How a single line can change your default view | Working with pointers [public version]

NThere was a question from Daniel, I believe — how can you connect to the truth in a way that it becomes the default view? Because I think most of you who watch this channel are looking at the wisdom teachings so far down the path. It's not that you don't recognize what they're saying, though you do recognize the truth, but there's a sense that the mind comes in and out of it. You're forgetting and you're recognizing, you're forgetting, you're recognizing. How does it become the default view?

And usually I just say it's just about seeing how true the view is. When you see how true the direct view is, then the previous way of watching things is just naturally discarded. You just need to see it clearly, how true this is. And that is true. But as long as you're still looking, you're still trying to get somewhere — that doesn't help if I say that, I guess.

So let's try another way, and that is how it used to work for me as you're still trying to get there. You recognize a teaching which is very profound — it hits you. So it might be a single line, a one-liner from the dialogues of Nisargadatta or a Zen koan. It's a single line and you feel it contains the entire truth. When you read it, it hits you, you know it, but then you're going back. So use that line. I call it working with the pointer. You keep it in your mind. You wake up, about to brush your teeth — remember, think of that line, contemplate, hit on it. And working with a pointer is actually letting the pointer work on you. It will do its magic. But you have to — sometimes it hits right away and the effect is done. Sometimes it's like you plant a seed and it'll slowly unknot the kind of wrong thinking going on.

So let's take an example. I want to do this video on the Hsin Hsin Ming, one of the Zen texts, and it starts with a line: "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences." So just take that line and you can work with it. What is it really saying? And if you slow down and you let it spend days with it, the meaning becomes deeper and deeper. Why? What is the Great Way? Just that phrase — why? It's not a personal path. It's not a little road. It is the Great Way. And your mind will start to comprehend: oh, it's not talking about my path getting somewhere. The Great Way is the way things are. It's not a journey. It's the way things actually are.

And then you will see — then the scope changes. During the day, as you're flickering between "oh I got lost" and so on, then the line comes back. The Great Way is not difficult — and the scope changes. The Great Way encompasses this moment, any moment. Like the Milky Way — the scope changes from a little path to the way of the Milky Way. The way in which all these galaxies can unfold, in which the multiverse must exist. It's not difficult if you have no preferences. Let go.

And then you go to the next line. Let go. "Let go of longing and aversion and it reveals itself." So then you start to work with that. What does it reveal? And you see: oh, the only time where this is a problem is when you have been pulled by a desire or pushed by something you don't want to happen, didn't want to happen. And the Great Way is just going on. And this is what changes it — what makes it feel something is wrong with the way. But those who have no preferences are free. And then you will think, like the mind, because you're still trying to figure it out.

It'll be like: how can I let go of longing and desire? It's not possible. And then because you're contemplating these wisdom teachings, there is already in your mind the wise part and then the usual part, the view you're trying to change. And the wise part will say, okay, maybe we cannot give it up for eternity, but let's try for a breath. Let's try for ten breaths. Can you let go of longing and aversion for just a few breaths? And you put it to practice and it works. These kinds of teachings — they're not theoretical. So immediately you see: oh, it worked. If I had stayed trapped in that longing, in that aversion, life is hell. But if you just took a moment to stop longing and stop running away, the Great Way is not difficult. It is just the unfolding. It is the happening of everything.

And then you get to the next part of that same line. Like I said, you slow — it slowly blossoms and might take several days. And just as an example, I picked this line and it says, "Let go of longing and aversion." And it reveals itself. It means the Great Way reveals itself.

And then — how does it reveal itself? Not as an "it," not as an object. The Great Way reveals itself as the happening, as the moment. It is the actual taking place of whatever is happening — the conceiving, the perceiving, the experiencing. And the Great Way does not reveal itself as something separate. It reveals itself as the Self. It says as soon as that longing and desire is gone, it is that intrinsic suchness — like, this is the way things are. This is the way. This is how it is. And you are the Great Way's context to whatever is happening — the basis.

So that is just an example of how a pointer with a single line — and I'm describing it — it won't hit you like what I'm describing, maybe. But if you work with it and let it work on you, that is how your default view at some point will be obviously the right view, and the old view will have just been discarded because it has no merit. It is baseless. It does not help you do anything better.

It is not necessary to think of yourself as a separate thing to do anything better, because to do anything well you actually have to forget the personal drama and just focus on the task and do it well. It just happens — you go into the flow state, you do it well. So there's nothing good about the wrong view. And as the pointers work, they sink in. That's the right view — is the default view. It has always been the default view. And the rest was just in the way. There was an overlay of thoughts and beliefs, misguided thoughts and beliefs. It's just like little dust devils on the way. And the default view has always been the right view.

All right, let's go from there.

QHi Nabeel. Good morning.

NHey there.

QI'm assuming — this is my first time, so I'm assuming it's okay to ask a question.

NYeah, go ahead.

QSo just a couple of things. First of all, thank you so much for the Spotify podcast. It has certainly been a revelation for me over the last couple of years. So thank you. Just listening again and again kind of clarifies a lot of things. And over the last week I've been wrestling — my scientific mind has been wrestling with something. So I thought I would ask you.

See, it's become very clear listening through you and reading that there is Awareness, the untouched, always present, and then for some reason Consciousness arises and it needs a medium. So you have the body-mind construct, and the mind or the "I" thought gets created. I think that logically has become very, very clear. Where I'm confused is: when you're speaking, or when anybody else is speaking, who are we speaking to? Is it the mind? Is it the Consciousness? Is it the Awareness? And if it's the Consciousness, then I feel like, well, so did Consciousness have a bug? Like, did it mistakenly attach itself to this "I" thought? Awareness couldn't, because it's very pristine. Or is it the mind basically that's trying to listen in and return back and prove to itself that, listen, I don't exist, I need to go back to my source? So that's my question.

