A Universal Language (What Is Now? Podcast)

Without the use of the symbolic label "tree," what is a Tree? Saqib and Charles explore the fundamental nature of things and the possible underlying substance that ties all things together. They also explore the dynamic between open exploration and practical everyday application of these concepts. Each session is an unplanned interpersonal exploration of the present moment, beginning with one minute of silence and ending with a short guided practice based on the themes of the session.

Transcript

Hey everyone.

Just a quick note before this session.

So in this recording,

SACUB's level and my level,

Audio-wise,

Were a little bit different.

I realized afterward that I had the gain up slightly more than I typically do on my microphone.

So my sound is noticeably higher than SACUB's.

My hope is that it shouldn't really be an issue for you.

You might just have to find the right volume that makes me not too loud and SACUB not too low,

And I believe your ears will adjust to it.

But I just wanted to make you aware of that before you jump in.

And so now we will move in to this experience.

And again we have this new awesome,

At least I think it's awesome,

Intro song slash introduction from the artist Cameron who's been working with us and collaborating with us.

So I hope you enjoy it and let's jump in.

Welcome to the What Is Now experience.

We begin with one minute of silence and then explore whatever arises.

So please join us for this one minute of doing nothing.

In three,

Two,

One.

You you you you It's funny the exhale afterward.

All right,

I noticed it for myself.

I was noticing you doing it too there.

What's an exhale like for you?

I think it's maybe realizing,

Maybe bringing awareness to the breath because in meditation the awareness keeps going in different directions and as soon as it comes to the breath,

It feels like,

Okay,

I need to inhale and exhale properly.

What about you?

So back to an awareness of maybe how it's tightened up in a way or has become shortened or tensed.

I guess I'm thinking that for myself that resonates with me a little bit of whenever I return to an awareness of my breath throughout the day,

Noticing how it's kind of gotten like that at least,

Or how I'm thinking of it shortened,

It's gotten a bit tighter and I kind of relate it in my mind with the momentum of stuff that builds up in the day.

Maybe just habitually and then also based on whatever's happened in the day and then anytime I remember that I'm breathing,

There's the opportunity to just like go all the way out and it's almost like a deflating of the pressure of the tire that has been rolling all day or maybe just recently and then I find myself probably doing that hundreds of times a day and it's interesting to notice how it frequently happens right after this period of silence when we move into,

So it's like a reset.

Even though we just spent a minute resetting,

There's probably all kinds of motion and activity that occurred during that minute of time and then the bell rings and it's like like an opening back up.

Yeah,

Maybe getting to a more relaxed mode.

That's a brilliant analogy that you gave,

You know that how the tire keeps rolling during the day and when it deflates that makes the same sound.

Yeah,

Actually from my awareness was,

Today I realized that my awareness was more focused on what I am,

What can I see when my eyes are closed.

So I think that was more narrowing the focus.

It was like tightening up as you mentioned and then as soon as the meditation was over,

It actually became an open awareness and then there was this ease and relaxation.

So now it makes me question that why did the meditation made me more narrow towards something.

In experiencing relaxation in the meditation,

I was experiencing relaxation after the meditation.

What did you see or what did you,

What was in your visual field?

I was actually just thinking,

Just thought about this that okay why not let's if if let's say if I can experience my awareness in my head and behind my eyes.

So if my eyes are closed,

Let's see what I see when my eyes are closed.

So they were,

They were different shapes and forms coming up and there was this,

I could see a UFO like a thing,

A UFO like a UFO type object that was there.

Maybe it was due to some documentary that I was watching last night.

Also there was fire and as soon as I closed my eyes because I was looking at you,

There was also your shape,

You know,

The outline of your body and yeah I don't know,

There was also as if I could see like trees.

So there were like different types of shapes forming and then I was wondering that what is it that I'm seeing here?

Is it like a projection of my mind that is going on in onto this,

You know,

Curtain that is on my eyes?

So maybe this can help me to understand what goes on in my mind,

You know,

Maybe this curtain on my eyes if I look at that and if I focus my awareness there,

Maybe it can tell me what is inside my mind.

