Webcast Transcript 15 February 2005

> Peter.

Wayne> Have we met before, Peter?

> No, we have not.

Wayne> So how is it you find yourself here today, Peter?

> Curiosity. Fun.

Wayne> What aspect of your curiosity brought you?

> I’d read a couple of your transcripts on the web site. A couple of questions came to me about the authorship within the context that everything is Source or Consciousness. There seemed to be a couple of contradictions, and that may just be within the limitation of language itself. In one of the transcripts, you were talking about conditioning and how people may become sick, and the idea that somebody has control over that - that someone can change their conditioning. For you that was a hideous idea; that was not possible. Then later in the same transcript, you were talking about acceptance, and how that is sort of an all-encompassing acceptance beyond the sense of acceptance or non-acceptance.

For me, it just didn’t seem to sit straight. Even if we are unable to change conditions, that itself is within the acceptance of everything, so then I was curious as to who is the person who finds that hideous.

Wayne> Actually, what I found hideous was the suggestion that the reason you were sick was because of some limitation on your part: That you weren’t spiritually fit enough, you hadn’t aligned yourself properly with the will of God, and therefore the reason you were sick was essentially your fault. So, it doesn’t contradict the notion of acceptance, because acceptance is total; acceptance is not specific. Within acceptance is the realization or understanding that every organism has preferences in accordance with its nature. I can both say I think that that idea is hideous –meaning I don’t like it – and there is also complete acceptance, because included in the acceptance is acceptance of the fact that I don’t like it.

> Precisely. Your opinion that it’s hideous.

Wayne> That’s right.

> So, then we need to look at the sense of the “I” in the organism. You could break it down to the sense of who is asking this question. Is it really myself asking about myself if I’m coming from the space that everything is me?

Wayne> Yes.

> But then there seems to be this delineation or this slightly different categorization of the “I” or the ego. It has no opinion or likes or dislikes. I’m just trying to come to terms with that.

Wayne> In my model [and it is simply a model], all of the separate organisms, with their individual characteristics and qualities, are aspects of the whole. In no way separate. So they are at once identifiable as entities, with qualities and characteristics . . .

> [cell phone rings] I apologize. Of course, that would be fine if that happens.

Wayne> It’s funny that you should say that . . .

> I apologize, nonetheless.

Wayne> Your apology is certainly accepted. About eight months ago, there was a fellow sitting precisely where you’re sitting, and his cell phone rang AND he answered it. My response was, “Get the fuck out of here right now! Go!” I was furious! Absolutely furious at the utter disrespect for the teaching. And I found that was incompletely intolerable, and I kicked his ass out and told him, “Don’t come back!” I was yelling at him!

So, there was another guy who had actually come with him – I didn’t know it at the time; after a bit he hesitantly raised his hand and said, “You were talking about acceptance. So, how does this work?” [Laughter] It was great, because it was pointing precisely to this question.

When I talk about acceptance, it is non-specific. It is total. The acceptance includes everything, all the dualistic opposites. Acceptance is often confused with approval, where you have to like everything, where you say everything is fine and you have no resistance to anything. And this is held as some kind of ideal in certain circles. But it is totally unrealistic. It is as impossible a notion as the idea of a one-ended stick or single-sided coin.

> In fact, the more one refuses one thought, the more one inspires the other.

Wayne> Indeed. Because it is understood that within each opposite is the totality of the other. That’s the beauty of the yin-yang symbol. You can separate them and say, “Oh, I only want the good; I only want the white part.” But it will complete itself out of itself. The balance will be restored, because that is the very nature of this dualistic universe.

> Before the phone rang, you were talking about the point of the separate organism, acknowledging the fact that whatever one wants to call oneself – an organism or a person or a Peter from England, whatever it might be. . .

Wayne> The essential pointer of Advaita – which means not two – is that everything is one; everything is Consciousness. With the understanding that everything is one, then how do we “explain” the multiplicity? Now, one of the ways the multiplicity has often been talked about is that this is all illusion. But that notion, as classical as it may be, is only part of the story.