NSure, good. So okay, let's just take the experience first. As you were talking and as I'm talking now, what is the actual experience? Even if the words are coming out from this throat and mouth, it's just a sound being heard. So the listening is the experience of sounds, but it has additional meaning attached to it. The meaning is being cognized. So it's actually two experiences linked together. It's the sounds and the understanding, and it's all coming packaged. That's one experience. It's actually more complex because actually at the same time there's seeing and there's feeling and all that. So that is all going on, and that is what is called Consciousness when we're trying to split hairs and say Awareness and Consciousness. Consciousness is the experiential side of it. But we're just splitting hairs. It's a way to try to communicate, but actually Consciousness is not separate to Awareness. It is that aspect which we can say has a felt experience to it. It has form. And Awareness is pointing to the basic underlying factor due to which even Consciousness can arise. How can there be an experience? That there is this quality of being aware.

So when the listening is happening, it is happening, and it's to the Awareness. There's only Awareness that is aware, instead of there being separate individuals who are aware. That is the basic thing to investigate and conclude. Is there duality in the sense there are separate things which are aware — they gain Awareness and they lose it — so there must be a clear duality between being conscious and then being not conscious, unconscious? Or is it that there's a single baseline Reality itself is aware, and within it experiences can arise and be known? And if within the experience there is a strong belief and a thinking pattern going on which is saying, "Oh, I am a separate thing" — that is where... that's just a part of the experience, and that can... the sense what you were describing, that there are two different people.

QOkay, so that's clear. So ultimately I understand that the Sentience is the inherent property of Awareness, and through that all of this experience is observed. In your talks, in Nisargadatta's teachings, when you're saying that you have falsely believed yourself to be the body-mind construct or this fictional entity — who is the "you" in that?

NYeah, sure. That's a sharp question, because actually Awareness is never fooled. Who is fooled? But it's a way of... because in most lives it will never be apparent. The Awareness does not recognize what it is, what's its place in Reality. All that's taking center stage is the experience. And whatever the experience says, Awareness — that this is the thing that is aware — and that's just a story that plays out. What the sage is trying to do is they have no purpose in speaking to a person and so on, because they've seen all of that does not exist. What they're trying to do is within that life they want to clean up the stage, or at least let the audience — the Awareness — recognize Awareness. Reality through that life can see what Reality is.

And of course as we use language it's silly and it sounds weird — like, can Awareness get fooled? Can Reality get fooled? No. Reality is always real. Always has that nature of being aware. Always is perfect, pristine, timeless. However, it is very rarely that any experience is perfectly pointing back and showing this is the nature of Reality. And that is the aim of these dialogues.

QThank you. Thank you.

NYes, Leila — still on mute.

QHow about now? Do you hear me?

NGreat.

QHi, Nabeel. I hope you're doing well. So I have a question regarding — I wrote it down on the paper, somebody helped me, a friend. So I make decisions, and when I already made the decision and am acting on them, what happens immediately after — I blame myself that it might be a wrong decision. Why did I do that? Why did I do this decision? And I know eventually this is the Awareness which is me made that decision, but what happens here is that the little Leila comes, the little "I" comes, and it says you did it. It's like trying to blame and be worried and be afraid, and that is where I have my problems. So I don't know if you have any advice or how can I let go of this mind story — one decision. It could be like simple decisions, and it's all based on the problem.

NMhm. Okay. So we apply the right view to it. Isn't that Awareness is making the decision? That's—

QYeah.

NNo, no. Awareness does not decide. Awareness renders the experience of the decision-making, but it is not making the decision. Would "I" make the decision? Nothing made the decision. It's just you are experiencing what's going on. There's two different chain reactions going on which have different weights, whatever, in the brain, and they're trying to reach a conclusion. You are experiencing that. Awareness is rendering both sides, and it might appear as two voices having an argument in a head — might feel like that. You're neither of the voices. And then the decision is reached just because certain chemical weights, whatever word, went one way, and that is the decision. It is no entity that makes a decision, and Awareness is not an entity that makes decisions either. It's not how humans personify everything.

QMhm.

NAwareness is just the basic intrinsic nature of Reality which allows the experience of that decision-making to take place, and the decision to be experienced, and then the guilt to be experienced, and all the narrative to be experienced. And in all of that, the role of Awareness is that it is at the same time intimately taking form as all of that and yet perfectly standing apart, unchanging. Yeah, that is the Self. This unchanging is what we call "I." In this whole life, there's only one "I." It doesn't change.

QBut this one "I" is that Awareness, correct?

NYes. When you get to the actual meaning of "I," it's just Awareness.

QSo I have difficulty to understand that Awareness doesn't make the choice and there is no one who makes that choice, but still I'm suffering of that — of the result of that.

NSo let's go to the same statement from the Hsin Hsin Ming. What did it say? "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences." So you don't want to be this way or that way — you don't care — then you are taking your role as what you are. "Let go of longing and aversion and it reveals itself." What reveals itself? So whatever it is, just let it go. Just don't look for the result or to reach a point where you see how even the letting go is an effort. And we're threading a very fine needle where it's completely what is completely effortless. When you try to resist, that's effort. If you try to let go, that's effort. But when you have no preferences and you look at the moment as it is, then the Great Way reveals itself.

QThat means when I made a decision — that means when I made a decision, when the suffering comes, if it's right decision or wrong decision, just let it go.

NYeah. So you do the thing. So like, even letting go will be hard in the moment. It'll be hard. You will need effort to let go. So instead you take a few breaths and say, okay, whatever you're experiencing, that is the experience. Sure, there's guilt or whatever — that is the experience in the moment — and you do not long for the guilt to go.

QMhm.

NEven that longing — are you not averse to the guilt? And then the Great Way is because you have seen what the truth is: that "I" only means Awareness and not an entity that made the decision, and not an entity that is suffering. But the guilt itself — the guilt itself is Consciousness taking form only because it is sculpting what the underlying process is doing. Consciousness is like the artistic side of nature. There's the physics, and then Consciousness creates a sculpture out of it, and that is the experience. It's painting — it's just continuously painting exactly what is happening. Must be painted. It will never say no, and it will never decide what to paint and what not to paint. That is the role of Consciousness. And you then see: this is the way — this is the way things are. Not a way that I need to adopt or a way I need to walk down, but the way things are.

