No Separate World | Live Talk + Q&A on Nonduality

NSo what we'll do today is I'll start, and then we'll go into Q&A. So what's this all about anyway? You've all heard: it's not about an experience, it's not about a state. What is it about? Let's say it's an understanding. It's a very different way to see the same experiences and states. The experience doesn't have to be different, but you see it very differently. So how does that happen? Let's just walk through it. It's very simple.

There is first of all a very obvious duality. It's at the core of how we see ourselves, or our self-image. There's you, and then there's everything around you. There's the world. So that's the subject–object duality. Ah, I think I have to let someone in.

Give it a minute. There we go. So that is the initial problem. If we're talking about nonduality, how can there be nonduality if there is a subject and the world that the subject is observing?

So we start to question that. You take the duality, you turn it around. Okay? So all this is not me. This object is not me. That object is not me. You turn inwards. You start looking at the mind. But everything in the mind is also an object. The thinking is not me. The emotions are not me. Everything's passing by. What is left to call "I"?

That is just a basic inquiry. You're going inwards, questioning: what am I? In the end, there's no object left. There's nothing to call "I". But there's still the fact: I am. You can't take that away. So what is that "I"? And then a lot of the time you're just stuck there. "Well, I don't know the answer" — because the thing that says "I don't know the answer" is still a thought.

And finally, you're not referring to that. What is left is not something specific. It is just Awareness — Sentience, as I like to call it. It's just pure Consciousness.

Consciousness — that's what's left. That's what is "I". And now, with that as "I", if you look at someone — we say someone else, look at Neil or Christina or Henriette — we say, can I differentiate between myself and you? As soon as I start to do that differentiation, I have to again refer to the objects of the world. I have to differentiate between thoughts and memories and objects in the world. But we have already seen that that is not "I". Those were the objects and not the subject. But then if the subject is Awareness, then we look back at the world from that standpoint.

Is there really a duality? Is there an object that is completely separate to Awareness, standing apart on its own? Is it even possible? When we start to describe an object, what would we describe? We describe the shape, the color, or the sense — the feeling of touch, whatever. All of that is the dimension of Awareness. When we started, we had this duality. We just turned it around.

Well, we question that duality. And that is the whole path. Anything that the mind brings up as "actually these are definitely opposites and I'm very sure about this" — you dig a bit deeper, you end up with: oh, actually no, it's just Awareness and the things that appear in it, which are not apart from it. And that is the nonduality. So, a bit of a conversation killer, but we'll start there with the questions and answers.

Who'd like to go first? You, Neil.

QGood morning.

NMorning. Good to see you at last.

QYes.

NIs it morning for you?

QOh, yes. Very early here.

NYeah.

QIt's in England. I don't know if that's obvious or not. Well, I've got to say I just love the work that you do, Nabeel. Just think it's wonderful. We've been enjoying it for over a year now.

Such a treat. Thank you. The question I wrote down, funny enough, is about exactly what you started with. I was listening to one of your videos last night, and as always these kinds of things are really difficult to talk about, to express — but the observer being the observed. I really don't understand. I kind of get it, but I don't get it. I don't understand how that can be: that the very thing that is observing is that which is observed.

Can you kind of just expand on that for me a little bit, Nabeel, please?

NSure, of course. So my favorite one-liner for this is in one of the videos. I came upon it in the Complete Works of Ramana Maharshi. He does this text which is very — I don't know, I would never have come across it. It says — and I've forgotten it now — if the basis is insentient. If the basis is insentient — and that is just an assumption that everybody makes, and science makes — everything: it's the assumption that we start with dead, and then you get living, and you get experience. Life comes and then you have experience. So if the basis is insentient, then a separate seer is necessary. So if our starting assumption is correct, then we have to find out what is the thing that sees, what is the thing that observes.

But if the basis is sentient, then that itself will be the seer. This is the sage throwing down the gauntlet. Like: if your assumption is correct, show me what is this here? Who is the observer? So you go back to that question. Like: if you don't believe me, find out for yourself who is observing. And to this sage, the basis is Sentience.