It is not that the appearance is illusory, what is truly illusory is the appearance of separation, the sense that each independent thing is in fact independent. The underlying understanding is that each object is an aspect of the one, in no way separate, it is simply that one does not see the linkage because it is the nature of the senses to objectify things, to quantify and make them into discrete objects. That’s what the senses do in order to know. So, the universe is illusory in that aspect.

What kind of work do you do, Peter?

> I write; I philosophize; I help others. Consult different places around the world. Play golf.

Wayne> I’ve had three major events in my life in which the hand of God has swept down and removed an obstacle that was creating a lot of pain and suffering in my life. About twenty years ago, the alcoholism and drug addiction that I was suffering from was lifted, gone. Then about a year later, the addiction to nicotine, which I had for nearly twenty years, disappeared. And then about a year after that, or six months after that, the impulse to swing a golf club was removed. Mountains of frustration were lifted! I consider myself extremely fortunate, and I have not felt the need to swing a golf club in over eighteen years.

> Of course, there was nothing wrong with the frustration anyway.

Wayne> There was frustration.

> Who was frustrated?

Wayne> The same one who asked the question, “Who’s frustrated?”

> So, then where do you delineate between God that came in the three times and you?

Wayne> The distinction is purely poetic. But we make these kinds of life distinctions between forces greater than our physical selves and our physical selves. I have absolutely no problem using personal pronouns – saying I and mine and me – and to talk about this organism named Wayne as a separate apparatus, functionally speaking, as a convention that we use as part of this dance of life. In the same way that I am not compelled to go down to the beach in the afternoon when everybody is standing out watching the sunset and say, “My! What a magnificent rotation of the Earth obscuring the sun,” because I know the sun isn’t setting, and to say sunset would be an indication of one’s stupidity. So I can still very comfortably say it’s a beautiful sunset, while at the same time know perfectly well that it is the Earth moving in relation to the sun.

> You might say that perhaps there’s a delineation of a God from you that is purely poetic because of the functions of language.

Wayne> Functional. It is a functional difference between this limited apparatus, which was born and will die, and the totality of which it is an aspect, which is eternal.

> That which gives its life.

Wayne> That which is its essence and which infuses it with life. Yes.

> Cool.

[Pause]

> I posed a question last night on the web; it was just right before the end of the session. It had to do with the seeker and when grace comes and initiates the seeking process. Ramesh talks about the working mind and the thinking mind; the thinking mind being that which interferes with the working mind’s ability to function efficiently. Is the seeker an aspect of the working mind, as such then?

Wayne> We can say that it is the presence of the thinking mind which allows seeking. Anything that happens is within the working mind. The process of seeking happens within the working mind, but it is the presence of the thinking mind that enables that process to occur in the organism. When the thinking mind is gone, then there is no need for seeking. The whole rationale for seeking is gone.

> As I understood it, the working mind nevertheless is still a phenomenal mind or a phenomenal process. And, yet, enlightenment – where the seeker no longer is – would not be the same as the working mind then. In other words, the working mind is not a factory of enlightenment.

Wayne> No. Enlightenment as we talk about it is in fact transcendent of the organism in which the thinking mind and working mind operate.

> I’m trying to put the seeker in perspective of the two different types of mind. The seeker might be using the thinking mind - the thinking mind giving rise to the seeker, but then the seeker realizes that the thinking mind needs to be stilled, and the process of stilling that mind makes the working mind more prevalent. Then there would be selectivity in respect to not choosing the thinking. Whatever thought arises, you are watching it without attachment. That would be the working mind? Correct? The thinking mind would be the one that would attach and give it duration.

Wayne> Involvement. Horizontal involvement.

> I was trying to understand why the working mind [as Ramesh said] when functioning so efficiently loses track of time, but then when it finishes the task it might be surprised at the elapse of time. It’s surprised that it completed a task and time elapsed: It was twelve o’clock when the task started, and now it’s five o’clock, and it didn’t seem like anything happened. I was confused a little bit about how the working mind would not be aware of time and then become aware of time.

Wayne> Well, these concepts do have their limits. The concept of the thinking mind and the working mind is a broad pointer. As we get into the finer points of experience, then we have to get finer tools. We can then begin to look at the nature of the working mind and its qualities as a functionally identified me and a pure operating process. We can further refine the concept to look at those aspects. There is a quality of the organism that is self-identifying: I know that my tooth hurts. It is identified with the organism; it’s identified with the experience; but not as the author. So it’s not an egoic identification; it’s a purely functional one.

