Cool. BJ David, welcome to the show. Thank you Atlas. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it. I'm so excited to have you on. It's been great being with you in the No Limit Society group. Yeah, so much good stuff has come to light from the meeting of quite awakened people and willing to get to these next steps of purification and of igniting awakening around the planet. So it's really exciting what we have going on. Yes, I agree. Totally. BJ's calling is people experiencing absolute truth. Really excited to talk to him about that. Let's talk a bit about your journey too, about how you also got to this union with truth through the veilless veil, the gateless gate, and then we'll talk about naturally the absolute truth more and more. So let's jump in from there. Also, is that your phone that's beeping? Can you silence it? Oh, sorry. I can't hear because but now it's muted. Perfect. So, shoot. What do you want to know about my... Yeah, how was the union? Walk us through the process of uniting with truth through the veilless veil, the gateless gate. Yeah, normally I'm too good at somehow making a good story out of it but let's see what comes up this time. So, a few years ago there was just some big decision I had been during my work career, like I was doing very normal work career in the army and in the commercial industry and stuff like that. But somehow this kind of inner calling started to emerge and I started to listen to Osho's teachings a lot. And then a few years ago me and my wife decided to just leave the whole paradigm of the normal work life and leave to Austria. We had a chance there to go there and start to really investigate the inner self. And yeah it was quite intense after that. We both took part in this kind of year and a half Osho therapist training in Denmark during that time and also we had a marriage crisis. We have been married since 2007 and because this kind of meditation started to make things happen. So we went through a marriage crisis but from there started this really big thirst for absolute truth. Like really I want to go full on. Like there was this one sentence from Osho when he said that meditation has to become your whole life. And that was very powerful for me to understand that it's not some part of life but it's the whole thing. So then after some process we met Mooji and Osho was first like my master and then when I started to really resonate with Mooji's teaching. So he became the number one. And I think he has been the best example for me about absolute truth and somehow this absolute truth has become my password somehow the word that resonates with me the most when I want to really discover the ultimate what can be discovered in this human form in this manifest world. I think in a nutshell it's like that. So after that I've been following Mooji but of course I have been then introduced with Bantini's beautiful teachings which are so precise and so beautifully represent the same calling. So I'm with you talking about it and what can I say?  Waking life and I probably in the dreaming life as well or sleeping life. So my whole life is dedicated for this absolutely. I love it. I love the conventional algorithmic matrix life in search for the infinite in search for the nothingness in search for the dying before you die in search for uniting with the absolute that we already are but the noisy mind prevents the insight. So I love the leaving in order to really like you said meditation is to become your whole life as Osho said and it's great that you had that with your wife for 18 months that sort of you said it was a therapist training, right? Cool. Yeah, it's called like therapist training but I think actually it's the inner journey and also like very much integrated with all the physical stuff, psychological stuff integrated into also this tapping into the non-duality and yeah. So I wouldn't say that I'm a therapist after that training. And then would you say that as you were then meeting Muji and passing more time diving deeper into your union, would you say that you had a series of pops how would you describe the process of sort of moving from person consciousness or from the physical to more of the subtle the awareness and even the source of awareness itself? Yeah, I think the most profound somehow realization for me happened a little bit before I met Muji that I was in a land retreat in an ocean center in Miasta and it was just really hardcore Vipassana following your breath and sitting in silence many hours a day and it was really my first time to really really go into any kind of meditation process and stuff like that so and I thought that it would be sort of quite easy to be in Vipassana for one week but actually to really see that and go through all those battles that came in the mind like itchies like little very normal stuff but pain and everything and to really go through it and to really see what happens somehow that I'm not anything that I have thought to be so I think that was sort of like the first real seeing that Osho hasn't been talking bullshit that I can really verify this thing myself and after that I think when I met Muji he sort of brought it very precise this kind of how this the pendulum goes when you are in a person mode and then you are in the Isnes mode person mode and he was very well able to say that somehow to describe and somehow I could resonate with it that I'm not either I'm not the person and I'm not the stable part but I'm the one who