The basis is Consciousness. So you don't need to find a separate observer, because you're starting with a Reality that in itself is Awareness. So obviously when something happens in Awareness, that happening is an experience. Now in the happening it so happens that you can observe the experience — different qualities of it — and then there's the sense that I am a separate observer looking at this thing and making these observations. So you're going back to the standard way of thinking about it, which has reasons for how that works. Because these bodies, they evolve to survive as units. Even though there's not one unit — it's like a colony here. Colony of 30 trillion cells or whatever.

It's not one thing, but it's evolved to behave in a way that has to protect itself. It has to spread its DNA, whatever. And so the ways of thinking that emerge from that are based around self-images which always think in terms of me and the world. But as those things — that intelligence — has gotten to this level where you can question it, you go back to the very basic fact of what is the observer, and there's none to be found. And that's the gauntlet being drawn here. Find it, or give up and see the truth.

QSo when you — I don't use that word anymore, meditation. I mean for so long that's what I did, and meditated. And after coming across yourself and a few other people, it's like my understanding is that I am meditation, and it's not a thing that I do. I think sometimes if there's any kind of conflict, it's when — I don't know if I'm using the same language that you use in the videos — like when you're being, just the experience of being. So in that place, that is the observer and that is the observed. Is that correct? Am I seeing that correctly, do you think? Am I seeing that clearly?

NYeah. So it's just because we break down the words into observer and observed, you start to put yourself in a problem again. But the experience itself is the observation. What is being observed is itself Awareness. They're all dimensions or aspects of Awareness. And there is no separate observer. But as soon as we talk about it, we can't talk about it without breaking.

QYou separate it, is that? As soon as you talk, as soon as you start explaining it, there's a separation. Is that how you mean it?

NIt's just there's no word. Because if we say it's all — even "one" is not quite accurate — but what would you say? So when we're saying something, we're breaking it down into roles, into different properties and elements and so on. But that's why the insight is not thought-based. It is when you put aside thought, and then it's pretty obvious.

QYeah. Yeah. That's good. Thank you. Can I just ask one other thing?

NSure.

QI try not to go too long. Not everybody wants to talk. In all the years that I've been interested in — and I do what I do — so few people are interested.

I mean the amount of people that I've met over the years — I mean there's thousands — and there's so few people, it seems to me, so a minuscule amount of people that are even vaguely interested. I mean you can talk to them about football, or you can talk to them about politics. You can talk to them about history. You can talk to them about anything you want. But if you start talking about you, or yourself, or Reality, or however you want to express it, it just seems... I think probably in the last 50 years I've met people who are already in something — that they have a belief, or they're in a group, or they're associated with something. But the average ordinary chap or woman of whatever — so few. Are we really that kind of rare creatures, the seekers — I don't know what you'd even call us. I don't know, put myself in a bracket. But why is it so few people are interested, you think? Your opinion?

NA lot of people are interested in spirituality. The thing is, the driver is something for you, me. So if you start to talk like about this, it's just going against the base desire. Even someone who thinks they're an advanced seeker — this is looking for "I want to be enlightened. I want to get it. I want to blah blah whatever." All the monks who joined the Buddha, until the last moment, they still wanted something for themselves. So if you understood it from the beginning, there's just no point. It's just directly incompatible with all the evolutionary desires or whatever a person could want, because your wants are for the person or for that circle around the person. Even if you're a very good person, it's about people around you, things you care about, your causes and so on. And that's why if you read the Ashtavakra Gita to someone they might get offended — like, what's this talking about? Why are you telling us to give up all desire? Like, all the good in the world was done because of desire — which is true. All the good, all the bad was done because of desire. And it's just — this is incompatible with how humans think. Somehow there's a loophole. To me, it's like when I set out on this path, it was for personal reasons. And if I knew this was the outcome — if that person knew this was the outcome — they would run in the opposite direction.

