Webcast Transcript 10 March 2005

Wayne> So if you accept that you’re not the doer, then where’s you’re problem with powerlessness?

> Well I keep thinking, ‘I can do this, I can do that…’

Wayne> What did you just say? If you’re not the doer, what do you mean, “I can do this or I can do that?” I mean, obviously the belief that you’re not the doer is an intellectual belief. Fine, I mean that’s great. The first step of AA - that you’re powerless over alcohol and your life’s unmanageable, by you presumably - is a point of departure as well, meaning that it must be accepted intellectually first, or it’s usually accepted intellectually first. If it was completely accepted 100% at every level, there’s no need for the other 11 steps. It’s all over. When there is a deep and intuitive understanding of one’s complete powerlessness - that your life is unmanageable by you, that you have no capacity to manage your life - which is to say that you’re not the doer - so there is no conflict whatsoever between the two. So the next 11 steps are to bring about a deep intuitive understanding. And having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these 12 steps, we then carry this message to other alcoholics. So that’s a process, and whether that process proves effective for you, we’ll have to see. And 8 months ago, when we talked, what I said was, “That was effective for me.” I don’t think I told you to do it.

> No I think you probably didn’t.

Wayne> Ok, well I don’t usually. But rather, it is a process that I’ve seen have positive effect for many people. And in the early years particularly, when I was still heavily involved in AA, Ramesh and I talked all the time about the parallels between what he was saying in his talks, and what was being talked about, fundamentally, in the 12 step programs. So his response to you is based on that information. But he is himself very moderate and refined in everything - not just in his consumption of alcohol, but in every level of his life. In contrast to me anyway - I’m moderately nothing [laughter].

> What does consciousness want? In tough times I want to ask, ‘Consciousness, what do you want of me?’ or ‘Why does Consciousness want this experience of difficulty?

Wayne> The question, of course, is rooted in a very heavily dualistic notion: that you have Consciousness, and then there is you, and why does Consciousness want you to have this experience? The pointer of the teaching is that that separation is notional - at best; the separation between you and Consciousness does not actually exist, and so Consciousness is not a thing with desires or agendas relative to you. So the whole structure of the question is best answered with an examination of, what are you? What are you, in relation to Consciousness?

> So no motive can be assigned to the functioning of Consciousness?

Wayne> Motives are continuously being assigned to the functioning of Consciousness. The real question is, do those assignments mean anything?

You, I assume, are connected - and aware of this connection - with Consciousness.

Wayne> You assume incorrectly. There is no awareness of a connection because there is no separation. Connection can only exist where there is separation, but there is no separation. So there is the presence of Consciousness, certainly, but there is no separate awareness of that presence of Consciousness. So when you then go on to ask, “From your perspective, is there a motive on the part of Consciousness?” I would tell you that my perspective - the only perspective I have, is the perspective of the body-mind apparatus of Wayne Liquorman. And that perspective is dictated by the conditioning and the genetic predisposition of the organism, of my culture, and of my various teachers along the way - all of which contribute to my perspective. But there is no non-dual perspective. There is no enlightened perspective. So what I offer when I sit in this chair and talk to people is a dualistic pointer to an omnipresent non-dual truth. But the pointers are all very dualistic in nature. They must be! Otherwise there’s nothing happening.

Wayne, you said that when you use ‘I’, it is as Wayne, and when Ramesh uses ‘I’, he speaks as Consciousness - if I have that right.

Wayne> No I don’t think so. Ramesh generally speaks in the first person, as Ramesh. It was actually Nisargadatta Maharaj who used the technique of speaking from the perspective of Consciousness, for teaching purposes. He wasn’t speaking from the perspective of Consciousness - he was teaching, using that pointer of talking as if he were Consciousness. He said, “I was never born - nor will I ever die.” So it was a teaching pointer.

Could you speak to us as Consciousness?

Wayne> That particular methodology is not one that I use. I haven’t so far, and I’m not inclined to start tonight. Maybe tomorrow [laughter], but not tonight.

> When you speak, Consciousness is speaking. When I speak, Consciousness is speaking. Doesn’t that kind of answer that question anyway?

Wayne> Sure.

> So that’s Consciousness speaking?

Wayne> That certainly is a pointer. That’s one of the ones I’m familiar with, so speaking from that perspective - that everything is Consciousness, and Consciousness is what is speaking - is the conceptual structure that we were using here, but it’s no more or less valid and useful than Maharaj’s structure of saying, “I am Consciousness. I am that which is not identified with the body-mind. I was never born. I will never die.” That perspective is another intellectual perspective; another dualistic teaching methodology. So you just pick your poison basically. Or your poison picks you [laughter].

Would you explain again why using the term that the sage is aware of the connection, is not valid.