Now, often when there is pure functioning of the working mind, there is no involvement by this functional “me.” And that is work in its purest form. You’ve driven for fifty miles and all of a sudden realize that there was no identified me involved in the process at all. But that identified me may or may not be connected to the thinking mind. There is a working mind aspect to an identified me – the functional one. What makes the whole very difficult to identify is that this involved me [thinking mind] is often wrapped right around the functional me [the working mind], and seeing which one is which is impossible. It’s like the nest of those wires behind my computer.

So, the real question that comes to my mind is: Why care?

> I don’t think that I do.

Wayne> Fine.

> I think sometimes the question comes up, but where does it come from? Well, since it’s there, go ahead and say it. I’m not always sure it’s supportive of an answer.

[Pause]

> Is there a particular intention with this teaching? Not like a goal or a desired result or anything like that. You talked about having golf taken away from you and the frustration that you experienced when playing golf. Again, and maybe it’s based around the same thing I’m looking at, perhaps there’s a contradiction, because the frustration is all part of that acceptance. Equally, when you shouted at the guy, there was frustration. To what extent is that frustration gone and does it matter? But the teachings, if everything is as it is and nothing’s wrong, then to what degree is the teaching helping who, or anyone?

Wayne> It’s understood that the teaching is simply a collection of tools. The outcome of the application of those tools is varied. So there isn’t any suggestion that by applying these tools you’ll get something. I’ve seen people sit in the same talk, read the same books, be exposed to the same teaching, and one gets a deep intuitive understanding that brings a real peace to his life, and the other gets depressed, gets frustrated, gets nihilistic and dark. Same teaching. Same tools. In one case, it brings about peace, and in the other, it brings misery.

> So that would just be obviously how that individual organism is reacting to one of those things there at that time. But the underlying understanding is that with this understanding of these tools there is liberation of sorts, which is the full acceptance.

Wayne> No it is not the understanding of the tools; it is what we’ll call the positive effect of the tools. What I like to say is that the teaching has its effect. It is not the student’s grasp of the concepts that brings about success. It is the application of the tools in such a way that there is an epiphany, an intuitive knowing.

> But in that intuitive knowing there is what?

Wayne> There is nothing! In the most profound sense. There was a book years ago by Robert Heinlein - you may be too young to know of it - called Stranger in a Strange Land. In this book there was a term “grok” which described a moment of deep and total understanding, but it was not an understanding of anything. Wei Wu Wei uses a word “apperception” – which I think he got from Kant – to point to this same thing; this sudden deep intuitive knowing, which is not objective in nature. Apperception: Perception without a perceiver or a perceived. It’s a non-dualistic state. Even to use the word “state” is too gross a term, because we’re pointing to a totality of identification transcendent of the dualistic kind of understanding.

> Is this what others may say is like pure being.

Wayne> Pure Being. Unity with “What Is.” There are a variety of very beautiful descriptions of this state.

> So maybe this is the fourth visit of the hand of God that’s on the way, he could equally have introduced grok to you.

Wayne> Absolutely!

> Having quit the drugs and the nicotine, is anything arising?

Wayne> God, I hope not! I’ll take the golf.

> If an organism has those kinds of habits and patterns, can they lead to sickness or some sort of imbalance, like obesity, diabetes, or addictions to drugs or alcohol?

Wayne> They can.

> I guess this gets into the concept of choice. In the transcript I was quoting from you said how that’s just a horrible idea that people can change their condition. I’ve just seen a lot of great work within this context, where people are getting rid of serious illnesses, not just addictions or stuff like that.

Wayne> The essential question is: What is the source of the healing? What is the source of the change?

> Ah. Different. Right.

Wayne> There’s no question that people engage in various practices and there are “positive” results, meaning there are subsequent events that are considered positive. Now, the causal relationships get a little dicey, because there are other people doing the same practice and therapy and they die. Or they get sicker. Absolute causal links are difficult to establish. All that aside, we do order our universe in terms of cause and effect. We observe what seems to be a cause that more often than not brings about a certain result. We function in this world based on that kind of ordering.

