The Voice in the head

Summary

The internal voice is an artificial narrator that creates a fictitious identity, or "me," which is entirely separate from true being. This mental construct acts as a dream character whose history, emotions, and struggles are purely imagined and have no basis in reality. Awakening is the realization that this personal narrative never actually happened, revealing a silent state of aliveness. In this state, the constant internal dialogue stops, and reality is perceived as a unified space of consciousness rather than a collection of separate objects.

The Voice in the head

Terrence: The thinker and the voice in our head. Imagine from, the age of six months, 12 old, somewhere around there. A voice starts to play in here, And the voice sounds like kind of your own voice. And this voice is saying, that's mom and that's dad.

This voice saying that's mom and that's dad. And at some point, the voice says, oh, and this is me. Looks in the mirror and goes, oh, that's me. This voice. Okay.

It sounds like you. And then for the rest of our life, there's this voice saying, I feel this, I feel that, this happened, and the blah blah blah blah. This voice. And then one day somebody walks up to you and says, You know that voice that you're hearing in your head and all this thinking and all this stuff that is going on in there, do do you realise that that's not you? That's been artificially put there.

It's got nothing to do with you. Zero. And the voice in your head goes, Bullshit, you're an idiot. Says the voice in your head. Now imagine this person that said this knew where the off switch was for that voice And all those thoughts, all the thoughts and the voice, they happened to know where the off switch was. And the voice in your head is saying, Of course, I'm here.

This is a me and I'm the thinker and I'm the doer. Of course, I have feelings. I experience emotions and rah, rah, rah, rah, this voice. And then this person just walks up to you and there's this little spot that they touch. I don't know where it is, spot, right?

That they touch. And the moment they touch that, this voice, all the thoughts, everything just stops. It's turned off. Now it's turned off. No guide.

Now what's going on. Now where am I? No what happened? Everything's gone silent because the voice is gone. Thoughts are gone.

Everything's just gone. This is where I'm trying to get you. That voice that goes on in here, it's not you. Talking to you either. Now the voice will go, yes, it is.

Yes, it is. Clearly, it's speaking to me. It's not you. Yeah? And the only thing that's convinced it's you is the voice.

Imagine being absolutely convinced that who I am and what I am is all this internal darling, all this me ing and my background and my history and my story and all my experiences and my emotion, like, oh, just a minute. And then all of a sudden someone just goes click and turns it off. And it's just dead silence. So the voice isn't there anymore to say, What's going on? It's all quiet.

The voice isn't there anymore to say, Oh my God, someone turn the voice off. It would be absurd, right? Yeah. In the absence of all this, that the inner voice is saying, is me. In the absence of all of that, now who are you?

What are you now? What would remain? Understand that there's not even a voice going on anymore that could answer the questions that I'm asking. What remains? The voice is gone.

Would you die with body all of a sudden, Oh no, voice is gone. Here, I'm about to die. Here we go. Oh no. And it's this being, it's this aliveness, it's this hereness.

All labels I know. Just this that we miss. Why? Because we've been living with this voice our whole life narrating a world and a me and a you and a them and a this and a that, my life and my experiences and blah, blah, blah. And that is just happening and always has been just happening.

It's got nothing to do with you. What am I referring to when I say you? That silence, the being without the voice, without the thoughts, without that. You do not die without it. Trust me.

You do not die without it. Therefore, something remains. And that that remains, lo and behold, is what the voice has been saying we're looking for. Because now we're on a dualistic path, a non dual path. This teacher and that, and I'm learning stuff now, says the voice.

Oh shit. Now, oh, now I've got to unlearn. Okay. And we go on this unlearning. Jesus.

That's why we can't stop the damn thing. It's not you. That's why we can't change it. It's just happening. Usually, ninety nine percent of the time, anyone that arrives here has at least had some counseling of some kind.

Of some kind. Why? I want to alter the voice. I'm so critical of myself. I'm so critical of others.

Oh, I'm feeling shame. I'm feeling a victim. The voice, it's rubbish. It's it's not about you. The voice even says, yeah, I'm the thinker.

I'm the doer. And all of that all of that is just happening Now That that you actually are can come to know that. That that you're not can't know that. The mistake we make is this inner voice that's saying, I'm a person and I'm a me and I'm on this non dual path and I'm doing this because one day I'm going to wake up and everything's going to be great. For that dude, for that voice, it's never going to happen.

Ever. It's never going to happen. It doesn't need to happen. All that needs to happen is that needs to be seen, mind, voice, thought, whatever you want to call it. That needs to be seen for what it is.

When that's truly seen for what it is. Now understand this. The me is not aware. It's not conscious. It can't see, hear, taste, touch, smell.