And then the next line in this thing — because yeah, I just go with the flow. So the next line is: but if you make even the slightest discrimination — like I've forgotten the actual line, but I think it says even a hair's breadth of difference sets heaven and earth apart — like as soon as you like or dislike, then the suffering begins. Then it snowballs, because your like and dislike is the seed around which it'll keep rolling and growing and churning, because you have now got a preference to how Awareness should be. But whose preference is it? The preference is again of something that is not conscious. It's again some little network in the brain is deciding, "Oh, it shouldn't be this way, it should be this way," but that thing is not conscious, so why should we respect its opinion? You start to see it. That's the right way. I did not make the decision. I'm not guilty. Who is saying that that was a bad decision? Again, it's not conscious. Like it's all snip snip. And then — yeah — the Way.

QSo then we shouldn't take any blame or anything — that we didn't do the decisions — it's just happens? So from... as something functioning in a society, like this body is functioning — guilt is very important. It sets certain boundaries. Without even — without [unclear] — you follow certain rules. And so all these things — guilt, disgust, and all the things the mind says are bad — when you're experiencing them, they're there for a reason. They should be experienced.

NYeah. So it's like I said — it's threading a very fine needle, which is to find what is truly "I" in this moment. No matter what is happening, it does not change. There's not a point where you become enlightened and then you are in a perfect state where your perfect mind. But actually in any life, no matter what is being experienced — criminal, so on — that is all the Way. That is part of the Great Way. All experiences are taking place along the Great Way. The only problem is this thinking of being something walking in the Way, being aware and not like as a separate thing and all that, making decisions and so on. So the view is going to the right view — the direct view — in which you are only ever aware of what arises and not deciding what should arise, what should happen. Those are not things in your control.

QThank you. Thank you.

NCisco. Let's try. Can you hear me?

QYes, I can hear you this time.

NAll right. Good.

QOkay. So to the idea of the pointer of the Great Way — I kind of put it together with another one, which is the one of what I am: that I am Awareness. I cannot forget that. As long as I remember that I am Awareness, and what function is my only function as Awareness — I am nothing else but that. No, I am not a body. I don't have any preferences. I don't have anything — inequalities or anything like that. Then together with the idea that there is this way where Awareness functions — the way that it functions — which is simply noticing, noticing everything — then automatically the idea of the Great Way becomes clear. Because immediately it is clear that I cannot do anything as an entity or anything like that. All I can do is just notice things, which is what I'm doing anyway. And so automatically life is taken on a different perspective. It's from the perspective of Awareness rather than the perspective of somebody that can get outcomes, or they can get hard likes, dislikes and reject some things and get attached to other ones.

It's not — I don't say that that is the default way that I live, but it is the way that I think that is working for me — mainly looking at what I am and what is the perfect role for what I am. And there's only one role: being aware. That's it. There's no other role. And emphasizing the fact that I am Awareness alone — that's it — then that clarifies the whole way that life operates, I think, because there is no longer personality involved. There are no desires or anything like that. They will fall. They fall away when I think like that, when I remember that. Then no matter what is happening, if I can remember that, it loses the steam that it has — whether even when it is something that I might be attached to, still it's a sting. So it's not just what I reject but also whether I get attached. But that's all goes away when I take a stand as Awareness and I just function as Awareness and nothing else. What do you think? Is it that right or no?

NYeah. I mean that is your role. That's the self-evident nature of the Self — that you are aware. That is all. The rest is all things that arise. They arise later. You are there first. Then experience begins. Then all the persona appears, and all the memories that start to get accumulated and all that.

However, you have to be careful. Like in the instruction "your Awareness alone" — it's from sage to disciple. It's a pointer to help you realize. But then what you see in your own mind is that whenever anything comes forward and says "I am Awareness," that is just thought. So actually in truth nobody, nothing has that authority to say "I am Awareness," because Awareness never speaks. Awareness is the listening. And in the listening there is a voice which says you are Awareness alone. And without saying anything, without thinking, the recognition is instant — in the instant — because yes, Awareness is aware. And you know the pointer in the voice is back to the source.

So in the end even to say "I am Awareness" is unnecessary and kind of wrong, but we use it to communicate. And yes, yes, that's correct.

QYeah, but you know the pointer comes out, becomes neat, when you have totally forgotten about the whole thing. And when you are not listening, when you are not really attending to the clues that are being given in every — in your experience — and all where you are is stuck on your mind, then it might be, to me, it helps to remember. It's just the pointer. I don't take it, you know. I realize that the words don't mean anything really, other than they somehow point to something that I do understand. I do feel it, and I can see it often — not all the time, but at times I can see, like you said, on your own experience — it tells you that because you are aware of the experience. That's it. That's exactly my point. But that's just for the times that I am lost — when I forgot everything — and then it will help to return back, to bring the attention back to what I am, rather than get out from the turmoil and say, hey, look around and see where you are. No longer you are not all these things that you think that you're stirring with. That's what I say. But I recognize what you're saying. It's not just a thought or a word of, you know, like a mantra that you repeat over and over. No, no, no, not that. It's something that you had to feel. I do feel it. It's just I need to feel it more often — make it more continuous. But it's working.

NAll right. Thank you. Thank you. Then you will reach a point where the no-preferences thing even applies to this remembering. I have no preference to be remembering what I am or forgetting. Like, who cares? Who has that preference? That one is still in the mind. The mind has a preference — once it recognizes its true master, the true "I," then it wants to worship or pray or whatever. That's the quality of the mind. The devotion is again in the mind. And eventually that drops off and you're like — even that preference, it's gone. It's let go, because the Way encompasses everything, all lives, anything. And the classification of good experiences, bad experiences, or how much you've realized or not realized — it's all bogus.

Not that you're doing anything wrong, but it's just that is the Great Way unfolding when all preferences become what will only in some way lead to suffering. But the suffering is also part of the Great Way.

Yes, Neil.

QGood morning.

NGood day. Good day in Australia, of course.