> But the actual source of the healing, that’s different. So you’re not denying the aspect of being proactive and altering one’s condition in a “healthy” way, but rather to what degree one is actually doing it. So that if I cut myself, I’m not healing my cut. The essence of life knows what it’s doing with that. Is that what you’re referring to?

Wayne> What I’m saying is that you will apply a treatment based on your best information and conditioning. Two hundred years ago, in your homeland, the best treatment would be to bleed the person or apply leeches; physicians would bring about healing through these means. That was the height of science at that time, and people were applying it very diligently, earnestly; the College of Surgeons was recommending such practices.

Today, we would look at this same practice and say it is counterproductive; it’s not what it proposes. I’m sure lots of things that we are currently doing will subsequently be revealed in the same way. In fact, read the paper. This morning, for example, flu shots for the elderly, originally touted as saving 80% of the lives of people who use them, have been shown in the latest study to have no effect. My point is that the causal links keep changing in how we view the cause. We must operate on the basis of what we know. We must, and we do. Because it’s the nature of our organisms to do so. The pointer of this teaching is to expand one’s perspective a bit, to understand that our actions are the results of forces other than our egoic selves.

> So even the proactivity is not authored by us?

Wayne> Precisely.

> It is what it is because of all the influences that came before and over which we had no control.

Wayne> Exactly.

> I deal with this in my work all the time. Some people are New Age, some people are “old school,” and often the benefit I’ve found from this teaching is that I have so much less judgment. I railed against the folks who lived down the street. Now I don’t really care. They are the product of their DNA and influences they had no power over; they’re doing the best they can, too.

Wayne> Yes. And in a specific instance, their attitude or approach may be more efficacious then the one you hold to be the best.

> That was interesting to me when you were talking about the leeches. I thought, yeah, for all our technology and how we made the world better - the yin and the yang – yes, we have medicine; yes, we have nuclear bombs. Same technology. We save enough lives, but we can wipe out a lot more, and we do. It’s not like we get any better. We just get a different playing field. This whole idea that we’re evolving; I don’t think so. As far as evolving into a better thing. I haven’t seen any evidence of that. We’ve certainly changed the colors and the names for things, but why aren’t we all fed if we’re all so truly helped by this technology that saves lives? There never seems to be a grand leap forward, for all of our talk of proactivity.

> Rearranging the furniture of the Titanic.

> Although, I’m heartened because I’m enjoying the ride. I like coming here just to sit here.

Wayne> There’s no question that in individual lives there are “improvements,” there are joys, understandings. In some lives, there are tremendous experiences of reality, of Presence, of grandeur and wonder that make life vivacious and complete and total in that moment. And you can point to another place and say there are horrible tortures and the most cruel, vile kind of activities imaginable. That is the yin and the yang of life. The acceptance of which is peace.

[Pause]

> As an early child, I heard the term “let go and let God.” It’s a nice term, but it didn’t really have a deep meaning until later on in life.

Wayne> Are you in AA?

> No. No for sure! But I’ve always been kind of labeled as a perfectionist or control-freak, probably due to the family situation as a child. My father left home and left four kids and a mom to take care of. I was the man of the house. and all that stuff. I carried it into my business life. But ever since an experience that I had a couple of years ago, where everything kind of changed; there’s been a big shift. And now I wonder to myself, with respect to my title as an owner of a business, that maybe I’m becoming too complacent about the responsibility of exercising control. There’s a certain amount of letting go that has occurred, almost to the point of saying that it seems to not matter if the business dissolves. It’s almost as though there’s a sense inside that there’s something else coming that is greater than a function I once had in running a business. Although, there are creation aspects of the business that I now love to do more than I did before, particularly the artistic aspects.

But I don’t know if that’s a natural thing. This goes back to the healing aspect we were just talking about. The human organism in its most natural state tends to heal itself; it provides its own chemistry to take care of a lot of things in life that go wrong. Whereas,when it’s uptight and very tense, some of that chemical production gets shut down and physical things begin to occur. Even cancers and heart disease are attributable to mental formations.

Wayne> Of course.