is actually seeing it all so there were of course a couple of esoteric experiences walking with a dog and all of a sudden I can realize that everything is just consciousness that the whole way of seeing the reality just change in one second and I can never go back to that anymore so of course those type of moments are always exciting but then to actually start to really see that no experience or revelation is actually nothing I'm all the time the one perceiving it so hard to describe it's like very solid process of being in the being in the big but seeing that the person somehow goes like this over there but it's very beautiful process because it's all the time expanding even though there would be like downfalls and ups and stuff like that but yeah I don't know if you could get something out of that but but I would say that's pretty much the process because Muji has been saying this that it's like cow jumping over the moon that it's possible to go over the whole mind structure like many people would say that spiritual people would say it's like spiritual bypassing somehow but you go to the absolute witness and start from there not like going the person purifying and purifying and purifying then at some point maybe realize the one but actually to jump over there and then seeing yourself going through this purifying process and I have found that to be very fruitful and somehow very effective way. I love this there's so much here so I also did Vipassana several times and that was very fruitful for stilling the noisy mind and really being able to get at these deepest roots of aversion and craving and then to extinguish those over time and become more and more equanimous and become more and more tapped into the very impermanent Anisha nature and then as we sort of follow that quote from earlier that meditation becomes your whole life you take what you learn from that stilling process and you begin bringing it like is said in where you weave your realizations into the society into the social fabric and as you do so then more and more you shift from being reactive to everything to just having more of a pause and being more still and becoming more of the witness or the observer or the awareness itself and so you slowly become more subtle and more and more harmless and we move away from this very dense physical person needing to be right needing to be validated needing to insert my point of view and constantly and so we move away from that and it's really relaxing it's really expansive and then over time like you described with this great quote and you have influences on me as well that as Mugi describes that you can undergo this process of the cow jumping over the moon in the sense of you can in the sense get to the most direct pointing of jumping straight to being the one seeing it all and over time becoming more and more like what Atlas talking to a separate VJ entity this is one intelligence talking to itself it's a little bit of a shift it's actually it's a big shift but it's actually not that in a sense hard to get through this cow jumping over the moon veilless veil in a sense you just shift it from these being like separate entities with their own separate awareness that are having their separate identity and form and all these things and you shift it to there being one intelligence interacting with itself and that awareness and intelligence and source and all of that is shared at play in a divine lila and so that sort of shift is also it's a pop also it pops you out of being I'm going to be in my personal awareness or even if you get to that sort of formless subtle awareness you pop again into the impersonal eternal observation and then you become more and more of the one seeing it all and then if you can really pop in this last one you can get to where you recognize that the sense of I itself even is an intoxicative intention it's the very first attribute of the shunya of the nothingness of the emptiness of the void and it's a it's very intoxicative to to constantly be seeking relentlessly the seeking impulses the truest thing about us but at the same time the idea of continuously nonstop seeking forever perverting that we could pop people as these drill sergeants of awakening more and more rapidly into yeah into and so this would probably be a good place to keep going with you is it seems like you're sudden because sudden gradual with the north and southern schools of Zen have been in dialectic for a long time around which one is it and it's mostly a synthesis that it's very gradual and then there's a sudden pop and then it is gradual again and another sudden pop and then they sort of pick up speed and then you're boom you're at the very nature of what you are and so for you it seems like first of all it seems like the sudden pops were that that's a that's a pretty accurate way of putting it and then another way of describing it like you said it was in a sense you're going over the entire mind structure to where there's no mind and that's yeah so why don't you walk us through sort of that can you give us also a quick timeline so when when did you leave the nine to five in pursuit of absolute truth it was 2015 summer cool when we made that move okay and then you would say that so about five or so years of seeking and to sort of undergo these pops into the absolute truth I mean sort of the process also it's hard to anymore think about it at all as some kind of linear process in a way I think you know what I mean but it's