No person wants this. When it happens, there's no loss, because the person was entirely a sham. But because the base subject–object duality — me and the world — all those things are very core, very central to how the whole mind's working, how each and every thought is coming up, all the drivers of what goes on in life — I think it quite makes sense that this is rare. And even when that insight hits you, it's just out of the blue, and you still weren't expecting it. Despite you'd heard about a thousand times that there's no self and all that, it still hits out of the blue and you realize how deeply it is true, and why no one would want to know it.

QOkay. Thank you.

NNot much of an answer.

QThat's great. Thank you.

NAll right. Who's next? Gus.

QHi, Nabeel.

NHey. How are you?

QGood. Thanks. Just want to thank you for the work that you do. It's great pointing. Especially your Ashtavakra and the Gaudapada ones are my favorite.

NThank you.

QJust trying to get into the specifics of inquiry — like the process of inquiry. I know we say it is right here, right now, but until that is obvious there is practice. So my understanding is that there is the question, and there is this great — for lack of a better word — desire to know the truth, the Reality, and then do not go to thought for an answer. And then as you're sitting there, if you have started streaming into that — "okay, this is a thought" — so the mind quietens down. But then there are sensations, there's the sounds. And these days my experience is a little more energetic. I feel this pulsation, maybe something to do with the brain or the nervous system. It's just in and out, in and out, like in a circular fashion. So I guess I'm trying to understand: is that a distraction — the sensations, the sounds? And sometimes I just want to keep my eyes open and my mind is not really interpreting what I'm seeing. It's just this — it's just here, you know. And especially in the mornings after a night of good sleep, it's just beautiful. And later you are sort of back here, but till that magic lasts from the good night's sleep you feel fresh and everything feels amazing. I'm just wondering: these sensations — are they taking you away from inquiry, or is this natural way of being okay? Is it just — it'll clarify itself?

NMhm. So all the evaluations you can make — they are evaluating the experience.

QYes.

NThat's the mind.

QYeah.

NSo that is — you will never get an answer there. There will be no like "yes, with this experience I'm sure that I'm enlightened" — because then you might get the next experience which is not so enlightened. So experience is the wrong criteria. We look away from experience, whatever is happening.

QHow do I do that? How do I shut it off? I think that is my question.

NIt's just being clear on what we are inquiring about. Inquiring about what is death. Inquiring about what am I. And all the stuff that you can evaluate is a "that" — a thought is a "that", a sound is a "that", whatever — "am I feeling good or not" is a "that". That's a feeling. What am I? You have to become interested in it. Like if you try to teach a child something, it just doesn't work until they're interested in it, and then they'll want to do it the whole day. And we grow up and our mind works differently. We're all organized and so on. It's actually the same. You can't do something well unless you're interested. And the interest has to be clear: I'm not trying to get to a certain experience — and you've learned this because you've been doing this for maybe inquiry.

QI'm one of those — okay, I get it conceptually, you know, but there's something there, or it's just the mind, I don't know, or a belief.

NIt becomes clear. You just become — because when you start you don't know: how am I supposed to get it? How am I supposed to — well, this, because that's how we do things in the world. We get grades, or we see how well are we doing it in comparison to other people.

But no person has ever stepped into Nirvana. You know that one.

QYeah.

NLike it's not a place for people to step into. There's no state that is where a mind gets enlightened. Enlightenment is describing how Reality is. So no matter what is happening, what experience is going on, how you're feeling — Reality has not changed.

We are trying to become clear on what is real. And in that — in what is real — what does this have to do with what am I? They're actually the same question. Because the only way you can understand what is real, it cannot be by looking and observing objects, because then you're just describing an object. You have to find out what is real about me.

And actually all the things that you thought of as "me" will be falling apart, falling apart, but you're left with that one fact: I exist. I am. And maybe existence comes and goes, but who was it that experienced that first moment of existence? What was I at that point? Your inquiry is becoming clear: actually have to give up all experience and look only at what I am. And as you — so if meditation appeals to you, as you do it and your mind is quieting down, or you're doing it around sleep as you were mentioning — you wake up and you have that sense of coming out of bliss and so on —

QRight.