> But I think there’s something in the background. It’s like should I be concerned that I’m not as concerned? [Laughter]

Wayne> The very word “should” is the tip-off, because what the teaching is pointing to is “what is.” So everything that you reported as happening I trust has happened. And then you make judgments about that: it’s a good thing or it’s a bad thing. How you’re feeling in the moment will have a lot to do with whether you consider it a good thing or a bad thing. The pointer of the teaching is that it is; those things are happening. The “should” implies something else. The “should” is a pointer back to the notion of personal authorship. Then the very potent question: Is there such thing acting? Is the organism the author of its actions?

To me, this “let go, let God” pointer is synonymous with total acceptance. You’re not letting go of a specific thing; the letting go is total. To “let go, let God” is not to let go of my business or my relationship - this or that; it is a total letting go. So in that sense it is absolutely synonymous with acceptance. The letting go includes the understanding that God made you as you are, and if that’s being controlling, then the letting go in the total sense acknowledges your controlling nature. So, the need to control is completely consistent in that regard with letting go.

So I’m thinking that with an expanded vision of things, expanded awareness, there may be less tension in the operation of your business.

> There is indeed.

Wayne> And that would be felt by you, and presumably by your employees and your customers as well.

> It isn’t even in the whole. Something that I felt responsible for I suddenly stopped being responsible for. And yet things kept going without my direct control. Relationships became better, too, because I wasn’t trying to control somebody’s thinking or actions. I accepted them being what they are. It’s affected my relationship with my children. They would come home and tell me about a lot of crazy things, and I used to think that I was totally responsible with how they turn out. I’m not. I’m there as a guide, but not as a responsible control mechanism. And everybody feels better!

Wayne> I trust that completely!

> You mentioned that about your children. You said it changed your view of your children.

[Pause]

> Does the teaching address the idea of experience, or emotion or feeling? You gave this example that you were frustrated and told that guy to leave. We label that as an emotion: you got frustrated or angry. Because, again for me, it introduces the aspect of “who” is experiencing. Does experience matter?

Wayne>Yes. There are apparatuses, body/mind mechanisms, with certain qualities and characteristics that are genetic and environmental. So you have a conscious functioning apparatus with a name. This one has the name Wayne. It was given a genetic predisposition. More and more the geneticists are isolating gene sequences which are directly linked to behavior; if those are present, then a certain behavior is present. These gene sequences are then modified in various ways by environmental conditioning – experience. What you have is genes plus conditioning. We can say that equals the programming of the organism. And that programming is dynamic; it’s changing every instant. It’s being updated every heartbeat as new experiences are modifying the program. It is that program which responds, in the moment. So in one moment it will respond to a certain stimulus – let’s say a cell phone going off – with anger; five minutes later, because of changes in the biology of the organism - blood sugar levels, hormonal balance, all of those things that impact the organism – it reacts differently to the same stimulus.

You can then apply the question, “Who is yelling?” Certainly, the organism is yelling. The organism is yelling because of its programming. You can even go back further. What is the nature of this organism? What is the nature of this combination of genetics and experience? Who is that? Is it independent or is it linked to something else? This teaching asks those questions. It doesn’t answer them. It doesn’t have a dogma that says this is how it is.

> For me, it’s without a doubt that there is that sense of Oneness. What I’m looking at is that sense of “yeah, what then?” that is linking off whoever it is that’s frustrated, whoever is shouting, whoever is making this tongue move right now. There’s sort of an insinuation that there may be an independent being, but the being is the same.

Wayne> Is it independent?

> It can’t be independent, because it is the same. That’s the question of the insinuation. So, that the very essence of who I am is no different than what you were. The means of expression are different.

Wayne> Hopefully, my wife can tell the difference between you and me, even though we’re the same thing.

> So, the experience is within the context of the organism of that mind/body. The experience is occurring to that organism. The essence, the source, the oneness - is it a passive observer? There’s no experience that occurs there? Are there any of these words that you use?

Wayne> No. Because, again, the limitations of language are so profound at this point. Not only of language, but of the mental structure. Because the mind, in order for it to know, has to objectify it. It can only know some thing. So when we talk about this unity or oneness, the very thinking or talking about it objectifies it. It makes it a something.

