?
- Does silence fight the sound?
- Are you anything other than Nature?
- How to do the investigation? Look: Are you seeing right now?
- Did you decide to start it in the morning? Or was it there, already available as the rest of functioning?
- Isn’t it the same seeing with you right now? Content is different, but has the seeing capacity change?
- Isn’t it the same with hearing?
- Does my eye tell me “I see”? Does it say “Look at this, look at that”?
- Isn’t the thought “I see” merely a translation of the mind creating a subject-object split in plain singular seeing?
- Can that thought “I see” actually see? (Close your eyes and check!)
- If eye is only an instrument and thought only translation – WHAT IS SEEING?
- Same way – does the thought “I hear” – actually hear?
- Is the thought “I’m aware” – your awareness?
- Is the thoiught “I choose” – the choice maker?
- Can you choose thoughts?
- Would you ever have unhappy thoughts if you could choose them?
- How many thoughts can a CORPSE have? How much can it see or hear?
- How much information can you get out of the computer if the power is not ON?
- How long are you searching? Could it be that you are seeking in the wrong place?
- Do you think you can find it in future?
- Where is the future if you don’t think, imagine it?
- Are you trying to become something?
- Is becoming – being?
- If it is to be found in time, can you trust it?
- If it has a beginning, wouldn’t it be just passing phenomena, experience?
- Having beginning, wouldn’t it have an end?
- Isn’t TIME the mind? Is there a past or any other time than now if you don’t think about it?
- Who are you if you don’t think about it?
- Who are you without your past?
- Would the conceptual answer ever satisfy you? For how long?
- What is wrong with right now if you don’t think about it?
- Can you find curiosity to pause the thought and see if you still exist without thinking? What does it really mean?