NThen your mind will find the proof it needs. So for me it was — because I followed the dialogues of Nisargadatta, and he keeps talking about the Absolute, Parabrahman, no attributes — the nirguna Parabrahman.

Well, if your mind sets that as "okay, I need to understand it," you will get there. Or someone might say, "I need to experience bliss the way Jesus did," or whatever. So you can set your criteria —

QIf you — sorry — sorry to interrupt you, but I think you had one of your videos — you said you can set that before going to bed, or in general.

NNo, no. I'm just saying it just happens. Whatever takes your interest.

QOkay.

NIf you think "yes, that's what I need to really get it," it will happen, probably. But you don't actually need that, because that's again — you will have that, and then there'll be the next part of life where you won't have that. I can't go back to that point where my mind shut down, and I don't need to, because I've understood what it was — what I had to understand. Even before that you could have understood it. The mind will create the path and the journey and all the highlights and the fireworks. What I'm trying to say is you don't need all of that. If you make your inquiry simple and only about what am I, what is real — there don't have to be any special effects. We can get to the answer simply and just settle it once and for all.

QYeah. I mean, yeah, I am trying to use my mind right now. So it's kind of tricky.

NBut that will still happen, because there is something which is going on in the brain. Because the inquiry has made the brain very active. It wants to get to the bottom of this mystery. But the mystery is you. You are the mystery.

And the brain's trying to figure out: what can I call you, or how can I experience you? Well, but all the time you are the Awareness in which that whole movement is happening. And now I'm saying — sure, if the mind really, really wants something, it'll create the experiences, the journey and all that — it might happen — but that should not be what we're aiming for. Our inquiry is very simple. And as we do that, you shortcut a lot of the things that go wrong and how you can get stuck in this forever and so on.

QThanks a lot.

NNo worries. All right, we've got Miguel next.

QHello everyone. I'm slightly morning. I'm from Stockholm, so nice to meet you.

Um, I wanted to chime in on the inquiry a bit, because the first months I was obsessed with it. I think I was doing it intensely, but my mind was very contrived and very stale in a sense. And I kind of felt like — Adya has this very beautiful pointing where he says falling into grace. So it's okay to relax with inquiry and ease into it a bit. Like when you get a sense of the "I am," it's a loving presence. It's unconditionally, choicelessly free. And thank you for the beautiful videos and everything. I love them.

NThank you.

QThank you.

NInquiry will take you many places. But keep it simple. Then we stay on — like in all the kinds of traditions I cover. I went into Zen. I went into Nisargadatta, Ramana. I went into Rumi, whatever — and that's fine too. You're getting pointed out by all these different directions, and you might have some feelings of peace and bliss and all that's natural, because you're letting go of all the weight of the world that you had put on yourself for so many years. And I said okay, so that's part of the process. But the process is taking place all the time. Reality remains the same. The Self remains the same. And so we just want to understand that one point being pointed out while all this is going on. Let it happen. But we bring the inquiry back to: what am I? All right, we have SK.

QHello. And you can hear me, I think.

NYes. Yep. Fantastic.

QSo Nabeel, thank you very much for your videos. I think they are refreshingly crisp, and I found them very sharply speaking to me in some ways. So very briefly I'll give you some background. I've been doing Self-inquiry à la Ramana Maharshi's style for like something like 20 years, and have had moments of great peace. And overall I hope to be able to keep it in some kind of continuous current, which I have not been able to. One of your videos that really spoke to me was the one where you say that light that enters the eye, and the processes that go on inside, and then you point out: listen, in any of these little silly electrochemical processes, where is this person? That one just grabbed me big time. And of course it applies to hearing and everything else. In other words, this whole mess is a sort of an electrochemical mess. It's an electrochemical thing. And somehow I've called it me. It's like, hey, this is me of something. On one hand that's patently absurd —

NRight.