What we’re pointing to is that this Consciousness is everything. There’s nothing that’s not it. It does not exist in a field. It is total.

> The mind/body is included.

Wayne> Total. TOTAL!

[Pause]

> The use of the terms ego, doer, author - my understanding is that everything is within that context. It’s all Consciousness. The ego is part of that Consciousness, so it’s not like it’s a bad thing, a wrong thing, or something to transcend. But there’s this big conversation about it.

Wayne> There is indeed. So, it’s important to define the term. When I talk about ego, usually I’m talking about the sense of personal authorship. So then there isn’t some higher state. The higher state is only in reference to a lower state. When you get rid of the higher/lower modality and you talk about this transcendence, there’s nothing experiential about it.

So, as you swing higher and lower within your own psychology, there’s no particular resistance to dropping into a particularly foul mood. There’s no involvement by the egoic me in that process. The process happens in the absence of a “me” to become involved. Some people refer to the false sense of personal authorship or the false claim of personal authorship as the ego. In my lexicon, the ego in fact does nothing. Its sole function is to claim the functioning of the universe as it happens through a particular organism as its doing. It is claiming the subjectivity of the source as this, identifying with this and then claiming primacy as this. When you look into it, it is such a ludicrous point! It is the most ridiculous one – totally unsupportable. And, yet, that profound sense that “I’m” the one making it happen is a central feature of virtually every human.

Ramesh, who is my guru, coined a wonderful phrase – divine hypnosis – to describe this sense that the ego has of primacy. And it has it even if the intellect fully acknowledges that it couldn’t possibly be the source, that it’s a limited instrument. Yet, despite this conviction, there is this profound sense of being the source. That’s why the term “divine hypnosis” is so beautiful. If everything is divine, if everything is one, then even the presence of the ego must be part of that. So it’s not self-hypnosis; the ego can’t even do that. It may claim that it does it, but again it’s a false claim. It’s a false claim.

> So even if someone would say, “Oh, I just washed my car,” within that context you’re saying that’s perceived as authorship?

Wayne> Not necessarily. It may be perceived as authorship. The sage can say, “I washed my car,” and it’s a statement as devoid of authorship as “the sun rose at 6:53 this morning.” Both are statements of “fact.” I – this organism – washed the car. That happened.

> The difference is?

Wayne> The difference is if this authoring “me” is present to claim the washing of the car as “my” egoic doing.

> So, the fact that he was able to wash the car is only due to the understanding that they only exist because of the whole. So everything up to that point, including the conditioning of the organism, needed to be such that the car could even be washed.

Wayne> Right. Certain organisms never wash their cars. They don’t care about whether their cars are dirty; they don’t have the energy to do it; they don’t have the money to pay somebody else to do it. So the car is always filthy.

> But they might do that?

Wayne> They will do something else.

> Something is doing all the time, but they’re thinking they are doing.

Wayne> That’s correct. So it is the claim of authorship that is the point at which the suffering is created – this involvement by me in the action, whatever the action is. Something as mundane as washing the car has a lot less potential for egoic claim. Now, “I went over and helped my neighbor put up his barn,” is more likely an activity in which the ego will claim involvement: I did that because I’m a nice person; I did that because I’m a responsible member of society. All of those things that will inflate the ego and give it power and substance by claiming that it did those.

> The termination point is “I did.” There is that process of doing, but it doesn’t mean anything about you. That’s where the ego wants to kick in.

Wayne> So it is in fact the nature of that “you.” There’s a functional you that is identified with the action on a functional level, knowing that “I” as the apparatus did it. And then there is that egoic you that takes that one step further. It’s really an interesting moment at which that happens. The thrust of this teaching is to point you back to see for yourself the moment at which in your own experience that occurs.

You’re the testing ground for the teaching. It is at that point that it becomes real and immediate. At this level, it’s all intellectual and kind of hairy-carry. But the point at which it becomes connected to your own action is the point at which insight can occur, profound insight into the true nature of what is occurring. It is a non-intellectual process at that point. So the intellectual pointers direct you there, but they can’t carry you into it.