It's not aware. So this that starts to become aware of, holy shit, hang on a minute. This is the true being. It's only the being where awareness and consciousness arises. This mind steps in and says, I'm the being.

I'm conscious. I'm aware. I'm here. I'm seeing, tasting, touching. It's bullshit.

What it's saying about a me Is their seeing? Yes. Is their consciousness? Yes. Is their awareness?

Yes. So it's this, this, Instead of looking for the truth, this, it goes looking for the false. It doesn't need to look for the truth. What we've got to do is unravel the false. Like we're conscious of thoughts.

And then the inner narrator in here will say, yep, me is conscious of thoughts. No. Absolutely not. Yet there is conscious of thoughts. It's not the me that's conscious.

It's not the me that's aware. This being is not the me. But this inner narrator, which we've been living with our whole life, has been saying, I experience me here and I'm being. No wonder the me feels so real. No wonder it feels so real.

No wonder we're convinced there's a me here. Why are we convinced there's a me? Because the being is here, but the being is not the me. Come on. This can be seen.

It can be seen.

Speaker 1:

Terry, that happens, I think. It just came up here. The being, when we say the being, I take that and say, oh, that being is something third person. It's like it's something far away, and that's me. Me is that thing.

But that's not it at all. Right? What I really am is that thing, not this thing that's saying it's being.

Terrence:

Correct. This being is not dependent on word. It's not dependent on the inner dialogue. The voice is not dependent on it at all. It's alive.

We're alive. Just that we've been taking this to be me. That's not true. Me is sad. Me is depressed.

Me is fearful. Me is alone. Me is isolated me. It's rubbish. It's total rubbish.

Rubbish. Pure fictitious. Pure imagination. Pure fiction. Pure imagination.

It's not true. Just like what you experience This is why I keep using this analogy. When you go to sleep at night and you put your head on the pillow, dreaming starts. That little dream character, which isn't there, the dream character in the dream thinks that it's now feeling this and it's feeling fear and seeing people and cars and things and buildings and whatever in the dream. The dream character in the dream is convinced it's real, the character, and everything going on in the dream.

The whole thing is imagination. Even a feeling in the dream is not real. And what goes on here, as a seeming person, the exact same thing is happening. Literally, the exact same thing is happening. Same thing.

I'm not appealing to the me to come to see. I'm appealing to that that can see. The me can't see. It's a false belief. It's me that's now aware of thoughts.

Or it's me that's aware of Lizzie, it's me that's aware of depression. It's bullshit. All of it's not true. None of it's true. Try telling the dream character in the dream when you're asleep that it's not experiencing fear.

It fears up. Try telling the dream character that. He'll look at you like you're an idiot. He'll say, no, this is real. I'm experiencing it.

And then when you wake up in the morning, when you wake up, it's the full realise that none of that happened. Zero. Zero happened. Purely imagined. That's why it's called a dream.

Got a bit fiery just then, didn't it? Oh, did you hear that? It got a bit fiery.

Speaker 3:

No. It's great, Terry, because it seemed to, it seemed to highlight that world of the the words and everything as being quite apart from what's really happening. Yeah. It has actually nothing to do with it.

Terrence:

Yes, Lizzie. This is what I'm trying to get you to see. Yes. Yes. And it's seeable.

It is. If it wasn't, this would be a complete waste of time. It's a total waste of time. It can be known. The problem is until we start to see that this me is fictitious, the mego is looking for the answers.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Which is par for the course. It's okay.

It's like that for coming in on chipping away at it. Chipping away. I'll say the same stuff. Well, to me, it's the same stuff. It's just the same.

Then all of a sudden it lands, Liz. Go figure. Just, oh, there's like an insight, if you like, just happens. The me can't take responsibility for the insight. It's like, just like, you know, as a seeming me, we can't take responsibility for something that just dawns on us.

Just happens, does it not?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's like, oh, why didn't you say that before?

Terrence:

Oh my God. And I would say, Jesus Christ, I feel like a broken record. I've been saying this all the time. It's incredible. Kind of like where we started at the beginning, you and I, George.

We hear this over and over. It comes out of you slightly different ways. Then all of a sudden it just goes, boom. We go, oh.

The trick is to keep stepping up. Just keep stepping up. Don't trust your mind. Don't trust your mind. Whilst there's an attraction to turn up here, let's say.

Turn up. Just turn up. Because there's something that's happening that is resonating. It's resonating. There's something I have to say it like this.

There's something in you that knows. But we turn up and we think it's me that's resonating. No. The me can't resonate. Can a thought resonate?

Thoughts are energy, that's probably not That wasn't a good example, but It can't resonate for the me, not at all. And the me can't find this. What we're endeavouring to do is to work out what the hell is this me? No. Let's just take for granted that there is a me here, and now we're going to learn a whole bunch of shit so that the me becomes enlightened.