It makes me think of like a projective test or like a Rorschach.

Are you familiar with those?

No.

The Rorschach test,

The ink plots,

I mean there are many different projective tests and probably some people would say this one is out of date but a lot of people still use it.

I was actually trained to use it and it's these pieces of cardboard that have ink blots on them and they're just apparently dropped on there without an intention to create any sort of image but they just create a sort of strange looking figure of black or it might be colors and then the test is to have someone look at it and tell you what they see in on the ink blot and in that particular test they have the person give two different responses I guess to make sure they're getting enough detail from the person and they're all different kind of things that they assess for like do they often have color in their response?

Do they often,

Are their responses whole things or are they pieces of things?

Is there violence involved?

Is there nature involved?

Are there people involved?

Is there interaction involved or isolation?

Is there emotion involved?

Like all these different things and then that leads to some sort of overall assessment of the person but I was just thinking of that maybe similar to what you're describing there of closing the eyes and then who knows what this stuff is because I'm closing my eyes now and I see all kinds of oh so that's very interesting maybe that's not interesting maybe it just naturally happens I now see your figure and I see some geometric sort of square shape that's outlining you which is this computer screen and you are sort of your lightness and the other like the backdrop is dark but I'm wondering in the way you're describing it is it maybe that's something that could tell you about your mind almost like free association like you could talk about psychoanalysis and Freud and Jung and like the notion of closing your eyes looking at whatever is happening and then you see things but maybe that's your sort of pattern finding on top of just this sort of nebulous stuff and inevitably you put together images of things like trees or a fire or whatever it might be and that could be a starting point for some further exploration of like well what does that mean or what else does that bring up yeah no that's absolutely wonderful and then it also makes me wonder that is this how we project our dreams you know when we sleep the way we like in this moment we are projecting that onto the islands and it's forming like black and white figures maybe the way you said that you saw me and you know you saw a white figure on the black background maybe dreams it somehow becomes colorful I don't know how it is like we move into a different state of consciousness and then there's a much wider array of colors and technology yeah versus this very sort of crude thing that I have right here in front of me maybe there's the blockages my waking state consciousness which is so filtered I'm thinking of so maybe the creative mind of a of a child might have more access to something closer to like a dream state that they could even see just in the waking state versus maybe me who has a very filtered narrowed kind of way of seeing things but maybe if I waited long enough and sort of opened into that visual part of my mind it's it is interesting I'm closing my eyes again for anyone listening but I I feel like I can see more detail or or sort of like there's more of play going on in front of me when I'm opening into something that a different way of looking at it that's more interested in like what's going on here versus just a more objective awareness I guess hmm yeah and I think if if at the same time we start maybe visualizing something maybe thinking about some past situation that happened or you know maybe visualizing the future the way we do in meditations then that becomes colorful but the question is then how real is that you know if we are just what I'm just trying to figure out what is the difference between simply looking at this curtain on my eyes my my eyelids and it's forming like black and white pictures and what is the difference between something that I'm visualizing and something that I'm seeing here on the curtain I'm just trying to figure that out right so the difference I guess in what you're describing being something like a memory for example that you can call up or a particular scene or some image like I can imagine a green dragon that's flying through the air but if I close my eyes and visualize that it's not the same as what I'm seeing what I appear to be seeing on the back of my eyelids which is this sort of just kind of shape and light and darkness but I at the same time can see that green and I know like the sky and there's this tail and clouds and all the different stuff I can see it in a way but it's not in that other way it's also interesting came across this I think from Sam Harris who I'm sure he's sharing it from somewhere else that he came across it but a sort of meditation with your eyes open of imagining some thing that's in front of the whatever is sort of the extent of your visual field right now so it's like so for me it could be imagining the green dragon in front of Sakib's face in front of me and there is a way in which I can see that and at the same time you know there isn't anything there but I can also see it so what is that the question is that what we call as seeing and the way you are saying okay you know you closed your eyes and you