Being conditioned, you know, for example, by people who have been very judgmental in the past,
and just seeing those kinds of behavior, and then just having, noticing all the time,
judgment-related thoughts towards other people, maybe situations and things like that. I just feel
that, um, where is that kind of subtle difference, but at the same time, sometimes it feels a little
bit like new advice where you just leave it, send it. It's one thing to say to recognize that
the personal conditioning of each of our minds is not simply the product of each of our minds.
For instance, your mind is conditioned to speak English. You were conditioned by your
culture to speak English. So, the fact that you speak English is not a product. It's not
you are not personally responsible for the fact that you speak English. You were conditioned by
something that is much bigger than your own mind to speak English, although the fact that you
speak English is a personal conditioning of your mind. You don't speak Chinese, as far as I know.
Yeah, and that goes for all the conditioning of all of our minds. The separate self is
an impersonal conditioning. We have been conditioned by our parents, our communities,
our nations. We have been conditioned to live and feel we are separate selves, and we are
not personally responsible for feeling that we are separate selves. It is an impersonal conditioning.
That there's one thing to recognize, but it's quite another thing to say there is nothing you
can do about it. There's nobody here, there's nothing to do. Don't exploit your experience.
Don't do that. That's what neo advaita says. So, I acknowledge that there is nobody
who is personally responsible for their personal conditioning. Conditioning is impersonal. However,
I do think that at the relative level, at anything apart from the absolute level,
that there is something to be done. What is there to be done to explore our experience?
So, that isn't to work on it, but you're not working on the country. You would only have to
work on yourself or on your experience if you were something other than the presence of awareness,
and you needed to become the presence for Wednesday. That would be hard work.
But that is why what we do here is not really a practice or an effort or a discipline. It is
more about a recognition. Recognition of what we already and always are but have simply failed to
notice because of our because we have, because we are lost in the content of our experience.
So, as this automatic conditioning comes up, and I see it, like, I don't,
I, I don't try to change it. I just see what happens. Like every time that it comes up,
when you say, "I see this conditioning," or "I see what happens," tell us about
the "I" that sees this conditioning or the "I" that sees what happens.
It's aware. It's not an objective. Yeah, perfect. Tell us more. Um,
it's, well, it's not located in time or space. Yes, and that's more perfect. Um,
in time or space, it's not, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't, you know, like, it doesn't know itself
as an object. It's, yeah, it's, um, well, it's not, it's not limited because there's something
a little bit, it's a bit more simple about it. But what is its nature? Not too philosophical.
Just to know, just to know.
To be aware. Yes, but if you had to give it a quality, a feeling quality,
not a philosophical quality, when you say it's not in time and space, you're absolutely right, Julia,
it's not. But that is, that is philosophical. It's true, and nothing against that, but I want you to,
if you were to, it doesn't, it doesn't feel awareness doesn't feel like anything. But if
you were to give it a feeling tone, how would you describe it in terms of a feeling form?
I mean, I know how I would describe this, but how do you describe it now when you say, "I am
aware of my conditioning"? What is the nature of that which is aware of your conditioning?
That's what I want you to say, but there's so much masking it that I can't even say
that. I'm not interested in, you see, you go back. What masks it is the conditioning.
I'm not interested in that. That's just the movie that is playing on the screen.
But don't you go, you see how quickly you go back to the conditioning? You briefly say,
"The awareness that is aware of this conditioning is peaceful and ever-present." And then you go
straight back to the conditioning, about the problems, everything that's masking it. It
is the image of my face masking the screen. Are you seeing the screen now or not?
I've seen the screen now or not? Yes, does the black image mask the screen?
Well, and unless you think that it does, and if you think that it does, it will seem to
mask the screen. Or the black image that you're seeing now is like the feeling of depression.
The feeling of depression feels like a thick, dark blanket over the light of awareness.
But it is not. Just as the black image is shining with the presence of the screen, so even the
experience of deep depression is shining with the light of awareness. Nothing much. No experience
masks experience awareness because all there is to experience is the awareness of it. Just like
no movie fails a screen because all there is to a movie is the screen. So when you go back,
when you say, "Oh, but my conditioning masks the presence of awareness," there you're slipping back
into an old habit. It's an old belief system. If you believe that, that's how it will seem to
be. Just stop believing that. How do you stop believing that? By seeing that it is not true.
How do you stop believing that? That black image veils the screen by seeing that when you see the
black image, you are still seeing the screen. In other words, it is understanding that enables you
to stop believing that your conditioning masks the peace and happiness that are inherent in your own
being. And that's where you say you bring it so close that you can no longer separate yourself
out from it. And so in the end, it transforms. You're complicating it. That's a different,
just now, see that your experience now is shining with the knowing of it. Yes. Is there anything to
your experience now other than the knowing of it? No. Is there ever anything to your experience,
however wonderful or awful your experience may be, other than the knowing of it? That's it. Your
knowing, pure consciousness, shines brightly in all experience equally. Simply cease giving your
experience permission to veil awareness, and it will cease seeming to do so. That's all. I mean,
it's your experience. Depression coexists together in a sense in that way, is what you're saying.
Can the screen and the image coexist?
Yeah. So the depression is an apparent veiling, an apparent veiling of our nature,
just as the black image is an apparent veiling but not a real veiling of the
screen. So if we feel this despair or depression, it's just because we have
lost touch with the peace of our true nature. And all we need to do then is trace our way
back from the feeling to our being, which lies, so to speak, just behind the feeling.
Meaning that to transform it is to bring it close. That's what I was trying to ask. Don't think,
don't try to transform the feeling. It is already made out of happiness. Okay, feelings
do not need to be transformed. The black image does not need to be transformed into the screen,
the transparent screen. It is already simply a temporary colouring of the transparent screen.
Feelings are simply temporary colourings of the light of your being.