No teacher will ever tell you that. Unless it's a cult or something. I wanna keep you trapped and keep you coming back. I still function in the world, Liz. I still function in the world.

I walk out my front door, I look across the road and go, Oh, have Carr's still there. Or there's at least awareness of the car there. The difference is that Which took up about ninety I don't know what the percentage is. Yeah, 99%. I don't know what the percentage is.

All of the thinking that used to go on here when there was a seeming me present, ninety plus odd percent of it was all about a me. All of it. And every person that's walking around believing they're a me, the exact same thing is happening. The exact same thing is happening. Now imagine that stops.

In other words, all the me ing stuff just stops. Completely just stops. And then every now and then, a little thought will float through. Oh, it's 04:00. I better get ready.

I've got a doctor's appointment at five. Boom. And that's the end of it. Then silence. Silence.

Very little thought. Very little. Very little. And the rest is just being alive. It's alive.

And yet, like, it's beautiful. Oh, man.

Speaker 1:

Terry, when you say I, we know very clearly you're not referring to a person when you say that I. You can just you can just feel it when that energy when it's being said like that. So there's still, I guess, in hearing this, there's still kind of this me that's wanting to take ownership and say, okay, so I can get this, you know? I want to have that experience.

Terrence:

Yeah, yeah. Good. That's exactly right. And then you just spot that. Who the hell just said that?

That just happened. There's a still place that you can find. Oh, can I say it like that? That you can find.

There is a still place that is still, where observing can take place. And this still place of observing, the still place, the tip is it's still, doesn't comment. No judging, nothing. It's from there, you see everything just arising, just bursting into existence, if you want to use that terminology. A thought just happens.

And me wants to claim ownership of the thought. I just thought that. What said that? Just another thought. That's all that's happening.

That's all that's happening, thoughts. That's all that's happening. In reference to this me and what thoughts are saying the world is, thoughts are saying, I am, you are, and depression is. Sorry, Lizzie. I'm I'm having fun here.

But none of it's true. Twenty seven minutes left. What are we gonna do now?

Speaker 3:

Know, Terry, when you talk about dreaming..

The things that happen in the dream don't seem to have an energetic charge. It's like in the in the world, everything seems to come. Sometimes it seems like there's just silence, but anything that comes from the silence has an energy that's gonna stop. It's just a temporary before it stops. But it has that kind of charge.

But in a dream, it doesn't seem to be like that. This I know you say that the dream character would insist that they were afraid. I agree with you. They do.

Terrence:

What's a nightmare? What the hell is a nightmare? Some people wake in absolute terror.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's right.

Terrence:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Does that mean they were afraid? Sorry. Does that mean they were afraid when they were asleep as well? Or do they just wake up and suddenly be terrified?

Terrence:

The terror is in the dream. You know, the dream that's not real. Therefore, the terror is not real either. Therefore, the depression, Lizzie, is not real either. Try telling the dream character that though.

You can't tell me I'm not depressed. I can't get out of bed in the morning. I don't even want to feed myself. Blinds are all drawn.

Haven't showered for three months. I can't even get in the shower. Try and tell that dreamed character, he's not depressed. You couldn't. You absolutely couldn't.

What dissolves that dream? Belief in the dream, all the feelings and the depression or the fear or the whatever it is that's going on in that dream. What dissolves it completely is when you wake up.

Speaker 3:

So when you wake up and you realize that nothing has happened, Is that the same thing that you mean if we wake up in this world, we know who we are, then we see that nothing has really happened?

Terrence:

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Yes.

Yes, Liz. Yes. See, when you wake up from a sleeping dream, and it takes you to a moment to kind of, Oh, phew. Glad that wasn't real. That was just a dream.

Woah. Like, holy shit. There's absolute knowing when you wake up in the morning from a dream. Sometimes we wake up in the morning and go, No, that was a fantastic dream. I don't want to wake up.

Oh, damn. I wonder what happened. The dream didn't finish. But we do it in fun because we know it's a dream. When we wake up in the morning, there's an absolute knowing.

There's an absolute knowing, Lizzie, that didn't happen. But not until one awakes. Whilst one is not awake, the dream character, me, this seeming person, this seeming me in the sleeping dream or in the waking dream makes no difference. They're the same. It's the same. Now, can't convince a me that. It wouldn't be possible for me to convince a me that or step into the sleeping dream and convince the me character in the sleeping dream that the lion that's chasing him isn't real.

He's going to get you nuts. He's chomping at me right now. What do you mean it's not real? We'll say the dream character in the dream. Yeah.