see you saw this image of mine you know having this white white body and a black background the question is is that seeing or is that also imagination and is there also a memory right so maybe we are actually just all the time imagining and you know bringing things from memory this again brings us to the question that the way we see when we open our eyes and we look at the world how memory affects that so let's see if I if I go on the street and if I see a dog and if I have a history of a dog biting me that dog will seem to be very evil to me I think I will be more focused on his canines and you know those features of his face rather than maybe just someone else who loves dogs they would see into the dog's eyes and they will feel compassion so now this is also changing our visual perception so maybe seeing is also about the what we call seeing is actually about memory I'm very fascinated by this and it feels incomprehensible but also graspable in a way because it sounds like what you're describing is even you know what I'm seeing in front of me right now is no different than that thing I'm sort of making up in my mind and that you and this computer screen and this office is all sort of a creation of my memory in a way I guess the way I'm thinking of it now is that it's all created by this filter that has been established via quote-unquote past experience and so I guess I have two questions or multiple and it also and I want to remember to come back to what my minute experience was because this very much relates to it but in a different direction so I guess a is it possible to or was it possible and what would it even mean to see without that filter or is there any seeing without the construction of memory and then also how do you do that and would you even want to do that if that was possible I don't know if any of those make sense to you yeah and I'm just wondering seeing without any memory does that mean enlightenment because we have memory right the everything with that we see is coming from memory it's it's actually coming from memory because let's say we look at a tree now we have a word for that object in our mind which is given to us someone told us okay a tree is you know the leaves the bark but rest of it is not tree rest of it is soil or land or something else but we can see it as a distinct object because this was told to us it is coming from our memory so maybe if someone is not given that memory someone is not given that language that word for a particular object and you know all these memories that we build up maybe they have a totally different view of a tree maybe they see for example I'm just guessing here maybe they see interconnectedness that how a tree is not only a tree but it is also you know the soil that is making the tree that is you know there is also air there is also sunlight and they can maybe see the interconnectedness of everything and there is no defined boundary where that tree ends it's yeah so interesting that element of words and how implicitly separating and limiting they are it was making me just think of how you could potentially use one word for everything yeah when someone could call it quote-unquote God or or it could call it me or I or Dow or whatever it might be and I'm sitting with that because we're using words and it's interesting to sit in silence in in the midst of it I came across a quote I think it was this morning I I can't really remember the context of it but it was something like the quote from the person saying I envy the I envy those who can see beauty in everything and and so maybe beauty is another word that could be put in that place for everything so you look at the tree and maybe this goes to to your point about maybe that's what enlightenment means you look at the tree what do you see beauty or do you look at this phone what's that called beauty you look at your finger or you look at the dirt or you look at blood or you look at anything and they would all be the same I guess it's like seeing through all of those distinctions that build up I guess from the very formation of what you could call the ego or the separate self which is I guess the opposite of what you might call enlightenment and so this leads me to the other thing that I was thinking of that was happening during the minute unless you had anything lingering within that area so it was coming up in in the minute for me it was all thinking and it was thinking about something in particular because it was interesting not long before our call I had a call with a close friend of mine who actually I talked with him for the first time in a long time yesterday got to catch up which is great and he's someone that I really respect his opinion and his way of seeing things that I feel like he's really he says what he feels is very honest and is attempting to live as honestly as possible which can also I think cause some like conflicts maybe or or make maybe some people feel a certain kind of way or like maybe he's intimidating to some degree I'd be interested to hear if he hears this what he thinks of that and so then I told him about our podcast and because we were catching up on all these different things and I told him about it and he was interested in it and so he listened to an episode today and then called me and we talked about it and one of the things that stood out to him the most he's like like Charles you know me I'm a very practical person like I want application I want to figure out how this applies in life and and he was kind of