Pointers in Bob’s own words, collected from his talks and books — followed by the “realize” passages transcribed by Kat, and quotes from his teacher, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
Pointers from Bob
“You will never ever find the answer in the mind. Mind is to grasp things, it cannot comprehend the no-thing.”
“I AM not speaking to any body; I AM not speaking to any mind. I AM speaking to THAT I AM, that I AM. To that PRESENCE AWARENESS that expresses through the mind as the thought I AM. Just THIS, NOTHING else.”
“Belief in dualistic thinking is the problem. In non-dual awareness, dualism only appears to be so. How can there ever be any duality in non-duality?”
“The reflection is not in the mirror, but of the mirror. You cannot say it isn’t there, but you cannot say it is — try and grab it if you can.”
“‘Knowing’ is what I call intelligence — not the intellect but Intelligence. That is the activity of knowing — intelligence energy. Knowing is an activity of something that is going on in the immediacy of the moment. Any activity is a movement of energy. Not the content of knowing — I know this or I know that, that is all acquired, conceptualized, words stuff. It is the basic activity of knowing, something that is happening now. It is this energy or life force or whatever label you want to put on it and it is functioning in the immediacy of the moment. That is what you are.”
“Subject-object thinking seems to cover the natural state (awareness). But without awareness, thinking could not take place. Because thinking appears in awareness (like a cloud appears in the sky), realise that thinking is in essence awareness. Understanding this, thinking cannot obscure awareness.”
“Whatever is translated or conceptualised as other than presence awareness need not be resisted, but simply recognised as it is — pure presence awareness appearing as other — always, only and ever That. Knowing that, conceptualising falls away and bare awareness remains unconcerned with thought. An effortless being — just this.”
“Truth or reality cannot be stored, cannot be amassed — it does not accumulate. The value of any insight, understanding, or realisation can only be in the ever-fresh presence of the moment. Yesterday’s realisation is not a bit of good — it is dead, it has lost its vitality. It is useless to try and cling to or hold onto an insight, understanding, or realisation, for only in its movement can ever-fresh and new insights of truth or reality appear. The idea of enlightenment or self-realisation as a onetime event or a lasting and permanent state or experience is an erroneous concept. Understand-ING or know-ING is alive in the immediacy which can never be negated. The emphasis is on the activity of know-ING which is going on as the immediacy now — not the dead concept I understand or I know.”
“Emptiness, suffused with intelligence (knowing), can be a useful pointer or description, but remember; the description can never be the described. It is a valuable pointer only if in looking or seeing there is a recognising of the actuality of this natural emptiness. Every-thing comes from, appears in, and returns to this natural emptiness. The coming and going of things is transient, but the cognising emptiness, being empty, does not come and go. Being empty, it is of itself no thing. It can never be filled or emptied of things, for things appearing in emptiness have no independent nature of themselves. In reality things are the same emptiness appearing as other. Every-thing perceived is emptiness. There can only be a problem if things (including the so-called ‘see-er’), are believed to be other than the natural emptiness.”
“Re-call, re-cognise, or re-mind — I am That I am. That is awareness. To whom could it matter what activity, thought, event, or happening occurs. Knowing that, events and activities occur like the grass growing by itself, with nothing superior or inferior which could possibly be anything other than That. Self-activated intelligence-energy — just this, nothing else.”
“Because awareness is self-existing, there is no effort needed or anyone who can make an effort to get it or lose it. The natural state is never lost. It is not an appearance and therefore can never disappear. It is always the same — it is not an entity. Realise that the conceptual thinker and conceptual thoughts seemingly obscure the non-conceptual natural state. Pause a thought even for an instant and the natural state is fully evident. STOP and SEE. In the seeing, pure awareness gets used to itself.”
“In recognising presence awareness, there is no thing to see, just natural non-conceptual seeing, as it actually is — without subject or object. In seeing this, the realisation is immediate — that what is labelled as awareness, consciousness or mind can never be formulated as either a subject or an object. Being empty of a subject or object, it is emptiness seeing — cognising emptiness. Emptiness can never be emptied of emptiness, nor can it be filled by emptiness. With that concept cancelled out, only the wordless, thoughtless, indescribable emptiness remains. Not a vacuum or a void, but a vivid self-shining, self-knowing, self-aware emptiness, like a clear sky full of light. See for yourself — no one can do it for you. Immediate simplicity — continue to see that the seeing is continuous. Any doubt, question, or argument, and the conceptual seeker seemingly appears again. Yet in that seeing, non-conceptual emptiness remains undisturbed.”
“It’s an illusion that ‘you’ exist. The entity ‘you’ is imagined. Imagining that ‘you’ exist as something or someone separate is the cause of acceptance or rejection of something known. It is illusion telling the story of its own deception. The knower and the known are just concepts seemingly dividing natural non-conceptual knowing. Believing in the thought ‘I am’ gives seeming reality to the objective world which is constantly changing, yet everything in essence is that changeless natural knowing — nothing else.”
“Self-shining presence-awareness requires no effort. There is no need to try to do something with the expectation that suddenly awareness will be there. Presence-awareness is always here and now whether it is recognised or seemingly lost. It is not something that can be created or destroyed. Conceptual thinking is like a cloud that seemingly blocks the sun. Being at ease in non-conceptual naturalness is presence-awareness, already here and now. Re-cognise again, and again, and again, and despite what is appearing and disappearing, the knowing it is always so is constant. Self-knowing, self-shining — just this, nothing else.”