like yeah maybe it's like it sort of felt more like a linear process for like maybe three four years and then just no story makes sense anymore after that and yet also the story or the narrative or the roadmap for awakening the symbolization although in these very last pops these last stages we completely drop symbolization at the same time the symbolization and the story and even though it's nonlinear is really important for this roadmap of awakening to sort of find a meta pattern across people so across the mystic traditions across the modern people that have undergone this process and to sort of create something that makes it so that people recognize that oh I am moving away from a very physical dense attachment to identity and form to something that is becoming this formless subtle awareness and then making that impersonal eternal and then recognizing that even that's an attribute of the ineffable and that also this in itself is the ineffable perfection just perfectly oh yeah very well said and actually I could maybe say that somehow it feels that it becomes less and less interesting you could say this how it develops somehow it feels like it's or the play in the manifest and it somehow there's not so much there's some interest and excitement about that too but not so much like it's not so I'm not following every day that how am I progressing today or something like that it's somehow because somehow it feels like the whole manifest is such amazing mystery all the time that my spiritual development in all of that feels like very small thing also I have a couple points that I want to go through right now let's add this one because I liked it manifest is such an amazing mystery so okay let's talk about as you had the I have two topics that I want to talk about let's start with this one and we'll get to the second one as you had your your very most recent sort of direct pointings and awakenings of the absolute truth with Muji and then encountering Bentino and then diving deeper and how was that process so how did Bentino also assist further in what you had already kind of popped into absolute truth yeah good question I think somehow he was like such a beautiful example because I had been following Muji for some while and somehow that I was thinking that what kind would be some kind of optimal human being that I haven't seen one for a while and then I just collided how do you say it accidentally in Bentino's material and it was so amazing the brilliance the accuracy and then somehow how fast you can like talk about things and involve all these manifest things and even esoteric and the raw material type of things like quickly and accurately and also the psychological structure what the human being has and it was so beautiful it started to feel like when listening to him it's like getting downloads so I think the experience with Bentino started to be that I can just listen to the guy and I get downloads like I don't it's a little bit different from the process with Muji where the process is to really somehow pay the attention to the being more and more and focusing on that but with Bentino somehow it was some kind of purification of the mind and downloading this kind of material from the Akashi record somehow and somehow just enjoy the fruits automatically like plugging into the thing and just listening to the guy and just so amazing so amazing and how about you how did you have you been with Bentino? It's a really cool way to put it that these different tastes and flavors of gurus and the truth coming through them to the souls that are seeking to heal their confusion and know their true nature and so in a sense there's a taste that can be directly pointing at the nature of stillness and silence and experiential wisdom with that and then there's also this sort of let's go through the seven densities and so there are these different sort of ways to add to your lattice work how you interpret the nature and I love that a lot. It's been actually a core aspect to what has been going on for this soul as well is the process of sampling in the buffet as a synthesis from these very core metaphysical truth packages and then putting it together into a very robust lattice work that can be very easily navigated as lenses like a Jedi especially for when those come to the soul asking hey you know what do I do right now and then when you've if you're not stuck parroting a single teaching you know so if you've only read the Sargata you'll only parrot him but if you've also done Muji and if you've also done Bantini and if you've also sat Zokchen or Theravada Buddhism maybe you've also done some entheogens you have a wider buffet in a sense that you can pull from and especially if you've also analyzed science and if you've analyzed form and if you've analyzed business and entrepreneurship and art and creativity as well as science if you really analyze these things they add to your ability for example when you take a look at what is a big bang followed by a evolutionary process and a scent that lands at a civilization becoming self-aware and then reflecting on its true nature in an exploratory lila divine play of that one intelligence and then that is a single song in an eternal symphony and so you can look at the very nature of the cyclic cosmological exploration you can look at it like a blink of an eye just that was it the whole thing went by one more time so not only is it your life that's like 80 years like blink done but it can be the