QI've been watching your videos, of course — quite an older one. That it's just this knowing that has appeared upon the Absolute. And I found that quite... it just seemed really important to me at the moment somehow. And I went through it yesterday like almost like dissecting it, or really focusing on each bit. And it just kind of threw up lots of stuff and made lots of good stuff, interesting stuff about the Absolute, about the Absolute and your original face — you know, your state before you were born. And that to me that really captivated me a lot, a great deal.

And one of the things was — it made me think was to envision, because one of the questions kind of goes something along the lines of: but put yourself where you were before you were born. And to do that, to me, that I need to use imagination. And then it's kind of like — why should I? Is that the right method? Is that the right technique — to just sit, imagine? Or kind of is it just somewhere you go to to remember that state that you were in before you were born? And I thought there was just a lot up in that. There's so much in just that. And I was going to ask you just — how do you do that? Once again language has got this way of making you sound like a complete idiot, but I can't think of a better way of putting it. So maybe you could illuminate a little bit.

NYeah, sure. So that video — it's a description of the insight from the direct point of view I had. Like I have to say "I had" — I didn't have it. I wasn't there.

QYeah, it is.

NI went through — it's just — it's ridiculous. I did not go through. I ceased to be. Everything I thought I was... and you don't. It's all imagination and thinking about it until you actually cease to be. But then I hear from people who've been through general anesthesia and so on and they don't have that same impact. So again it's something I don't know — exploring later. But right now, when you cease to be, everything you thought you were has gone. There's no time, no space, no experience. You have ceased to be. Everything has ceased to be. Because there's no world that can exist and you're not there but the world is there. They come together.

So Nabeel had ceased to be. And then in that, the knowing appeared. And when you know we call it experience, but it's like from that standpoint what appears is just knowledge. It's just a knowing. And something is being known but not something. It's just the knowing — the knowledge is being known. And from that standpoint, what you realize is whatever I thought it was does not exist, was never born. Because all that happens is that in the Absolute, knowledge appears, knowing appears, experiencing. And it appears upon the Absolute without changing the Absolute and without creating anything new. Without there being — you know — nothing was born. Only knowing appeared upon the Absolute. In the knowing a character was there — it comes later. I come later. And even the character, when you look at it clearly, there's no character. It's just sounds and sensations. It is the knowing. So nothing was born. That was the realization. Nothing was, or nothing got created. It is just this knowing which has appeared upon the Absolute.

And by Absolute it is not again something to try to find or experience, because the Absolute is there before experience. The Absolute is the actual "I," the actual base Reality in which the knowing arises. And why is that "I"? Because of course when the knowing arises it's not from a second-person or third-person perspective. It's the direct view. It arises to the Self. So what's happening is the old meaning of "I" which was learned and built up — demolished — and the meaning of "I" has now changed. It means the Absolute. I don't know — does that make any sense?

QYeah. Yes. Absolutely. The way it unfolds is just the more it unfolds, the more it unfolds, and suddenly you see another stuff and then more questions kind of come up. And as I've said before, I mean one of these days I'd like to get you, me, just on our own and I'll ask — I'll just talk to you for about a week and maybe I'll get to really sort it all out. But no, that helps a great deal and thank you so much.

NYeah. Right. Yeah. Thank you. So I mean while we're there we can follow it up a bit. So what I described — I looked for the terminology — it seems to be cessation. And that's maybe the term — cessation. Or it's not just the ego death. Ego death — it seems like you can talk about ego death but there's still experience. But no, this is beyond that kind of ego death. Yes, that's also happened. But it doesn't have the same impact as the complete loss of experience and the sense of time or... so I think the closest I heard is there was another term — Zen death or something like which is... yeah, there's just an absolute gap in your storyline which the mind cannot comprehend or explain. And because of that gap it can flip. Like the gap is the evidence. And from the gap when the story begins — that is the evidence that no, you do not exist. Now the story is appearing and you are now appearing in the story. So obviously you are not the one who is aware. You are just an accumulation of experiences tied together in a knot, given a name.

And how to do this — that is one of the questions you ask. How do you? Well, you can't force cessation. Well, you could actually if you unfortunately have to go for an operation or something. But then there's no guarantee that you will see it this way. I don't know why. I think it should happen every morning when you wake up. This insight should hit you. Because there was deep sleep which is good enough. There's no experience there. You go to the sleep states, and some sleep states there's some experience and there's dreams and then sense of time, but there's deep sleep and you wake up and you still think, yeah, I went to sleep, I woke up, I'm the same me, I'm aware, I'm conscious.

So what in some of the videos what I try to point to — maybe in this one as well — is if you really want to go there, I don't think you need to, but you explore the sleep states, the waking out of sleep states, the hovering between dreams and wakefulness. And when you meditate, if you meditate, then sit with the intention that you want absolutely no experience. I want to get rid of all experience. And when that has happened, what is left will be Reality. Because experience of course is subjective. You cannot say, you know, it keeps shifting and changing. There's nothing to pin down and say this is the Self. And that's where those dialogues — they kept pushing me back. What was born? Yeah. And that's going on. You asked what was your original face before you were born? And you try to apply that in your meditation. And that's by — I'm not interested in any experience. Then experience will try to tempt you and give you some nice tastes of this and that, and you — no, I don't want it — and it'll go away. And then you'll be left with all the other problem, like I've denied and it's so loud and how do you get rid of that. But if you persist in not being interested, not longing and not being averse, but just not caring and not interested, you drift into samadhi. And there are different kinds of samadhi, but there's what's nirvikalpa samadhi, or there's some term there as well, but it is samadhi where experience ends, time stops. That's the gap. But the crucial point is as you come out — how do you interpret that? Because the mind has ways to ignore it. It'll come back and say, "Yeah, it's just me. I'm back. It's me. I was there. I was conscious. Now I'm back." Blah, blah, blah. And the permanent — the insight is missed.

I'm sorry I'm talking very long about this, but I think it is at the same point maybe — to me the most crucial insight I have had. On the other hand I don't want to push everyone there because it's just a rare — an oddity. It's not repeatable. Like now if I say I want to do it again — well, I don't have the interest. There was a certain motivation and the drivers, the pointers were pushing you there and you got there. And some have that motivation — still doesn't happen. To some this happens and they still don't realize. So what is going on? To me, the original-face pointer can be seen the other way, which in the Huineng video I described it the other way, which is just taking this view right now.