getting lost in this exploration that we find ourselves in which to me is so fun and exciting and like and creative and there's nothing more that I would want to talk about than these kind of things that maybe inevitably or inherently have no real answer but they're so fun for me to explore and then at the same time that was his perspective he's like a lot of it I just couldn't like follow or connect with and maybe it's because that stuff is not a big part of my life or I don't really practice in this realm of things but I would also imagine that he probably represents a large portion of people with that the minds and it's totally understandable you're coming here you're spending potentially an hour of your time and you might want to get something that you know you finish that time together and you can say okay I got this is what I took from that or this is how I might be able to apply that in my life and at the same time I do believe that there is a lot of that that comes from our explorations but I could also totally understand his perspective I even noticed my like defensiveness you know come up a little bit which is just always interesting for me to to notice and see and be with but that was you know on my mind for that minute and then I was you know aware of our sort of exploration that we've been through today like seeing things behind our eyes and like what's it like to see behind your eyes and and what does it mean to imagine something how is that different from seeing behind your eyes what is it like to see anything can you see anything is it all just made up of memory and what does memory mean you know what is it what is a tree like how is that different from anything else and which is so interesting to me but then I can know hear his voice being like what the hell are you talking about it like where is this going or what's the point of this and which I think is such an interesting question so yeah I guess I wonder what you think about all that or what's your response to that if you have one I think I'm totally with you on this page and I feel that you know the way I would call the way I'm crazy you are crazy as well and I'm sure that the person who is having that patience to listen to us they are crazy as yeah I think it's wonderful and yeah I feel that for me and I can totally understand this point of view and there was a point of time in my life when I would do that you know I would I would try to find an application so that okay tell me what is practical about this tell me what I can apply but you know as as I started practicing mindfulness and I you know and doing these podcasts especially with you I realized that it's it's something new can create be created out of this now this moment this you know even even a crazy idea as something as as crazy as something like just trying to see what is there or you know when you close your eyes and trying to picture that in your mind I think this has the potential to create something new rather than what is old and what is being repeated yes something which is old on something which is repeated that is a comfortable place to go and that is very comfortable and you would want to listen to that because that you can apply but something which is just an open exploration still we don't have answers for that yet but it might lead to somewhere there is this uncertainty there and for me that uncertainty is exciting because it can either lead us nowhere or it can lead us to maybe realizing something very deep which can you know help us in evolving in a spiritual evolution in that sense hmm yeah this is what I feel what a cool response I mean at least for me I think that really articulates it for me too that if not for that uncertainty nothing really new can come out of it otherwise it might just be sort of a and maybe we're inevitably doing this anyways but it might just sort of be a regurgitation of existing ideas and existing frameworks and just and just fitting something into something that already exists which could be helpful to or help you sort of rearrange things for yourself but by going into it that way and having some thing that you want to apply this thing to your inherently majorly limiting the possibilities of what you could find but that might also take quite a bit of openness to the uncertainty or the the willingness to be in a space of where is this even going I have no idea what we're even talking about but then you might come up with something that is like a seed for something totally new or lead you in a new direction to explore something new or to be in front of a tree and lose the label tree and and maybe you could talk about that intellectually like I've heard that concept many times but by exploring it in a way that feels really present is maybe something that can actually trigger you to remember to kind of act on that in the future or like call back to this sort of a lie of exploration creative feeling and in a way that it might actually like really apply to your life but you might not be aware of it you can't have you might not have so much intention it just sort of comes up because you you were in a space of openness here yeah no see one very like it now brings to my mind an application of this as well so I can I can get an application of this as well so let's say I think this can help us in non-judgmental observation of something you know for example so whatever conversation we had it led us to the idea okay when we are looking at something we are looking at something with memory with