“Recognise the naturalness that you are — pure, all-pervasive, space-like, ever-expressing, spontaneous presence-awareness, with no reference point having any substance or independent existence. Failing to recognise naturalness (the unity of appearance and emptiness, space and its content), delusion happens and there is a grasping of or fixation on appearance — me and the other, a seeming duality. Without that fixation, there is freedom as naturalness. Delusion dissolves and evenness (non-duality) remains — the natural state, simply this, nothing else. Naturally remaining as naturalness (equanimity), is the natural (effortless) meditation of no one to meditate and nothing to meditate on — of no trying to get or trying to avoid, just effortless being which is always already so. Recognise this again and again.”
Bob, in dialogue
Exchanges from the meetings, as transcribed by Kat.
Q: Bob, I can hear the message. I’m just not really sure if I understand it. I’m looking for this kind of thing that confirms the understanding.
Bob: What’s going to confirm it for you? Do you believe that you are, or do you know that you are?
Q: I know that I am.
Bob: You know that you are. That’s confirmation, isn’t it?
Q: I can’t negate it. I can’t help but knowing it — that I am.
Bob: You can’t help it. That’s the confirmation.
Q: I hear people say it’s possible to be aware of deep sleep. How is that possible?
Bob: You’re aware of your unawareness. When you wake up in the morning, you say, “I had a deep sleep” — how do you know? There must have been an awareness of nothing going on. The mind was in abeyance at that time. But you were still breathing. Your heart was still beating. Food was being digested. Cells were being replaced. There was so much activity taking place, and yet that thinking was in abeyance. It was resting. Somebody calls you in deep sleep — you hear it. Hearing was still there.
From a discussion on free will:
Bob: First establish if there is anyone there to have this free will, or to have an ego to control things or choose thoughts and actions. Controlling happens just like seeing, hearing, thinking. Deciding happens, but there is no decision-maker. Choosing happens, but there is no choice-maker. Some call it choiceless awareness.
Bob: It’s the one essence. What’s another good term we can use for what we’re talking about? Wouldn’t it be life? Nisargadatta says, “There’s only life. Nobody who lives a life.”
Q: You can’t say anything without that life essence. You can’t separate yourself from the life.
Bob: No. You can’t separate anything from life, can you? Life doesn’t know death. Life is continually living on life. Out of life, more life comes.
Bob: We use the metaphor of the blue sea. You go down to the blue sea. You’ll see a blue sea. Try and get a bucket of water out of it — you know the sea is not blue, it never was blue, never could be blue. But it doesn’t stop how it’s expressing or appearing. It’s appearing as blue, but knowing the truth about it, you’re free of the erroneous belief that it’s blue. You’re free of the erroneous belief that you are a separate entity when you investigate it. You realize you can only be that one life essence, appearing and expressing as everything. You always have been, always will be.
Bob on “realize”
Sentences copied from a couple of Kat’s earlier transcriptions, where Bob organically uses the word “realize”.
- I came to realize I was being lived. I came to realize that my seeming journey was how it all panned out.
- The realization was that there is no centre, if I am that space-like awareness.
- I realized that there is no ‘me’, there is nothing there at all. I realized that everything I had believed in, I was not, and everything just dropped away.
- Realize there is only now! You can realize just how much takes place without the use of the mind.
- Realize that the functioning is happening effortlessly, without any ‘me’ involved.
- Realize that before anything can be wrong, there has to be thought.
- There is no relationship between apparent seeking and realization of liberation. In the dawning of that, you realize that any direction you go in will always be in the mind.
- What ‘way out’ of the mind is there? Full Stop! Realize that all that is happening is conceptualization.
- Realize that there is no personal doer of it. Realize there is no one to do it, and nothing to do, and it will settle down of its own accord.
- Realize that which is ceaselessly and spontaneously arising, prior to any thought. You are beyond the mind. Realize that.
- You must realize that you have been lived.
- You may not realize that even when the thoughts are going on the silence is still there. You have realized that you don’t have to get to the silence. There is more silence in this room than there is sound.
- You realize there is not a thing you can say about it. But you can’t deny the fact that it still is as it is.
- Realize you can’t negate your being, you can’t say, ‘I am not’.
- Realize that prior to the mind there is always that pure intelligence or knowingness. Just come back to the sense of presence that you are, and realize that that is birth-less, deathless, timeless, spaceless, bodiless and mindless.
- We are not realizing that we were whole from the start, that we never have been separate.
- When you realize that you never find an answer to it in the mind, what happens? But realize that thought has come up spontaneously, effortlessly and intuitively on that what you are.
- You realize also that you can’t cut space; you can’t grasp space; you can’t stir it up; you can’t do anything with it. The same applies to this awareness. See that and realize that you are the emptiness itself, the no-thing-ness.
- But realize that you were seeing before the thought ‘I see’ came up. Look again without labelling and realize that you are seeing as well as hearing at the same time.
- Realize that, before words and images came up, there was a registering of things. They are only being translated into words and images.
- Don’t you realize that there is never a time when it is not there?
- Realize that there is not a past unless you think about it. And what future is there unless you think about it? From that, you see that mind itself is time.
- When the mind realizes that it has no power of itself, just like the piece of iron in the fire, then it aligns itself with that intelligence. Realizing that that intelligence is functioning, that’s the ‘razor’s edge’. All you need is to recognize that it is already so.
From his teacher, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
In 1976/77 Bob spent twelve months with Nisargadatta Maharaj in Bombay — the lineage these meetings carry on.
“Learn to live without self-concern. For this you must know your own true being as indomitable, fearless and ever-victorious. Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas, and live by truth alone.”
“Just realise you are dreaming a dream you call the world and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another. Love all or none of it and stop complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that needs to be done.”
The pointing cards
Sailor Bob’s Sea and Sky 4R nonduality pointing cards: a deck of 88 cards in 4 colours, with pointers to Reflect on, Resonate with, Recognize and Relax into THAT. See Cards for the physical, virtual and bundle options, or order from Kat’s eBay store.
Tap a card to view it full-size.