Your original face is still here. Everything else can have come — it cannot have changed your original face. So that the other side is: while experience is there, even in that moment you can be pointed back to your original face, which is the formless pristine aware factor here right now. Obviously that is where this knowing began. Still that is your original face.

QJust one other, just while it's there, if that's okay. I don't take too much of your time. Your videos obviously such a major part of I guess why we're all here. Is there — maybe it's just my mind trying to put everything in a logical order for somebody new, or I've kind of jumped in not halfway through but not far from the beginning. Is there an order or a succession — I can't think of a better word for how you do the videos. Is there an order of progression or going in a certain movement with the content with the videos? Or is it something — I hate to use that word random — but it's just something inspires you and you do it, like painting — you just go, I really feel like doing this today and Rumi tomorrow — it just happens spontaneously? Or what I'm trying to say is because I do find some — I'll watch one and then the next one follows and it's like, yeah, they kind of feed on the previous one and then it's like, oh yeah, it's like opening pages on a book. But is there a progression as it were?

NYes. So the first year or two there's a progression to the videos because I wanted to... I didn't start from... but actually I did. So even in the third video, the eyes-closed one, I actually talk about cessation but in a nicer way — not the video you watched, which comes I think a year later and talks it a bit more, can approach it a bit more — I don't know — the raw insight of it. So there's a progression because I wanted to start by — because part of the inspiration was someday I want my daughter to listen to these if she ever has the interest. I don't know if she will or not, but if she does there's a progression that you can start from the basic definition. The question is: there's the experience — who is the experiencer? So you pose that question, then you start to define Consciousness, and then you build — okay, how did I see it this way, how did the Buddha see it this way — and you build on that. So yes there's a progression, but it ends around, I think, the video around "You're the Happening of It." That was, I think — I say okay, this point it's kind of done. Like what more is there to say? Everything — there was a deep sleep video — everything is done. And after that it's more of now it's just whatever, because I started doing texts like Ashtavakra Gita and that's got its own arc and so on. Now there's not so much progression and it's a hard entry. But that's why I'm starting to do those meditation kind of videos which are a softer way to enter this stuff. But you're right. They build on. So not all of what you're experiencing, which is that insight building on insight — that's not my doing. That's how insight works. You read in a dialogue and then you maybe read something else and then they combine to deepen and reveal the deeper meaning of the truth.

It's a bit like you're spiraling, like I often say — like it's spiraling. It's the same truth is spiraling around the same truth and seeing it a million ways. Seeing it a million ways.

QYeah, makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

NThank you, Leslie.

QHe's still on mute. Just talking about that progression. So I've listened to all your podcasts and videos from the beginning a few times, and I'm walking a fair bit at the moment. I'm busy training to walk my Camino again, and I started at the beginning because it's just comforting to listen to you talk while I'm walking. And one of the early videos you spoke about the green mountains walking and the stone woman, and I'd heard that several times before, but this time it was a totally different experience. Those green mountains walking and the stone woman — I actually got it. And it's not a beginning thing. It is so profound. It is just so beautiful. So I stopped listening just then and I couldn't listen to anything more. But yeah, I just wanted to say — you talk about a progression, but even in that progression there's this depth that can just sink in and be realized. And I just love that koan of the mountains walking and the stone woman. It was just fabulous.

NYeah. Yeah. It's just because the teachings I use have that depth of meaning in them that even I can revisit it and it's wonderful. It's beautiful. It takes you right to this bullseye of what the pointers are all about.

QYeah, just building on the same topic. I think there was a two-week window in December where I was just listening and it's like this is so simple. Every word was like appealing. I had heard it before, but that time I think it was just maybe the holidays or something that the teachings became very, very clear. But then come back February you have to start re-listening again to figure those out. But just in the videos the question might be a tactical one. What's the source of truth? Is it Spotify the source of truth or YouTube? Like if you have to re-read all through or listen to them in an ascending order on when they were created, what would be the source of truth?

NI think it's the same — Spotify and YouTube. So YouTube is the main page, I guess, because on YouTube I post a music and a no-music version. So if you prefer to listen without music, okay, that's available on YouTube. I would have just done without music, but you know YouTube — you have to play the YouTube game, and if I post without music the channel doesn't grow. So you end up playing the game.

QGot it.

NYeah. And all these recordings — I post them on YouTube but they'll be like unlisted. There's a member section just because again YouTube pushed me to start a member section. They actually paid me cash to do it. They want people to turn it on because it makes more profit. But I release all the content on Ko-fi so you can view it free, or as unlisted videos. There's a playlist on YouTube.

QSo, Nabeel, since we're just talking a few practicalities — what is the purpose of the AI notes that come up that get emailed to us after the satsang?

NSure. So that's not me adding it. It's just some of the attendees — they add it, or I guess it gives them a recording plus summary. So yeah, and then it emails everyone who's in the call. But yeah, I don't think AI is the best means to explore this kind of...

QNo, I just wondered why it was there. I didn't know. I thought it was you.

QNabeel, another tactical thought I've had as listening to the videos. Is there any plan to turn all of them into literature — just word by word what's been said into text to read?

NYeah. Yes. Yes. I've been asked that before. I did start it. I haven't got around to finishing it because I'm adding to it some blog posts I used to do which were almost private. Nobody saw them before I started the channel. So they kind of have again — it's a bit of a linear arc because you know the seeker mind wants the linear arc how to get there. I don't think it's linear, but still I can — I'm trying to put those original blog posts until the point I started the channel. I started a channel at the point where I thought, yep, done, now I can maybe speak a few words — that's the point — and then the transcripts from the channel. So, yep. Hopefully, I don't know when, in a year or two.

QThat'll be awesome.

NYes, Neil.

QSorry, I'm hogging time here. Just on the same subject. You talked about doing more meditative videos and you've started doing... on quite often on these nonduality channels they do have a meditation kind of section portion. Is that something that you are even thinking about? Is that something that would work with your way of doing things? Because it'd be interesting. That's all.