Q— that I've claimed ownership of something that's just this complex mess of electrical, chemical, various different little silly processes. So my question then is: is there — I'm waiting for something like that to trigger and break the barrier, if you will. In some sense I think I have some barrier that needs to break to have a more complete recognition.

So I wonder if you — two comments. One is if you can think of, at the spur of the moment, something like that which could be in the direction of this "light that enters the eye" comment that you made, or the video that you made. If something like that comes to mind to you right now that might be helpful, please share it. And if not, as you reflect on that, if you can do some videos along those lines down the road, it would be lovely and would be greatly appreciated. So those are the two little requests that I have.

NSo as you're saying this — what you hit upon in that moment was the realization that none of that is "I". None of whatever the process is going on — none of that is —

QRight.

N— but then as your question comes up again, you're thinking: how did I take that to be me? So which "I" is that? That "I" is still the wrong "I".

QRight.

NThat "I" is still the electrons, the neurons working, and they're saying that — that thought appears to you.

QYeah.

NSo why, when this chemical process is taking place, why do you experience it?

QThat was the whole — the thought experiment was that so when the light goes in the eye it's just light. It's not sentient, according to our standard understanding of the world. And then the signal goes to the brain. All the neurons, they exchange chemical signals. Nothing in that process is conscious. And at the end of the process there's an experience. So with what organ would you experience that?

NNo, there's no additional organ. That is the process as science has described it, and to you that process is the experience of color. And there's another experience which appears as sound. To what are you? You are none of that. And then we go back to — when Neil was inquiring — and the answer was there: if the basis is insentient. If we start with a dead universe, with dead matter, and then this process happens, and then there's an experience — then we have to identify what is the thing that is conscious. But you have just gone through that process according to your understanding of the world, and it has told you there's nothing conscious in this process. So what is the answer? The answer is the process — the whole process — must have taken place in a Reality where Awareness or Consciousness is just central to that Reality. It's not a thing that becomes conscious or owns Consciousness as "my Consciousness," because if it were like that we should be able to identify: that is the thing that's conscious. If it was really like that, what should be happening is there's a brain and then there's another organ which is observing the brain, and we'll say that organ is the thing that's conscious.

QYeah.

NBut that's not how it is. This is just the process and it results in experience. And to the sage who has taken away the idea of "me," it becomes obvious that there is no separate seer. Seeing takes place because in Reality — you excite certain electrons a certain way, it results in experience. And that's the observation from scientific instrument, from the experience itself. It's just spontaneous. Something happens, there's an experience to it.

It's the flip side of the coin. If we use an instrument, we see a brain and so on and so forth. If we don't use any instrument and look at Reality as it is, there's just Awareness. That's what you are. So there's no you. You have not misidentified. It's just still the thinking going on.

QYeah. So just — so this word "Awareness" — it just becomes too — it sort of becomes abstract. And I think at times I see through the barrier, and sometimes it's just like: what the heck, Awareness? What are we even talking about? Because Awareness is such an overloaded word, just like God is. This is like overloaded. It means so many things to different people who say it differently. So I'm just saying — I don't know — I'm just going to request that if you think about this question some more, and if you think of another way that you can shine the light, if you will — if you could do that, that would be lovely. Because it's still a barrier. I mean, of course, intellectually — and maybe not even that. So what you're saying, I sometimes get intellectually and sometimes not even that. Even intellectually, I don't completely bite it. And sometimes non-intellectually, it's like: of course. So there's this like a veil or a barrier or something. And I kind of want to poke this barrier, you know?

NThe barrier is that the chemical process is trying to understand something which is at a higher dimension.

Have you know Carl Sagan — he explained how there would be people living in two-dimensional space, and you could try to explain three dimensions to them — they would not get it.

QIt means nothing to them.

NYeah. So the third dimension is you. When I say "you," there's no — it's not like God or Awareness. You is real. That is you. You are aware because you are aware, and you're not SK. That is the body and the mind.

