Welcome, everybody.
Very lovely to be with you.

Just for the newcomers,
there will be a guided meditation
for the 1st part of this meeting.
And then it should be followed
with questions, discussion.

So if you can turn your attention inwardly.

Without any effort,
simply rest in presence as presence;
like a newborn.

Invite yourself to be not knowing.
You don’t need to do anything during this meeting.

So you can relax and let go of any doing.

No effort.
The understanding does not need you.
The understanding is in spite of you.

All is well as it is.

Everything is perfect as it is.

When we are trying to attain something,
or avoid something
or improve something psychologically,
it is a falsehood.

Everything which appears to you
appears in its perfection.

Even the illusion that you are
a character in the dream
is a perfect illusion.

And the understanding that you are
not a character in the dream
is a perfect understanding.

The image that you have of yourself and of others,
although they are illusory,
they are perfect as they are.

Because the perfection shines onto the dream.
Like, the light shines onto the Earth, the sunlight.

The perfection is the perfection of being,
of consciousness, awareness.

Everything that appears to you
is nothing else but the body of God.

The manifestation of the unmanifest.
The Shakti aspect of Shiva.
The dance of the formless,
appearing to you as sounds and sights,
as thoughts and sensations.

There is no personal self anywhere.
There’s no personal you,
no person anywhere
that is separate from the cosmic field.

…

There is nothing you need to do.

There is no separate entity.

Nothing missing and nothing in excess.

Sometimes the wind is very still and quiet,
and sometimes, it is windy.

But nothing is happening to you.
Nothing has ever happened to you.

Whatever appears appears out of the universe,
out of the totality.

As things appear and disappear, you don’t.

You are always there as presence
irrespective of what appears on the screen.

It is our true nature,
which is this formless presence,
which is love
and intelligence
and wisdom
and compassion
and understanding.

We are always the same self.
Not a mortal entity.
Peace is our true nature.

Peace is this nondual understanding.

We already are that.
And our love and interest
is our guide and
is our destination;

because our love for truth
arises our truth itself.

Our love for God does not arise from a person,
it arises from reality itself.

Because a person is your imagination,
your conception.

You don’t need to go far,
travel to distant lands,
to find yourself and know yourself
non-phenomenally.

The phenomenal self is your mentation, is your imagination.

This separate me is that which you create and enjoy
and maintain out of your freedom.

And it is a celebration of your freedom
to imagine yourself a mortal entity that worries
and gets concerned about its life, its future.

It is the exercise of your freedom,
which is God-given to you,
which is given to you.
It is a universal right, a universal gift.

So even in the exercise of ignorance
in your choosing to be a man or a woman,
you are exercising the perfection of your freedom.

It is also your freedom to recognize yourself.

Your true self, not the female or male body form,
but your true self,
which is the reality which right now
perceives this perception and hears these words.

That which you know as I,
which is not made out of flesh and bones
and dancing atoms and molecules.

The true self, which is not phenomenal.

You are always exercising your freedom,
because there is only one you,
only one reality.

There is no other.
That one reality is absolute.
It is freedom itself.

The wholeness, the totality of being,
universal beingness,
this formless aware presence,
which you are,
upon which you superimpose a form,
you superimpose time and space
onto the formless you.

But no matter what you superimpose
onto the formless you,
you remain as you are,
a formless aware presence,
this formless reality
that does not exist in time and space,

that is not suffering,
that is not subject to phenomenal conditions,
that is neither a man or a woman,
that has no past or future,
that is not limited by past and future,
that is not defined by mind states,
that is not defined by the health of body.

So whenever you choose,
you can disrobe,
you can drop this identity.

It is always in the moment.
It is always right now.

Not some plan for the future,
not some intention.

It is always right now.

Take a look:
Am I a phenomena that appears to me?
Am I a bundle of thoughts and sensations and feelings and memories?
Am I a stream of thoughts and stream of sensations, perceptions?

Is that what I am right now, this moment, in this instant, what am I?
In this instant, which has no duration, what is my history?
What is my story?
What is my reality in this eternal now.

Because any narrative needs time.
Any story line needs time and space, memory.

Now what about this instant,
this instant of being?

Shall we simply disregard this eternal presence right now,
this eternal now,
disregarded and somehow adopt the model that
reality is a story line,
my story line,
my narrative,
my past,
my trauma,
my healing,
my future plans.

Who’s, who’s plans?
What future?

When you come to presence in this moment, what is the future?
Isn’t it all right here,
right now,
beyond words,
beyond mind,
beyond thought,
beyond narrative.

Do we need to maintain a me story?
Is this what we plan to do in this life,
maintain a story,
try to rearrange the furniture of the story.
Redecorate the space,
make a better story.

And then what?
What for?

What about presence?
What about consciousness?

Which is not a story.
Shall we disregard that.

Oh, that.

It’s your reality.

Yet all is well as it is;
how fascinating.

In spite of
all our stories and
all our ailments,
all our angst…

All is well,
because we have never been a character in the dream.
There is no real character in the dream, only imaginary ones.

And you,
that which is
and knows it is right now
and hears and perceives this perception
is not in the perception.