NYeah. Can you say a bit more — like what do you mean meditation section?

QWell, I don't like trying to put it in the past. I've watched quite a lot of Rupert Spira who I've got a great deal of respect for, and quite often in his events they'll stop and do a meditation. I guess I use that word quite broadly, and I know I kind of contradicted myself because I've always said since discovering nonduality that I don't meditate anymore — which is, I know, totally... but that's me. I'm contradiction. But you do mention — like I said you use that word meditation — but is there a way that it would enhance with what you're teaching to do it like that? Does that explain it?

NSure. Yeah. I think for now I'm just doing — I do some videos which have longer gaps and more like a guided inquiry. That's what I find might be useful. I don't know. But in these kind of calls I like to keep it conversational. We'll see.

QYeah. I don't do guided meditations. So not your cup of tea.

NYeah. I think when — because I think what worked for me most was Nisargadatta, and his dialogues are not about... like they're a bit confrontational. I want to bring out the barriers. I want to bring out what's preventing you from seeing clearly. And on the spot, we address that. And if you want to meditate, plenty of chance to do that. You don't need me there. Because to me, the true meditation is what I described — is when you lose interest in anything, everything. Look at your sage and all the words and everything and you don't even want any experience. Lose yourself, and then you watch what returns, who it returns to, and that is the end of meditation. Then meditation is over.

QYeah. I guess that's the thing that I — as I said to you were saying earlier — that you see something and then another vista opens and you go, oh god, why how didn't I see that, or what — I've just missed something really critical in the whole process. And yeah, by just you saying that — kind of go, you've not missed it. It's just it was impossible for that to land until something else had been ripped out and thrown away. Ripping out stuff and then you go back and then it hits clearer — and that is the process and that is the Way. Thank you very much.

NThank you. Thank you.

QHi Nabeel. From the morning — so I think it's like when you dissected — it's like a desire to feel that peace that you had, and you're kind of like, like you say Awareness, anything else you just — anything is there, like you have no preference, no nothing. But then that desire comes to feel that peace and that gets the mind going. And then the mind starts saying, okay, I am Awareness, look I'm seeing and I'm this, and then you get tangled up in this. And there is occasionally something comes and says drop all that — you are Awareness — like you don't have to reason through it and say I am seeing, it's me — drop all that — like you are Awareness — like something that bypasses all this and then it gets you there. Does that make sense? Like it's so intricate, this mind thing — the desire that you said, like in the Great Way, drop all your desires and aversions per se. It gets very, very subtle. Like you know it's so subtle that it takes... Can you talk about that?

NYeah. Yeah. So when there is the longing for peace, you just apply the view to it. Again, the right view. The longing is not you longing, but there's a longing for peace. And that longing for peace itself is disturbing the peace. The peace is the natural state. If there was no longing, what would there be? You would be at peace. But the longing has arisen and it is disturbing the peace, but the longing is for the peace. So it's a bit of a — it's insane — it's crazy. But then you just keep applying the right view to it. I am not the one longing. And when the mind says, "Oh, you are the seeing," and so on and so forth, Awareness does not need to hear that. Who is it talking to? Again, that is disturbing the peace. But then the no preferences applies to peace as well. Peace for whom? That longing for peace is for peace to be there in this moment, for this experience to be peaceful — for whom? The Absolute is eternally at peace, timelessly. And the Absolute is peace. And experience no matter how subtle is a deviation from peace.

When I saw the knowing appear upon the Absolute, there was first absolute peace. It was already peace, and the knowing was coming out of that in a way — like it's a stirring. It's like stirring from sleep. As stirring from deep sleep, and the initial what you notice in that moment as you stir from deep sleep is you are at perfect peace — and not the you that comes later and talks a lot. Not that you. The Absolute you is in perfect peace. Had no need for anything, no desires, no aversions. That is the Absolute. And a lot of the confusion is the mind thinking as an entity as it will achieve those perfect attributes. But those perfect attributes are description of the Absolute. The Absolute is ever at perfect peace. When the knowing appears that is a slight deviation from what is eternal peace. And you would say I see everything as bliss until you got cancer and then you say oh then — you like — it's bliss until something bad happens to the body and then it's not bliss, then it's pain. But it's all a deviation from peace.

Yeah. I don't want bliss either, because when you stir from sleep what you want is nothing. What was there is perfect. But then experience gets interesting and okay, yeah, and then it creates — yeah, it's got the show of its own going on. Somewhere it says, I, Consciousness, I don't want it, I didn't ask for it, but it comes.

QYes, that's the wisdom in that one.

NYeah. And the Absolute does not say no because the Absolute is Awareness. Awareness does not say no to any experience. If someday humans will invent their own hell — yeah, we have these ideas of hell — we'll create a virtual reality hell and send people there. Yeah. And that will be experienced. Whose fault is it? It's just this wrong thinking, the wrong ideas. Ignorance is the problem.

Anyway, so when there's a longing for peace, it is a longing for local experience to take shape right now. But the actual peace is global, and the deviations from peace are local — like they're within, if we think in terms of time and space, they're happening at tiny little points in space. But even if you think of the space scientists talk about, most of it is empty. The pinprick little thing which is the earth, and on it these tiny things living on the crust. And in that context the longing for peace is put in its place because you see the Great Way. The Great Way is that global view, not standing on the crust of a planet view. So you apply the right view, because even if you like or dislike that is like you're as far from the truth as heaven is from earth. But it's a hair's breadth of difference. And the difference is the like or dislike.

So yeah, I'll be honest. I'm not always at peace, and experientially that's not what it means. Nisargadatta — you can see a photo where he's got — it's the last stage of cancer — he's got a pipe coming out of his throat — throat cancer — it looks miserable. People imagine that the sage was always at peace. It's not like that. What they're describing is the actual Nature of Reality.

Yes, Rachel.