whole big bang and the whole ascensionary exploration and so if you learn how to treat your heart beat like that same heartbeat of that cosmic exploration and then just go beyond the very nature of coming and going beyond the very nature of appearing and disappearing beyond the very nature of these births and deaths the more that you go beyond like that the more that you commune with the ineffable perfection that you already are and that you're appearing as this beautiful vj and atlas soul costume vehicle and it's great but it's an appearance of eternity and if you know that then you don't commit malevolence the utility the practicality is that you know it's all one intelligence so you become more and more in pure service to other people rather than being in service to your egoic conditioning and that maximizes the planetary potential so bantino has been a massive role in my shift into permanent alignment and so has the other spiritual leaders that you've been discussing throughout the program and another good way to hit the tennis ball to you would be as you mentioned during one of our recent and I think this is fascinating you mentioned this during one of our recent family zooms where you basically said that how could it be that this quote sense of I here could be fully transparent to itself to its true nature and so it's a very humble and beautiful way to say that the mystery is so fucking ineffable that how could I ever possibly get through all of the nonsense to be able to truly commune with the taste of it hit the ball back on that good one yeah I think this is like getting to the core which is very good yeah how can this how could this subject be at all transparent I mean one thing maybe I could still add of my spiritual path what I have been also like incorporating into the mixtures is so watching this non dualists like I'm very familiar with Tony Parsons and Jim Newman and those kind of yeah we had Jim Newman on the show Tony's lined up I love them a lot too yeah yeah I've been also in Jim Newman's retreat and yeah nice it's yeah so I think they would probably laugh hearing us talking right now but they'd be like good luck yeah and maybe even the Bantino side would be something like what is it within you that makes you need to know yeah yeah yeah but I feel it's um I can't only feel but but it requires dedication to solve that thing like to have really this calling I'm not talking about my opinion how I feel it has to be that the absolute truth has to be in your heart that it's such a polar star that like Bantino also says in his teaching that you have to really go to your actual experience which is so much out of your intellectual like especially the thought processes and emotional processes and stuff like that so at one point you see that that is all in the screen so you cannot possibly be that but also then to start following your investigation like more subtle more accurate all the time and at some point when it's done you are really in the pure pure I am place where you can you cannot really say anything other than there is just this consciousness or consciousness whatever which is everything and at some point there when there is only the subject pure subjectivity this question arises can this also this pure consciousness subjectivity be observed and somehow then you could say it's the whole subjectivity is transparent which means for example now that all the time speaking and all this it's nothing like it's nothing like in a sense that intellectually I think it's nothing or something but because it's so seen through this whole thing here but also you can't say like it doesn't make sense or you can take any position to it but what is the subject even then it's somehow it also loses its whole relevance and somehow it just ends up into this place where you it doesn't matter anymore what you're talking about or what you're trying to achieve because you can't get any if there is no possibility of getting any further somehow nowhere to get nowhere to get or I mean the whole question has somehow disappeared because it's also it comes from thought that there is actual thing called subjectivity and it's attached to some kind of experience and all that thing already is out in the screen so it's impossible to talk about it but we are doing it what do you have to use it? it's impossible to talk about the ineffable yet we're doing it right now because it's the coolest thing to do in a sense is to talk about what we truly are and is the conversation about the weather equally as awesome as the conversation about infinity I would actually say that I would most rather to speak with you two or three hours about this thing than my spiritual history or something like that even though we wouldn't get anywhere but sorry I interrupted you yeah I've noticed that the sort of trajectory that people to where they're at is also important in creating that said meta-pattern of a navigable road map and so that being kind of part of the core of trying to assist people with symbolization that helps them pierce the valesville gaitless gate and that was beautifully said on your end there's a even in the psychological literature in the sort of self-help and the self-development self-growth, self-actualization literature that there's this focus on becoming quote transparent to yourself and so you undergo the same process in these self actualization literatures that the mystics have been talking about for a thousand years which is to become