[Pause]

[Internet question]: Does the phrase, “The seeker is that which is sought,” relate to your teaching? If so, could you explain how?

Wayne> As we’ve been talking about, the pointer of the teaching is that there are not two. That’s what Advaita means: not two. Therefore, the dualistic seeker and sought are understood to be one and the same. They are twin manifestations of the same source.

> I was speaking with a fellow from India the other night – he’s from the Brahmin caste, but not practicing as a Brahmin - and I mentioned to him something about Advaita. I had recalled hearing about Advaita Vedanta, and I’m not sure if it was Ramesh’s description, but it described it as having been an understanding that evolved out of the Hindu tradition. This fellow said that Advaita Vedanta is Hinduism. I’m confused. Are they the same ting?

Wayne> Advaita Vedanta is a religious movement within Hinduism. Pure Advaita, without the Vedanta, is the mystical underpinning of Hinduism, in the same way that Zen is the mystical underpinning of Buddhism, Sufism of Muhammadism, Gnosticism of Christianity, and the Kabala of Judaism. They are all non-dual. They are interchangeable in terms of their essence.

> I think that’s why I see less and less of a difference; it’s because of the way I’m looking at each of these traditions. I’m seeing the mystical side of it and not the religious institutional side of it.

Wayne> The religious side is more of cultural or corporate identification. And the religions arose to serve a variety of needs – social and political – both for the society and for the organization itself. So there are all kinds of things mixed in at the religious level. There are a lot of very beautiful symbols and pointers in all the religions; there’s an enormous amount of crap too. But despite the fact that these essential non-dual teachings have been around for millennia, they have been of interest to very few. Traditionally, there has always been a very small percentage of people who are interested in the non-dual expression.

> Is someone asking you questions on the web or something?

Wayne> Questions are asked through the chat room, which I can access on this laptop.

> So, I can sign in on one of these in the future?

Wayne> Yes. You go to the www.advaita.org website.

> It’s web cast?

Wayne> Yes, there’s a live video and audio feed. You open the chat room and ask your questions.

> Returning to this question of authorship, I notice that you have a couple books here .. . no pun intended.

Wayne> There is a pun intended!

> But it was not of my doing! You wrote those books, but then to be clear with the distinctions, you’re not the source of the information. It may not even warrant explanation, but within the context of this understanding, this teaching . . . because the writing of the books is not “you,” so to speak; you’re not the owner of that.

Wayne> As we’ve been talking about all along, organisms are created to perform actions - all kinds of actions. One of them is to sit here and talk about this stuff. This particular organism, at this particular moment, is programmed in such a way that it is inclined to do this. So, it sits down in the chair and does it. The universe brings people here, through the Internet and walking in the door, to make this happen.

If you’re not here, I don’t talk. I tested it. About a year or so ago, I came down for the Tuesday afternoon talk, and for the first time in seven years nobody came to the talk. Even Marlene wasn’t here. So, I had a chance to see whether I would sit down in the chair and start talking. I didn’t.

> That’s what happened. Who knows what will happen the next time.

Wayne> That’s absolutely true. You do not know what will happen in the next instant. But so far . . .

> So going back to the book and describing you writing that, how would you distinguish within the context of their being no authorship? So you have a function as an organism who writes? You have written, but there’s no “you” in there.

Wayne> There is no claim of personal involvement as the authoring force in the writing.

> I remember watching one of the videos and you said that you hated writing.

Wayne> Yes, that’s right. So there is an experience of the process. For this organism, it happens to be a very difficult one. And, yet, I seem to have a facility for the language. If the energy is provided to do it, then the results seem to be okay. But that’s a big if. We do – I do, we all do – we make distinctions about things. We say we like them or don’t like them; we feel they are good or not. In the understanding that they all are part of what is, are distinctions and values. In the overall scheme of things, I can say the result is often good; given the cultural aesthetic and various criteria, it’s good.

> So life happens to us, and yet we have the ability to experience how it happens to us based on our programming, our conditioning, and, yet, there is simultaneously that experience of it all occurring. It’s not good or bad, it’s just what is.

Wayne> Part of the experiencing is the evaluating.

> That occurs simultaneously.

> Can you evaluate without involvement?