QHello, Nabeel. Things are what they are and our experiences are usually linked to choices we've made earlier. Our life seems to be occurring in building blocks, and the building blocks are the things that we've put in place. You get your certain education, then you get a job in that field and blah blah blah — the whole conditioning of the human experience — to see the being for what it is and to have to live life on a daily basis. How do you reconcile those two? Because the thinking and the words we hear when you teach is so outside of the daily context of life, or it seems to be. How do you reconcile those two things — the experience and then having to go into life fully with a family, with a child, with a job, with everything else? Is that difficult?

NSo see — it all comes back to not having any preferences for myself for what happens. Well, there are preferences. Yeah, there are preferences in terms of the role I have to play as a father and a son and so on — that is going on. You can't give up that. That is part of the mind-body progressing down the path of what it has to do — that's its function. But the Understanding is completely out of that context. It is the Understanding is about the Nature of Reality, the nature of Self, the way things are. And no matter what is happening it can be seen in that light. It is happening in that light whether you see it or not.

Okay. So like sometimes I would get questions like there were some questions around like when you're talking to someone and you realize there are no selves and then they're talking about themselves and they're talking about other people and how do you deal with that? It's just talk. It doesn't matter. Like it doesn't offend. It's just talk. It's just thought interacting with thought. And at the same time you know the Truth, and then there's the play on the stage going on and you know that's fine. Yeah. It's just not having a preference. I don't feel the need to always be in at peace, always be feeling love, to not feel anger, to not feel this and that. To when I read the news I don't expect that it will not annoy me in some way, because that is the level of the brain how it operates, and then the experiences that produces — none of that has to do with the nature of what is meant by "I." That is fundamentally changed. That is forever never going to mean what everyone thinks it means. So when "I" does not mean what everyone thinks it means, all the questions they're asking are about the wrong "I," because the Absolute "I" is changeless. It is just the global context. Like I don't have — it's not like I have one foot in this world and another foot in Nirvana, like I'm straddling them. No — it's just you realize the Truth that whatever the mind talks about as you — it's fiction. Like when you're reading a book, you know it's fiction. You can still enjoy it. You can still love the characters. You can cry for them. You read a book, you know it's fiction. You're not even seeing a picture and you can cry for the character and you know it's all made up. Yeah. It's all fiction and you know the truth. But that's how it is.

QAs a seeker all my life, growing up in Hinduism and being taught as a child to ask who am I? Who am I? And coming from a family where the word "I" was never used — the word that was used is "one," not "I," because my grandfather used to say there is no "I" — this one is communicating with that one. So "one" was one of the most... they came from the region of India where they spoke that way, and so I grew up listening to this, and so I've always been asking myself the questions that you teach us about Self-inquiry — who's experiencing this, who's wanting, who's desiring, who's asking. So I grew up with that. I was fortunate enough to grow up that way. But I have to say living in the US has made seeking very difficult. So what I'm struggling with right now, and I'm hoping you can give me some direction here — what I'm struggling with is living now in a culture where people are so afraid to be themselves that there's a lot of isolation happening. How does one live within that and not feel like they need to protect themselves from others? It's becoming a bit of a scary culture to live in as brown-skinned people. And I'm like, okay, but this is not who you are. This is just a physical form. But when others don't pursue the same kind of information and practice that you do, there can be real risks involved, physical risks involved.

NYeah. I mean, so there's two sides to it. One is it'll sound impractical maybe, but it's just I don't see things in terms of people.

QYeah. When you also told me that you do not speak from your head or your heart — the words flow through you — I understand when you said that what you meant by that. You don't have to think about what to say.

NYeah. I mean, see, there's the practical side of life, but that is lived out through how this body and mind are already configured. And so taking care of — so for your physical safety that's all questions for the brain to take care of, and it does its job pretty well. It's actually when we get stuck over anxieties and worries too much to do with the self-image that it actually will do a worse job. So that part is all just practical living — like don't go in the bad neighborhood at the wrong time and all that kind of stuff. But when I see human behavior, I no longer feel — you shouldn't think of it in terms of individuals, because there's no individual entities. And you start to see it as a kind of the ebb and flow of civilization. Do you see how somehow it's quite evenly — when there's an election between the two parties? In Australia, we have a two-party system. It's quite evenly matched. So somehow evolution ends up with 50/50. Some want to progress, some want to stay as it is. I want it the way things were. And someone's like, oh let's go ahead and develop AI and everything. And both sides have extremes and it's like a bell curve and you see it's just a population distribution.

It's not individuals but it's a population distribution. And each individual in that population is itself a very distributed network with all kinds of beliefs and reasons for those beliefs and the ways of behavior and so on, and you see it in that way. It's just a process going on and there are good sides to it and bad sides to it. But again, my interests are limited in...

QWhat do you mean by limited?

NLike you see — so if you are in your life in a position where you can make a difference to certain things which matter in that sense, then that's fine. But if you're not in that position, what's the point of dedicating your thought and your worries to that?

QOh, okay. That makes sense. It's quite a practical question — like how do I keep stay safe? How do I have enough money for my family? And all that.

NYeah. Practical. Yeah. It's just practical. But then the actual — like once you find the most deepest, most profound insight possible and you cannot talk to any of these people — like nobody understands — when it's impossible for anybody to understand because the things you talk to are just thoughts — and then there's no point to try to explain because the other side is what actually is — is the Self. Like it all ends up being — all this is inconsequential. It does not matter. It's tiny things living on the crust of one planet. I wish them well. I wish the experiences are not too bad. But in the grand scheme of things, it is... I wish I could just communicate this one insight and that is what I do with my free time.

QYeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It is what it is. And if it's not something that I can have some kind of positive impact on, then let it be. I understand. No, but the heart still hurts though. The heart hurts big time. You'll be seeing like — I don't know if things go wrong enough I might end up joining some protest at some point. But it's like — it is just — it's like being out of it now. You're watching the show, you're out of it. I'm not in the show. It's like, yeah, it is life. And this is not the first time the world has gone down this path. I look at it from that perspective. This is not our first rodeo. So that's a phrase that I use a lot here. This is not our first rodeo and this is not the first time the planet has been going through things like this or humanity has been going through things like this. But then coming back — I missed the name of the book that you were reading from. Can you share that again? The author and the book you were reading from.