We can give it a name, SK, because that is what you are. I can call you Awareness. You are aware — that is the only quality that is 100% you, guaranteed. So that is why that's the meaning of Awareness. Awareness means "I". It's the same. You are Awareness. It's not like the other things — like mind and God and brain. These are concepts. So you try to make that distinction between who is confused about what.

QGot it. Thank you. Thank you so much.

NAll right. Do we have any — let's see who's next. So we have Sibel. Is it Cy? Cy. Hi, Sibel.

How are you?

QI'm very well. Thank you for your videos. I'm not sure if I have one question or many, but I want to say just hi, and your videos are very enlightening me, if I can say so. And I want to ask you something like this, if you can have an answer. I'm sorry for my language, for my English. Sorry. I think I can free my mind, be in Nirvana. How to say — I don't know. I want to say that my mind, when it is working together with myself, my "I", and with this body — I think it is working together much better than to separate from mind, if you understand what I want to mean.

NMhm.

QMore easy for me to get that experience when is my mind working together with being here. It's not like something separated. Separated is your ego. When I get separated of my ego and try to be a good person, a good human being, that is my enlightenment. And yeah — I'm doing the right way, or how do you see this situation? I don't know if I make understand myself.

NI think you're talking about — you've seen the mechanism. The root cause — like how do you get miserable —

QRight.

N— and you've seen that when we try to do something with the idea of you being a person in the world, you can do good work or bad work. What thinking? Yeah — it does not result in peace. And you know, you'll see the billionaires in the world — they don't seem to be at peace.

They've achieved everything you could in material terms. They're not at peace. Whenever you do something as a person, the first step is wrong. You have misunderstood your role in Reality. That's not that you should not do anything. It's just that the same thing can happen with the right understanding of Self, and there you will find peace. And then whatever is happening is actually just happening — you kind of don't have a stake in it. It's like: I am unconcerned. Whatever happens, I am unconcerned. And because I am unconcerned I can do my job better. And that's true of all kinds of professionals in any field. You see the person who performs best — they are in the flow. Some people think, oh they're too arrogant and too overconfident, but actually when they're doing it, what's happened is they've given up all the baggage that comes with being a — and "oh I'm not good enough" and "oh I don't know, did I practice enough" and so on. That's all wiped out. And you suddenly find that when all that is wiped out, the mind had so much energy being wasted on that —

QYes.

NYou start to feel that — yes — oh, if I don't act in that way, if I don't act as a — if I keep in mind what am I — everything works out, and I'm not concerned about the outcome, because actually it's not in anybody's control what happens next.

QYes. Also. Yes. Also, I'm thinking I get very empowered when I free my mind from the other, from my ego and from the other thinking — but it is never in our power, like you said. We will never get all the control, and just let it be. Yeah.

NBut as you let it be, you know that there's no "our."

There's no "our." It's just —

QExactly.

N— higher than where you are. You — the Self is —

QIs it like — I don't know. It's crazy in a sense. Like the mind wants to go higher and higher. It wants levels. It wants to get somewhere.

NThen it's got this weird kind of humility, but all you need to see is what the Self is — you. It's not a concept. So then there's no question of something not being in your power once you see what you are. There is no other power. If you take away Awareness, is there any other self — you know, superpower — that's useful?

QRight.

NIt is such — it is the absolute superpower. And because it is that, it's just taken for granted, because obviously if there were no Awareness nothing would exist, and everybody just like —

QYes, yes. Exactly. So I have like friends who — she was thinking before — she was catching me in this enlightened situation — get me like — she show me some video, and she was before of me. She find this situation, this to be enlightened, and she's walking around and "oh I am enlightened, are you enlightened?" I said I know — I don't know what mean. And after I see your video, after many other video — I forget right now the video, doesn't matter — but I said I cannot say even now that I am enlightened.