hyper-vigilantly aware of awareness to the point where you're watching every single frame and you're purifying yourself through these frames away from your egoic conditioning and more and more towards that very nature of God's love light that absolute truth and then this self-actualization and self-realization end up being two sides of the same coin and serving one another very profoundly and deeply ultimately one so becoming transparent to oneself is also all over the scientific and psychological literature so what we're talking about is not just the spiritual idea but it's also deeply scientific and pragmatic and utilitarian is to become transparent to yourself basically the essence of the essence of the question is something like why do you do what you do so become transparent to yourself, your actions, your behaviors your patterns and in doing so you get to this very first step which is called know thyself sort of three-step process of communing with your true nature which is know yourself accept yourself and become the creator and so you have to understand why you do what you do in order for you to know yourself frame by frame because then you understand that well why do I feel angry when my partner does this specific thing what is it that triggers me other people have called this trigger surfing so this is a very sort of long-winded way of saying just become a vigilant observer of your every single frame of your every action and shift repeatedly into permanent alignment with the one intelligence rather than serving your layers of egoic conditioning now you become more and more transparent to your quote self which is really important in the self-realization and self-actualization process but then you get to this so-called point and this is sort of where I would say that I'm at right now which is where you basically hit this wall of the all-inclusive awareness so when you begin recognizing that the VJ soul and the Atlas soul and all these 8 billion units or costumes have the shared all-inclusive great I am one God self-awareness and so you begin holding that more and more and more and then you begin playing with transcending even the purest subject the very pure I am as VJ mentioned you're holding this all-inclusive awareness consciousness pure I am everything this and then you ask who or what is observing that and then then you get to what Buddha called Anata no self and what many of the greats have also been calling nothingness void shunya emptiness you dance dance dance until you get to the event horizon of the black hole and so I don't really know how to describe this further but basically the sense of I in essence is the most intoxicative thing the most illusory thing so you think that there's a sense of I but it's really your own simulation you simulate you often vent the sense of I you simulate God you simulate the all-inclusive awareness itself to be able to be an observer or a witness of your infinite creation this being just one appearance of that and so what happens when you go beyond the all-inclusive observer is the main question and so that's what we're talking about now and that's that that level so you get so we can almost say there's one level of transparency which has become transparent to your actions and your behaviors and aka know yourself accept yourself and so that part is mission critical to become more aware of awareness and aware of your frames and aware of when it's the clouds appearing and disappearing versus the sky and then the second step in a sense is to become aware of the sense of I itself being self-inventing how does how does that sort of resonate this you know becoming transparent to that first part and then becoming transparent to even that that second part to such a degree where you even realize that the sense of I itself how could I possibly know my own mystery it at that highest absolute level where even the sense of I itself is simulated so how could I possibly know what it is if even the sense of I itself is simulated how could I possibly be transparent through that last little taste not an everyday question not an everyday question in the local store actually actually one effective thing what I have seen in the meditation and everything is also that sometimes it's very fascinating to go somehow very deep into the layers and somehow the discoveries and conclusions and thoughts but also at some point you see that because it's so without any distance everything is so perceived that it doesn't matter whether you are thinking about what are you gonna buy in the store and thinking mundane things like that or if you are really deep in what this I am can it be perceived somehow at some point you see that they actually are exactly the same value there is no more value in doing this beautiful work than thinking about carrots and potatoes so somehow it's yeah like said Jim Newman and Tony Parsons probably would just laugh at those kind of things that it's but I guess there is some thing that you can get through those kind of things and it's I am not saying it's totally useless to do that actually it's in my opinion you have to go that deep as you were describing in order for you to realize this thing that I said that there is no distance to anything but you have to somehow make the contrast because before the spiritual process you were only thinking about potatoes and carrots and they were their whole life thinking that there is nothing beyond that but then you realize okay there is