label what we already know about it but maybe this can help us to you know when we see a person we usually tend to judge that person you know but whoever we are seeing that and I think a lot of racism comes from this you know where we judge a black person we judge a nation we judge someone from the LGBT community that is coming from our preconceived ideas and memories or something that we are told about these people but when there is this open awareness when there is just observing and you know maybe somehow trying to not bring in that memory associated with that thing in our mind that can help us to just be open to whatever is there in front of us and maybe have compassion for someone or maybe just observe something very new about something so I totally see the application sure you're also making me think of something that maybe addresses his question or because then I could even see I'm hearing his voice here so which is helpful it's just like a cool sort of experiment of so in those situations it's very obvious as to like why you would want to question because maybe we can all agree that we would like to transcend prejudice and racism and all these things it's like very clear there's a lot of value in noticing the way that you label things and being able to step back from them but then there's a way which our exploration it feels like often exists on a much more fundamental level like yeah and you know what is anything you know without any sort of instrumental purpose as to why we're doing this questioning but really just a fundamental questioning of well the name of the podcast what is now what is this actually and I guess I can hear the question of yeah so why like why are we doing that what's the point of this in those other situations is there's a clear point of like this is a bad thing I think most people can agree that that these things are bad so to question like our our glasses and our filters in those situations it makes a lot of sense but the the more fundamental like what is what is it like when I look behind my eyes or what is it even like to see or what is it like to see you and to drop the label of you or this stuff I mean maybe they're related but it feels like what we're doing is is asking these things on a fundamental level that doesn't have that implicit like why I mean maybe we could maybe we could figure out what the why is but to me there there maybe isn't really one and so I can hear that question of well then what's the point of being here spending this hour here in this exploration if there isn't that thing and and this is the answer that I'm kind of thinking of and I want maybe you to help me articulate it or see how it sounds to you because there's one way in which I could hear it sounding egotistical which is not what I'm intending but I'm thinking through this like practice of self-awareness or that you might call like a meditation practice or this practice where you're continually attempting to look at things as clearly as you possibly can and trying to return to what is actually happening now in this moment it seems to me that so many of those more kind of surface level prejudices and biases and filters kind of gradually dissolve or where they or they continue to come up because they're so ingrained but you can clearly and easily see on that see them and not act on them and there's just like it's it's kind of there's no need to like even be questioning anymore because it's like yeah obviously that comes from my experiences as a white person and my my from my parents I got these different things and it's like all just so like yeah it's that's no longer I guess that interesting to me to question those things because I know it's all coming from construction and memory and like none of its tangible so I I feel like it just becomes more and more interesting to get down to the most fundamental questions that maybe we can't answer because all the other stuff it seems to me comes back to these most essential things and the rest of them are so easy it feels to just let go of and see through but now we're getting to the things that are like you maybe you can't see through them because because for the to be a you that sees through them would imply that there is a you that's separate to see something else and what does that mean if there is no me and then I can hear the question of like well hey what are we talking about and why but to me it's like maybe we're down to the kind of fundamental sort of issues or questions of life and that is like what I'm so interested in and like all I really ever want to talk about with someone because the rest of them and tell me what you think if how this sounds but the rest of them appear to me at this point to seem so obvious what do you think and I would also be interested to know like how people are hearing that from me as if I feel like I can see so clearly or I'm like awakened in some way which which I don't maybe there's a part of my ego that thinks that or or believes that and then there's another me that's like well that's probably all that is probably also your filters I think it depends on the kind of conditioning you know we we all experience so some of like some of us are conditioned to have for example not relabeling people or but a lot of us I think majorly majority of us come from a background where there are littles you know there are these memories and and and especially for me as well it was a really big task because I also come from a culture where there is a lot of labeling of other