Wayne> Because, in order for something to be connected, they have to be separate - so there has to be a connection between two separate things. In the final understanding, that separation is no longer. Therefore, there is no connection between anything. There is simply oneness. So that is why I say there is no non-dual perspective. All perspective must be a dualistic one. So all experience of connection, all experience of unity, all experience of oneness is dependent upon separation.

> So there really is no oneness either. Because oneness is built upon the idea of separation.

Wayne> Yes.

> It doesn’t leave much then.

Wayne> It doesn’t leave anything. Much ado about nothing. [laughter]

Boulder asks, “I’m curious what it feels like to be you - living with complete awareness. Or to be more clear, how is it different from before the ultimate understanding?”

Wayne> The example that I often use is that my experience of the full understanding, of total awareness, is very much like your experience today of walking around without a stone in your shoe. I’m going to assume that you have walked around all day without a stone in your shoe. So there has been this condition - stone absence. What has your experience been of that absence? I’m quite sure that when you look at it, you will realise that there was no experience of the absence of the stone. There was simply the experiences of the day, that registered through the organism with your name attached to it. But there was an absence of the stone, as part of your day, and yet there was no experience of that absence.

> Wayne, just humour me with this construct that I’m using. Consciousness pervades everything, and its energy is in everything. In our body-mind organisms also, it is present...

Wayne> I’m going to have to stop you there. As much as I would love to humour you [laughter], Consciousness is not in everything. Consciousness IS everything. There isn’t ‘everything’ that ‘Consciousness’ goes into, you see? There is no separation between ‘everything’ and ‘Consciousness’. That’s the whole point, you see. So all the rest of your question that comes after that is based on the notion of Consciousness pervading this or pervading that, and it is that fundamental notion of separation that we’re pointing at.

> So, the stone that I think I have in my shoe, I can’t do anything about it, can I?

Wayne> Oh there’s all sorts of things you can do about it. Whether they’re successful or not, of course, is obviously outside of your control, but there’s all sorts of things you could do. In fact, whether you do them or not, may not be in your control - but there’s all sorts of things you could do. I think you may have noticed in your life that you set out to do all kinds of things; you firmly intended to do all sorts of things that never got done - from the most mundane, “I’m gonna get up at 7-00 tomorrow morning. I fully intend to get up at 7-00 tomorrow morning.”

> Wayne, I can see that everything is part of the whole, but I always see the whole as being some thing. Is there any way to resolve this?

Wayne> No. Really, I mean the moment you think about ‘it’, it’s an ‘it’, but there’s no getting around that, because it’s the very structure of the mind - as soon as it considers something, it objectifies it. It has to. So that is why the understanding is called transcendent - the transcendent understanding - because it is not of the mind. So if it’s not of the mind, what’s it of? It’s not of anything. It is transcendent.

> I’ve been thinking about how it isn’t just the word about something that isn’t right, as in when it’s been lost. It’s the thought about something. The moment a thought occurs, or a word or statement about something occurs, that’s not it. There’s a sense of a self that is in a struggle - not wanting to be pushed over a cliff, but there’s another part that looks at that and says, “This is really funny, its funny to watch, it’s a humorous event.” I’m growing kind of attached to that evolving humorous self, because it’s kind of entertaining. It’s almost like there’s something saying, “Don’t let it get pushed over the cliff quite yet. This is too much fun to watch this unfold.” It’s like a story - you don’t want a story to end. Tell me the next chapter - I want to be around then. There’s that attachment, and when we talk about transcendence, we can’t describe it - there’s no words there, so any time you talk about it, it’s not it. Yet we seem to enjoy talking about it.

Wayne> Yeah, I mean that certainly happens. As Lao Tzu said, “The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao.” I mean that was the first line of the Tao Te Ching. And yet, this is what’s crucial: he finished that poem and he wrote 80 more - all pointing to this Tao, and naming it continuously, but starting by saying that that which is being named, is not it. They’re pointers. So the pointing happens as part of this process of manifest life, you see. And the interest in the pointers is also part of that happening, you see. The pointer is useless if nobody is interested. There’s absolutely no value in it whatsoever. The value is in the fact that there are people interested. People have been infused with this curiosity, infused with this sense of wanting to know, and these pointers then have meaning.

> Wayne, is it an absolute truth, with a capital A and a capital 'T' that you don’t tell absolute truth?

Wayne> No, that is not absolute truth. The absolute truth cannot be spoken. So everything that I say is relative - must be relative.

> You say in your book - I don’t know if I should use the word ‘truth’ - but you say that it’s unimaginable because it doesn’t exist.

Wayne> As a thing that can be imagined, yes.

> Would you be willing to talk about how the format of this teaching evolved for you? The way the sat-sang manifests? There is a certain format that exists here, that recurs in pretty much a similar way each time. I was just wondering if it was something that your teacher operated in a certain way, and it just seemed to be something that followed. Do you feel that there is a purpose that you are aware of, for conducting this in the way that you do?