NYeah, I'll type it down because I probably am not pronouncing it well. The Hsin Hsin Ming — H-S-I-N Hsin.

QYou do help my thinking to become neutral. You know, like the Buddha teaches, everything's impermanent. Everything's impermanent. If there is negativity, the only way to neutralize negativity is with kindness and loving kindness and compassion. So being able to listen to you helps to transport me into that type of thinking. So I thank you so very much for all of the things that you've put on YouTube to help us refocus about what we are as humanity on this planet. So thank you very, very much. It's extremely helpful.

NThank you. There's one thing you said though. So I want to go back to like how you were taught as a child to not use the word "I." To me that is not — that is not ideal either. There's no perfect society, and once you try to feed this to children you're actually trying to — you're playing with fire as if you understand fire. Because by doing that you're actually taking away the way a sage could point you to the actual truth. You've turned it into a tradition and so on. I'm not saying it's absolutely bad, but it's not an absolute good either. Until now, humans have not found any way that society works as an absolute good or gets to an absolute good. Because when you get to the absolute good, the only way is down. That's the thing about peaks. The only way next moment is down. And so it is in each life there's the opportunity for Reality to recognize Reality. That is what interests me.

QBut as a child what it taught me is nothing that I was given was really mine. And it taught us to share and to give what we had if someone asked for it. So what I got out of it was to not be attached to things because that was not important. You know, it didn't belong to me. So if somebody said they wanted it, I could give it to them easily. So it did develop this ability to see things as just things. I don't know if I'm explaining that correctly, but as a child seeing things as just things, there wasn't the attachment to it. It's just a car. If someone wants to borrow it, they can borrow it. It's a home. Someone doesn't have a place to stay — they can come and stay with us. And that's the way my grandmother and grandfather lived. Someone didn't have a home, they can stay with us. You can feed them. They can stay as long as they needed until they have their jobs. So in that regard it makes it very hard to fit into Western culture. Western culture doesn't operate that way. But I'm always curious about your life. Always curious because when you said — when you explain your experience about getting to a state of non-being happening — that blows my mind. I cannot even conceptualize what that experience can be like. There's my mind is blank.

NYeah, it's not an experience. It's not an experience. It's the change. It's like what happened when this life began, or when you come out of deep sleep — what is happening? That's all I'm describing. It's just seeing it clearly, getting to what it shows — what it's showing you — honestly taking it in and accepting it. That's all.

QIt's not that it's not happening because life is not constant experience. It comes and goes any life. And it just — that's what I understood with the breathing. You know it's like you breathe — there's a gap — you breathe in — there's a gap — you breathe out — there's a gap. The heart beats — the heart beats — there's a beating — there's a gap — there's a beating — there's a gap. It's like everything that's happening in the form and in the function of the form — there's a gap. So you were in that gap, or was it more than just a gap?

NSo the thing that happens though is — yeah, conceptually you say you were in that gap and that's how I say it as well. But the meaning of you fundamentally must change once you see it that way, because any you, I, me we talk about is not the gap — it's not there.

QYes. It's that that comes later. But once your meaning of "I" has changed — your previous human world view is gone. It's not a human world view.

NYeah. All the human stuff came later. The Absolute had nothing human about it. There was the Absolute — the Absolute Reality — nothing to do with humanity or a conscious experience or anything or thought, feeling. And there was the Absolute.

QAnd what threw me is when you refer to the word Absolute I always think in terms of life, existence, being. And then when you talk about your experience about the happening of the non-being, that shattered — that blew my mind. Absolutely. That one specific few words you said just blew my mind. Non-being.

NYeah. Because the truth must be what covers both being and non-being, existence and inexistence, forms and Emptiness. Like that's the — but that's when you've arrived at Reality. No duality is left because now Reality must explain all of it, everything. And so it's not just life, it's also death. And then you get to the point where there's deathless and unborn. So there's no life and no death because you were never born and you're never going to die these forms. So what do these forms — what are these forms about?

So that was what Neil was talking about — the statement that as I was able to express it at the point is this: nothing is happening. So this is different to the other one, the happening stuff. Nothing is happening. Nothing has changed. Only this knowing has appeared upon the Absolute — the Absolute Reality. So if only the knowing has appeared, the forms are just the knowing and there's no substance to them. They are empty of actual substance and yet they are also substantial because they are the knowing. But nothing is born. And it's not that I am deathless and I exist forever because that's the old "I." That "I" is part of the knowing. It is the knowing. And so because it is what is known, what was previously taken to be a subject is now part of what was taken to be objects. And what were taken to be objects are not objects but entirely just knowledge, knowing, experiencing. And what is experiencing but simply a tiny movement in the Absolute Reality which destroys all dualities of existence and inexistence, Consciousness, unconsciousness — because how you cannot distinguish between unconsciousness and that original state in which knowledge first appears. What everybody calls unconsciousness — that is the state in which experience first appears. So it's not unconscious.

QSee what you said right there. It's like okay — before the Big Bang what was? Yeah, that is — you say these earth-shattering things. You make these earth-shattering statements. That is the Absolute. Right before the Big Bang — before the Big Bang there's no forms, there's no time, there's no space, and that is exactly the point where experience appears. You have to see the scope of it. The scope of it is immense. That is why none of it matters — not my personal peace, my personal life. It's this all is happening and happening occurring. Man, you're fantabulous, man. You just say things that are so deeply profound and I listen and it stops my mind. So much of what you say just stops my mind and the thinking stops.

NThat's good. There's nothing happening.

QAnd then I go to bed after this because it's at night here and I get some of the deepest dreamless sleep after I listen to you. You really affect this being in a way that is incomprehensible to the brain — totally incomprehensible. My husband gets confused when I can listen to anything he says and never argue. But your words shut the mind down and there's nothing. I listen — I used to have Buddhist teachers from all over the world including the Dalai Lama. Now I listen to no one but you because you explain it in a way that this mind seems to be able to — this being seems to be receptive to your explanation. So thank you for that.

NThank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.