cultures and I it was really difficult for me to let go of those labels but what what this is helping us with is it's it's helping me experience it in the moment rather than just having a concept so for example if I'm if I was brought up in a culture where I was told okay that person is different from you and you know that person is that person and they gave the label to that person now I'm reading about you know I've started reading spiritual books and they in which they talk about oneness and I'm reading no every everybody is one everybody is equal and all that now that is a concept to me and you know it is not experiential yet but what's happening now is that in this moment by just experiencing the now when I'm you know when we started with looking at pictures on our eyelids and you know all those things I realized that now I can actually experience it and now what does it mean I can experience I can feel what does it mean to look without any label and how my memory is impacting my vision so it became really became really experiential for me and now it can help me to actually integrate what I learned from someone else and also maybe start looking at other things as well but so these are common ideas you know regarding racism regarding labeling people but maybe we can stop labeling other things as well with this for example very basic example of a tree that we took today we we we call it a tree and there is a sense there that as if it's an inanimate object you know it's it's it's just an object but maybe if we experience a tree maybe if we don't have that label maybe if we go to a tree and you know let's say we have a tree maybe we can feel something else there maybe we can start feeling that consciousness that is also present there so our experience now totally changes as we give up the label and we start experiencing what is there so yes this is truly I think experiential is something which I would define with this what I'm having with you hmm yeah that makes a lot of sense to me we're attempting to take well first of all we don't come in with a plan to talk about things but inevitably things will arise and then we'll place a conceptual framework on them based on our memory but then our continual effort is to bring them back to an experiential plane where they actually and so maybe that's in a way it's like the most applicable because you're taking something that could otherwise very easily fall into something that's an intellectual understanding yeah and and then bring it into like I'm just sort of imagining it existing and in the head or the thinking mind and kind of dropping it down into the whole body in a way that maybe makes it applicable in any situation I'm thinking of like learning a language this may or may not relate but this is such a cool image that I came across in some books somewhere and I'll try to remember what it even is that I'm thinking of but if you learn a language you can see all these different handwritings and they might look very different from each other or some could be really big some could be tiny some could be some could have the letters written in different ways or some could be really messy some could be neat or different colors but since you understand the language there's no difference between any of them you get the same meaning from all of them very easily even if they look totally different you you get very in a second the exact same meaning from all these different ones and there's something there that feels like it relates to what we're talking about and that all these different concepts intellectual things maybe they all tie back to something that is very experiential that is only found here and now and can be applied to any concept or intellectual thing they all say they they they they reach out from that place and then you can draw them back to that place and if you're in touch with that place then they all like clearly are from the same thing who let's make it's making me think again of that one word for everything that maybe you a tree manifests I'm pointing from my chest out to something like a tree manifests out of this and then you see it as a tree but then it also you can see how it came out of the source here and then you can go back in and and feel that tree is this source or it's love or God or the void and then it can point back out and it can hit you suck it and in that way you are no different from the tree because you came from that same source and so it's almost like here you know we spend a minute in silence and in a way that's representing just kind of sitting in that source stuff and then we go into something and it manifests out of that space and then it feels like our effort is to kind of notice that and then bring it back or just kind of be in waves where we're we're sitting in this source stuff and seeing how it's manifesting in all these different ways but not getting too caught up in those things as like separate things that we I'm losing it there but there's like that visual to me that feels like it represents kind of all of this stuff it also makes me think of how maybe our perception of reality and you mentioned about language that how you know language even if there are different kinds of writing we tend to have the same meaning I'm just wondering that maybe people who understand different languages maybe they have a very different view of reality you know maybe they experience reality in a totally different way especially I would say this very vast difference between cultures,