Wayne> I would say that the initial structure was very much part of how Ramesh did it, and how he did it was basically how his teacher did it, more or less. People would come and ask questions and there’d be talking, relative to these concepts of Consciousness and these non-dual pointers. The little tweaks and twists that have come about along the way are like mutations of that basic structure that Ramesh uses, so there are profound similarities and there are also differences. But I think what sustains this, as it is, is very much the energy of the universe. The people who come are interested by what is here, and the way that what is here gets articulated has very much to do with the experiences of Wayne Liquorman. Does that answer your question?

> Sort of. I guess I was sitting here and wondering to myself if you ever thought you might like to make more money at this.

Wayne> Every time I sit in a coach seat [laughter], I think that I would like there to be a little more money.

> I was just thinking about the marketing of this teaching, and about the fact that relatively speaking, it’s not very popular. You’ve been doing it for years and nine or ten people show up. It always seems amazing to me - there’s millions of people in L.A.

Wayne> If you like it so much Jim, you can supply me with business class seats! I’d really appreciate it. [laughter]

> Is that pretty much the only thing that you’re looking for?

Wayne> Yeah, pretty much! I’ve got basically everything else, literally - in terms of economics, that’s pretty much it.

> So you don’t necessarily have a desire to have more people exposed to this, or anything like that.

Wayne> No. I would say I’ve been very blessed by this teaching. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a lot more money than I have today, and certainly I’ve had the profound experience that the money does not provide happiness. It provides certain other things, but it doesn’t provide happiness. I have absolute experience of that. It’s not idle speculation on my part, that that might be the case. I have absolute conviction that that is true. So the blessings have come in a variety of ways, and there’s ample money to live a comfortable life. So it is provided, in a sense, by the teaching, and without my marketing - without my trying to make something happen. That’s what I like about L’s [statement], “There is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order”, meaning that it should be this way, that it would be better if it were that way. I don’t have any sense that if there were 40 people in the room, and my bank account had another zero on the end of it, then I’d be happier, or the universe would then be in order. The universe is in perfect order as it is. Except for the business class seats [laughter].

> I was first exposed to a non-dual teacher who has the conviction that if everybody was enlightened, the world would somehow be a better place. That’s a fairly ambitious perspective on things, and I guess you don’t have a belief like that.

Wayne> I’ve subscribed to L’s assessment that there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of setting the universe in order - meaning that if everyone is to be enlightened, it will happen. And I may be part of it, or I may be the thorn, the obstruction to it happening, that has to get out of the way - I have no idea. But it is the absolute conviction that it is Consciousness that does everything, and my actions are simply part of that whole, and my desires are part of that whole. All of it is part of that whole.

> Including your marketing plan?

Wayne> Or absence, or whatever! [laughter] In this case, that is. I mean other teachers certainly have very definite marketing opportunities and plans, and I always thought it was just ironic as hell - I mean I’ve been a business man my entire life, and Ramesh was a banker, for God’s sake. If there was any combo that should be raking in the money on this assignment, this would seem to be it. We both offer seminars, and there is a little money generated from those things - enough to keep the office open and the books being published, and my stomach in substantial order, you know, all of those things get taken care of. But for whatever reason, there is not wealth being created so far, out of this teaching.

> In terms of preference, as a student, I feel much more comfortable here, because I don’t feel like I’m being sold something all the time. There’s not always a plan being driven at me, so I appreciate it. That’s why I’m here.

> So with L saying, is it the conviction that I need to make the world a better place because it’s wrong this way, that is arrogant and warlike?

Wayne> Yes - that it should be other than it is. You may well have a desire to do something, you see - to help someone. It’s the notion that you’re setting the universe in order - that it shouldn’t be this way, and that you’re going to correct it - that’s arrogant and warlike. Obviously your actions to help someone, to make things more peaceful or whatever, are clearly part of the functioning of Totality - as is everything. It is the presumption laid on top of your action, in the evaluation afterwards, that this action that I have done is setting things as they should be. That’s an incredible presumption, on the part of a single entity. The ultimate humility of the sage is that I am an instrument through which Totality functions - that what I do, whether people like it or don’t like it, whether they approve of it or disapprove of it, is part of what is. That’s the essential humility. That’s not being self-effacing, which is what humility is often thought to be - that self-deprecating kind of ‘Oh it was nothing.’ But truly it was not my doing - good or bad. The deepest possible conviction that it was part of the functioning of the universe, is genuine humility.

> One topic that came up at Ramesh’s was where this guy was talking about his LSD trip, and how he really felt that he was a chosen something, and Ramesh really cut him and said, “Don’t get the idea you’re special.” I was trying to think of the whole thing with the banana leaf, and how his whole future was told. I mean that seems incredibly unique, but I couldn’t really figure it out. Is Ramesh special?

Wayne> It depends who you ask, whether people consider him special or not.