NBut you can —

QI don't think anybody can say "I am enlightened." Person is not — is not enlightened. Not about us. Is something else. Like you say — is not "oh I am enlightened and I don't want to talk with some people, you know, I don't want to be here because I am enlightened" or something like this, if you understand what I mean — is ego. So you just let it free, because here is nothing. Is nothing in your control. Actually is nothing. Doesn't matter — tomorrow will not be here — or it doesn't matter. Your ego — oh is push you so much, is so hard — but if you let just one time and say no, I don't want to be, I don't want to listen to you because you are nothing — you just — I don't like you — you are my child but you are my ego — and when you push this down is open so many doors. So this is more important in how to say this life, because that this life doesn't exist and you go over and over, but you can — I just get catch in some days and I cannot control it. The theory is so easy but the practice is so hard. Sometime like you say we don't have nothing in our control — just —

NJust to be — all I will say for you is: you just — again, we just need to be clear on what "I" means. You're perfectly correct. If anybody says "I am enlightened," that's a dead giveaway that they have not understood what enlightenment is about. Because enlightenment is about understanding what is always alight, always — that has always been the light, the source of light. Not about — it's not about you. As soon as the ego comes in, yeah, you're not seeing things the right way. But what happens is there's still some self-image left, in terms of — because everyone around you will behave in the way that you are a separate person, an individual. Everything we talk about is in the sense of subject and object, me, the world, and all that. But even as that is going on, the point is to be very clear on what "I" actually means. Once you are clear on what "I" means, then all this is just fluff, and you know it's just chatter and it's not true. It's not talking about you. It's talking about a dream character. And I can play the character. It is like I'm watching a replay of a video game. I'm not even playing the video game. It's something like that.

QThank you.

NThank you very much. All right. Who's next? If not, we'll go back to SK's question — about the experiment with the light, the thought experiment. And when I was questioning all this, it was very critical. I don't know — it was a very important point that became obvious to me through that thought experiment. Because as I talk about it — in the eyes, human eyes, there are only cells for red, green, and blue. There's no cell for yellow. And when you see yellow, a lot of brain activity has taken place before you see yellow. Now there is — that's what we started with — there's a very fundamental belief in the mind that I am here and that object over there is not I. And that's one of the core dualities: me and the world, a separate self, me, subject–object.

But I'm seeing yellow over there. I can see something yellow over there. My eyes are not projecting — if you believe in science, in the whole understanding of the world you built over many years — there's no way that after my brain does something the light yellow gets painted over there.

So now you have a contradiction in your mind. One is the fundamental subject–object duality: I'm here and that object over there has nothing to do with me. But now the other part of your mind is saying: well, how did the yellow get there? How is my brain coloring that thing over there? So now if you stay there and you knock these two contradictions against each other, they'll split something open.

QBut it's — I would like that — I don't see a contradiction, because I don't see the second part which you said, which is like my eyes are painting this thing yellow. Correct. I'm not saying that I'm painting it yellow. All I'm saying is okay, there was something yellow, and you know the photons came into my eyes and they did their thing, and they were not red or blue but there was some combination thereof, and some combination — some chemical reactions — sort of said "oh okay, that's yellow." And that — I didn't cause it to be yellow. It was already yellow. So I'm not ascribing agency on my part to make that thing yellow. Do you see what I'm saying?

NIt's not agency. But the thing is: after your brain does its stuff, how does that thing look yellow? Like why — what are you seeing over there? What is the link between what's going on in your brain and that thing over there? It's not a one-way street that information comes in and you see it.

It's a two-way connection. But as far —

QWhat is the second way? I'm still trying to understand.

NSure. So you are seeing that yellow object at a distance from where you think you are.

QOkay.

NSo that distance is the problem. That's one problem. The other — like how do you see that object get over there — so you can say, oh, there's a filter being applied by the brain. So there's the world, the information is coming in, my brain's applying filters. But then you question all the different aspects of your experience, and actually everything is a filter. I can put my hand like here, and if I look at my hand it becomes transparent. So something so solid as my own body is now transparent. It's just a step on the way. So a step on the way to see that everything is subjective, and actually what I thought of as an actual physical world is the brain activity being experienced. You're in no way in touch with a physical world or an objective world. Everything that is being observed is in fact an experience of what was going on in the brain at that point.