Religions,

East,

West,

Maybe the the colors and I think we talked about this in one of our previous podcast where we were talking about a particular tribe I don't know if I talked about this there is a particular tribe who cannot see the green color I think it's called the Himba tribe and they cannot see either the blue or the green color that's because they don't have a word for it in their language and green and blue are the same for them there is the experiment was done and they could not distinguish between those two colors how language itself can totally change our view of reality this is so interesting to me you know it makes me wonder that either do I learn a lot of languages or do I just give up language to maybe have a true experience of reality you know maybe this can be a topic for some other podcast or it arises naturally that how can we actually have true experience now this is a very young question inside me you know I want to have true experience I don't want my memory or my language to distort that true experience and you know create this perceived world that I'm perceiving right now yeah and maybe this is also a discussion for another one but just as you were saying that I was remembering back to that book I was reading the Be As You Are Sri Ramana Maharshi and I could just imagine his response when you say I want to have this this true experience and then his response maybe inevitably is well look at the eye that look at the eye that wants it and and go back to that maybe that's similar to that source like the I want to have it moving out to something out there to grasp and then the direction back to that basic eye at the root of it and maybe well I'll just leave a dot dot dot I guess there no that's very true and this also shows us that even this concept of I is coming from language and this idea this notion of this separate self you know if there was no concept of I given to us you know then maybe the experience is totally different because the I the idea of I is limiting me to this particular body you know I feel that again this something this awareness inside this body which is limited and but maybe that just I goes away then the experience is totally different so this life is also a very much part of that yeah conditioning language the implicit verbal assumption of an I yeah well what do you think about switching into something just experiential to finish oh yes let's do that I want to thank my friend too for providing an interesting sort of addition exploration and waiting he actually raised a very good point and you know it gave us a lot of content in this episode yeah yeah great so yeah so let's get into meditation and I will request the listener they can get into their meditative posture whatever that is for them and for this particular meditation I would request you to close your eyes and as you close your eyes let's just observe for some time what can you see on the screen of your eyes of your eyes which are closed the simple question would be what can you see with your eyes closed you you you you you and then maybe just for some time you can contemplate on this question where are these images arising from what might be the source of these images that maybe you can see on the screen of your closed eyes you you you can just relax your body and then gradually in your own time you can open your eyes and come out of the meditation before I end this episode I'm curious to know what was your experience this time yeah I was just gonna say there was something kind of interesting for me is at first it was all visual and just kind of similar to what we were talking about before the light and dark but then as I was kind of focusing more of my attention there there were a lot more it was a lot more shape based or I saw lots of different kind of shapes it's almost like seeing tingling sensation it's kind of what I'm thinking now or I guess my idea of what tingling sensation is in my body it was almost like I was seeing it but then it was interesting because sounded like there was a dog in your environment I think and it was it sort of became almost like a room and in front of me was was the wall in which I was seeing all this light dark shape sort of play and then it it's interesting how it was like located in a particular spot but it was like there was a dog in the the back right part of the room that sort of entered into the room it was for whatever reason was over here in the back right of me almost like in the back right of my head is what it kind of felt like but it's just there and was barking and just there in the room sort of just entered the room it was a part of it and although it didn't take me away from the visual experience that I was having but I did I had a sense of them entering and being there with me it was just kind of interesting just to notice how it was playing out did you also see the visual of a dog you know now that you say it I had and so this is just how I'm recalling it but I I guess now I'm thinking I had a visual sense of the dog bear but in a very crude sort of form like a 2d form and just like almost like you did it on some very limited graphics program like you just had a line here a couple of sharp lines for the ears and then like two sharp lines for the mouth and then you had a little bit of a ears and then like two sharp lines for the mouth and same for everything else almost like a paper cutout figure of a dog that was like dark but outlined and sort of light but still didn't feel like it was on the front of my visual screen but was back here and pointing to the back of my head somehow yeah you know it's so interesting it feels to me and you remember those when we used to have those printouts of photographs they used to be that negative of a film you know the negative photo film and it seems as if this you know when we see with our eyes closed it's as if that it is that negative and the actual picture is this outside world yeah it's really interesting yeah almost like in darkness it's or when your eyes are closed it's still there but it hasn't sort of been changed yet into the full picture and this is almost you in i guess is it like a light room or something where you're taking it and you're it's gradually coming into a picture yeah yeah absolutely it's so fascinating how our mind works right yeah i was also thinking about how sound is playing around like just by listening to the sound that sound is actually creating a visual and that that also reminds me of you know the way i listen to audiobooks so whenever i listen to an audiobook i would like completely picturize you know as if i can see a movie in front of me whenever an author let's say brings in a character character i would just visualize that character or even i think that even happens while reading something we start visualizing so it's so fascinating that how you know our mind works yeah well this was fun absolutely loved the episode today and thank you so much to the listeners for their time and i hope you enjoyed as well yeah see you soon see you take care thank you for joining us in the what is now experience in the what is now experience we hope that you liked the episode if there were any insights or ideas arising for you as you were listening to our conversation then you can share those ideas through your comments we would love to know stay tuned for the next episode namaste