Wayne> Certainly. Without egoic involvement? Absolutely.

> This makes me think of one of Ramesh’s books where somebody was criticizing someone else who had the Understanding for writing a love poem to his mother. Does this ring a bell for you? They were wondering how that person could do that if he truly had the Understanding. And Ramesh very pointedly said that this person’s conditioning is such that he would do that. It’s not like that person stops being that program, so his love for his mother continues. I think that’s what we’re talking about. These things are happening through that person.

Wayne> That is the point precisely. These are happenings. Life is a constant flow of happenings. Then this claiming egoic “me” claims the happening as “my” doing, my authored doing. That’s the point at which the suffering begins.

> Does the suffering begin because then you feel that you have this control? I think the clearest I’ve ever been on this teaching of suffering is when you said something about feeling pain - that pain is. But when you say that pain shouldn’t be or something else shouldn’t be, then there is suffering. Well, how does the suffering begin with the egoic involvement? Can you walk me through that? Once I claimed authorship of my great work with my company.

Wayne> The “me” that is claiming it is essentially insecure. It must be essentially insecure because it’s a false claim. That claim is not justified, and it knows it. The schizoid part of this process is that the claim is made adamantly, while at the same time there is the understanding that “I don’t have any god damn power, if I did I would be doing good stuff all the time, everything would look different.” There is that tacit understanding underlying the claim. So, there is always a discomfort around with the claim.

> A vulnerability, so to speak.

Wayne> Total. Because the claim is a lie. It is a lie. Unsupportable. And yet it’s there. That’s where the conflict is set up. The mechanics of the suffering itself is the taking of an essentially painful event in the moment, and then extending it into the past and the future as it relates to “me.” How will I cope? What will its impact be on me – not the organism, but me the ego? So it is that projection out of the moment that is the difference between pain and suffering.

> And it’s the part that Ramesh says is totally unnecessary.

Wayne> Yeah. But that’s not my favorite statement. To me anything that happens is necessary. When he says it’s not necessary, he means that it can happen in another way; it isn’t the only way things can occur. If it happened, he would say it was necessary. It couldn’t have been other than it was, but it can be other than it was in the next heartbeat.

> And the teaching could have that effect, beyond my control. Because everything is beyond my control.

> Even that is, isn’t it? Because you say I drive somewhere and then I claim it, but even the claiming is a doing, so I don’t do that either . .

Wayne> Exactly.

> That almost seem like – it’s not a bad thing – but who am I? Nothing. There’s no control. Whenever I get there, I feel like, “Then what am I?”

Wayne> If you look deeply into that, you’ll find that your frustration is not in the complete lack of control, but in the partial lack. There is still that authoring presence there. The teaching is emasculating it, but it’s still there. Its sense is present, but it’s feeling crappy.

> It’s me that doesn’t exist that’s having a hard time with this truth.

Wayne> As that claim is being stripped away, this claiming power is still there. It is that which produces the sense of, “I don’t like this. This doesn’t feel right. I feel bad. I feel limited.” In the destruction of the mechanism, we can say that the description is bliss. I prefer peace. But it is the total absence of that sense of constriction, of limitation, of loss. We can say the destruction of that claming mechanism is freedom. But it’s not freedom from the claiming mechanism.

> Can you talk about how the claiming mechanism comes into being in the first place? With the understanding that everything is Consciousness, the parent natural state, is that freedom? Is it like a cosmic game?

Wayne> There are all kinds of explanations, but again that always personifies Consciousness as a big human who has desires for things. The teaching simply points to the fact that at the age of two, in almost every one of the six billion human organisms, the sense of personal authorship arises. We can speculate endlessly as to why. But it is. It’s part of what is. And that’s as far the teaching goes - to point to that occurrence.

> Einstein wouldn’t accept random theory. He said God wouldn’t play dice with the Universe. Then the other physicists said that we just don’t understand the game he’s playing.

Wayne> Neils Bohr said that, that we don’t have all the information God has.

> I was reading “Peace and Harmony in Daily Living” and “The Tao of Physics” interchangeably while I was watching a volleyball game, and I kept looking at the cover to see what I was reading. It was very nice. And then the volleyball game took on this whole molecular thing.