QI see. You know — also in that — sorry — also in that video you mentioned something about a delay. You say, well, you know, like there was something that happened and then the photons took some time to get to there, and then it took some time for the brain to process it and so on. So by the time I'm actually inferring that there's a certain yellow object, it's already late, kind of. In the later part of the video, you allude to that and I didn't quite catch the significance that you were trying to — like the thought you were trying to trigger in the mind with that idea.

NIt's again about breaking that barrier between the world being completely separate and you're observing it. If you — maybe after this if you listen again — sometimes it hits a bit different. For me it took several months of just this thought experiment.

It — it's not a one-shot wonder, of course. It goes deeper and it starts to merge your idea of self, or it starts to pour out into the world — that actually I can't — that separation which was so black and white, or so "yes, that is me and that is not me" — it starts to get questioned, and you start to see how it's actually — there's no point where you can draw that boundary. And there's different ways it hits home. So I wasn't just doing this. There was a Zen koan. There was the simple question: where am I? Where exactly am I? Can I locate myself in the body? All those things that start to break down that barrier you talked about.

QGot it. I'll definitely hear it again. I've been hearing it off and on. By the way, I confess I've heard it many times, you know, and every time I hear it, it just fascinates me. So yeah, I'll do it more times as well.

NAnd do it well — like think for yourself. Thought is not evil. You can use thought to cancel out the other thoughts. So like when I used to go out for runs, this would hit me sometimes. Like one time it especially hit me — I was running, and you know, we all think we have a head, don't we? Have a head. But there is actually a tradition called the Headless Way — if you've heard of — some of you have heard of it. And the only pointer, really the core pointer of that teaching is: you have no head. As a matter of fact, you have no head. The head is always over there in the image. Or there's a sensation if you note carefully — in your experience, there's no head.

There's just empty space. That's another thing which will just shoot down that boundary between self and the world. Because actually if there is that boundary, then the Reality is dualistic. There are subjects and objects, and there can be many subjects. So all this is a lie and wrong, and it's up to you to find out what is the truth. Yep. It's nice to meet some headless people here. Penny and Neil.

There's another nice one. That reminded me — the Headless Way. I wear glasses. So there's one passage in this book, the Headless Way, and it talks about what I thought were two tightly fastened windows — right, the eyes. You thought there were two tightly fastened windows between you and the world. The windows are locked. Were actually just one wide open window. What happened was I had read this and I just took off my glasses, and that is the actual experience. It's like where you thought there was glass and you find there's no glass. The window's wide open and there's no boundary between me and the world. It's entirely a mental boundary. And even like there are things in the mind which are quite solid — like this to me is mind and it's quite solid — but that boundary is not even that. It's just a thought. It's just the most flimsy kind of boundary you can come across.

All right. Anybody has a last question? I think we're out of time, but we can have one more question.

QHi, Nabeel. It's not a question. It's an apology for getting here. I was unconscious for most of this and then I awoke and realized that I was an hour behind when I awoke. So I must try and catch you another time, I'm afraid.

NYeah, no worries.

QWell, no, I'm not afraid. I'm not unconscious.

NThat's just language.

QOkay. Okay. We probably don't have time to go into that, but I will make sure I join you another time, and maybe we can then. Thank you. Thank you for all you do.

NThank you. Right, Henriette.

QHi, Nabeel. It's really nice to meet you.

NHi. Nice to finally see you.

QI'm not sure if I have a question for today and we're kind of out of time anyway. I just wanted to say hello and to say that it's nice to meet you kind of sort of — rather than just listen to your YouTube videos, which I've been doing for I think since you had about 17 videos when I started. So it's been a while. But yeah, I'll try to formulate a coherent question for next time.

NAll right, let's end it here then. So this time works for most of you? I'll try a few different times, because Australia is one of the oddest time zones for the rest of the world. It's a little late for me, but it's not a problem.

All right. Thank you all for joining.

QThank you.

NThank you.

QThank you. Thank you so much.