It seems real. I know. It seems real. Yeah. It's the most jaw dropping, profoundly amazing and beautiful experience when one wakes to this seeming dream.

When one wakes, your whole backstory, your whole history, all your memory, that's the dream. The dream is in the backstory. That's the dream. And you kind of wake, shit, Nothing happened. Now the dreamed up me character is not can't possibly get that or understand that.

Not possible. But if we take the sleeping dream analogy and there is the realisation and the knowing that you do wake up in the morning and when you do, there is the realisation, Oh, nothing happened. It was a dream. Yeah. And I'm assuming everyone's here to wake up.

Isn't that what we're that's what we're here. Yeah? And then I gotta sit there and convince the dream character. I'm not even trying to convince the dream I've got to try and bypass the dream character and speak to that, and only that that can wake up.

Speaker 2:

Terry, in this dream analogy- the waking up is sudden.

Terrence:

Yeah. You mean in the morning? In the morning. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yes. There's no in between. You're asleep and you wake up suddenly. And that analogy, is the same thing true here?

Terrence:

Look, even when you wake up from a dream in the morning, it can still take you a moment to kind of Sometimes you might wake up and the heart might still be beating. It'll translate into the body. Right. Or sometimes it can still take a moment. Like you'll go, Oh, it's a dream.

It can sometimes take a moment to settle.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So in that dream analogy, it can take a moment. In the actuality

Terrence:

Same.

Speaker 2:

Is it just a moment or is it a day or is it a week?

Terrence:

Can someone tell me how long a moment is? Has that ever been defined? That's why I use the word moment. And here's the thing. Is it a day?

Is it a week? When it happens, there's no such thing as time. So a day or a week's not relevant. That is pertaining to the character. How is this going to occur?

Will it happen suddenly or will it be a gradual process or will it take a day or a week to settle into the

Speaker 2:

Yeah, seems that there are people who've somehow had an awakening experience and yet it takes them a while In our reality of time, it takes them a while to manifest that in their lives.

Terrence:

Manifested in their lives, that sounds a bit dodgy to me, but Okay. There's no hard and fast rule for here. It was sudden. Yet was there a grind that occurred before the suddenness? I was smashed.

Like I was smashed. Nothing left of me. And then there are others which give me the soft version any day, where it can be gradual. And that's totally okay. It can be gradual.

Yeah. But even the gradual, eventually it just goes pop and that's sudden. Got it. Yeah. Sometimes, like what seemed to happen here is sometimes referred to as like a fierce awakening.

Fierce. Like painful. Like geez, and then bang. For others, can be gentle. Give me the gentle.

I don't want anyone (Not that there's anyone there to go through what I went through), but And yet, there's no hard and fast rule. There's not. There's not. It's not, If this didn't happen this way, this way, this way, and this way, then it's not a real awakening. Give me a break.

There's no hard and fast rule. You'll hear different people describe the experience quite differently to one another. Quite differently. So there's no you know? Like

What happened here? When all of that, the narration and the thinking, when all of that just came to a screaming, just crashed. It literally crashed. Just like it stopped. Then what seemed to happen here was there was just silence for nearly three months.

Now, I don't want anyone thinking that, Oh, so that's what it's going to be like and that's what I have to experience and Oh, everything's going to go silent for three months. No. No. Maybe the body needed a three month rest. After all shit, that was being put through for years.

Knows? No idea. I don't know. I don't know. All I know is everything just went quiet.

Nearly three months. And then there was the awareness of thoughts slowly starting to stir again. But the me thoughts never stirred back into play.

I remember sort of glancing over at a tree that I'd walked under a thousand times, thousand times under this tree to get to my front door. And I remember glancing over at the tree and going, Oh my God, I've never seen that. Not like I was seeing it now. And that was a thought. That was a thought.

Yeah. Wow. Is going to sound strange. The concrete driveway and the bitumen, it's alive. Sounds strange, I know.

One of the first things I noticed was space. It was like a complete polaric shift in that. I didn't notice the objects. What I noticed was the space. Never noticed the space before.

Just noticed what I thought were objects. Me thinking that everything's an object. Space. Which I also understood in that moment, space, if you like, is consciousness. And everything appears in that.

We call it space. You remove consciousness, everything disappears. You remove space, everything disappears. Just like an explosion out, oh, can I say that, of consciousness? And we call it space.

What the hell is space? What the hell is space? Well, that's kind of the medium in which things can appear in. What are you going to say space is? The absence of things.

But there need to be things there to say the absence of things. In the absolute absence of things, now what is it? One. One. Just I don't know how to go there.

Sorry. I don't know how to go there. So there's no hard and fast way, George. Yeah. And then the main thing to really understand, yeah, is that that just asked the question then was a thought, not a George.