some cool stuff here and then you go in and in and in but I feel it's like mostly it's like really to see the contrast and to actually see that and actually it's a little bit disappointment also to really realize that I am not getting anywhere even though how did I go but I just see that everything is and then there is no distance to anything and you can't get any perspective to anything so nothing makes sense anymore whoa so that's a big jump so let's play with that big jump for a bit so if we are visualizing this would it be fair to potentially visualize it like there is a screen of perception there and there is we are going to get to the point where there is no distance between them but okay so there is the screens of perception that are happening and then in a sense they all go to the same screen of perception so the same witness is viewing the screens of perception of the atlas soul and the vj soul and etc so all of these screens of perceptions they merge are you following so far right yeah yeah yeah okay cool okay so the screens of perception themselves merge and so then there in a sense there becomes less and less distance between what initially was like hey that vj costume soul is all the way over in Finland and this one is all the way in California and so my gosh there is so much distance between them but when these screens of perceptions come up to this same great I am observation that one god self then now they are in that indescribably close to each other okay so then you ask well what is witnessing or observing the great I am seeing these 8 billion screens of perception and so then the decision to enjoy carrots or potatoes at the store versus the deepest metaphysical absolute truth that you hang out with 5 minutes later when you get back home in value because everything is in a sense falling into this beyond that it's quite disappointing to understand it really like that especially if you have invested a lot of your intelligence of how am I personally and we would probably go as far as to say that what we're mentioning right now is a it's really valuable but it's valuable for once you've in a sense mastered your awareness of awareness itself like don't jump to this point and this is where I have a strong stance on which I've relaxed this point of view but it's still a strong stance because in a sense I'm really passionate about the global awakening and so in a sense when much of the Neo Advaita pointing is really important and really helpful and really insightful if in a sense you jump people to the place where there's no point to seek already the absolute it's a great way of viewing it there's no distinction between you being angry and you being happy right but then what are you doing is you're stripping people away from Sacha Dhananda yeah I think you're making very valuable point because for me I would say that most the three miracles in life what I would say the only miracles like if some bearded guy walks on the water I don't think that's any kind of miracle but to really find right kind of master is the first miracle actually the first miracle is that this urge to find truth find freedom arises in you and the second one is that you find the right kind of master and the third one is that you actually follow this master to the actual end what he's pointing to because the mind I mean you can when you hear something like that that nothing matters or like you said that this type of teachings that you so easily can make conclusions and you can apply non-duality to your life or something like that but I feel that like in the raw book he says that the first number one first important thing for a human being is to know his mind so I feel that if you have a master that I think you need a master because you get so arrogant with your own processes and you think that you have gone over something but if you have a right kind of master is actually living master then your bullshit gets like shown pretty quickly so paradoxically what I described before I really think it's very healthy to have a good master it's vital so learn to hold both of these lenses at the same time which is that this is already ineffable perfection this is already the absolute I am already absolutely free this in itself is an announcement of freedom okay great and then you hold that simultaneously with this okay well why am I angry why is Sacha Dhananda plastered all over enlightenment but why do I not feel any Sacha Dhananda and so then that's the process of being like okay well now I'm going to have the seeking impulse of finding a master that has mastered both the fact that this is ineffable absolute perfection freedom already and they are simultaneously helping realign people repeatedly with purification away from egoic conditioning towards Sacha Dhananda towards being in pure service to others and so then you're in a sense you're following the master to the end because it's not that the end is just that this is already free done okay back we go to Netflix it's that it's that this is already absolute freedom and there's actually a process of realignment purification and to become a pure steward or shepherd for the ignition of the planetary enlightenment yep yeah good description yeah you too yeah yeah this is a really good placed in a sense maybe we'll play for a little bit here and then we'll wrap but this is really the big I would say one of the big highlights of our conversation is that just perpetually know that you can't be transparent to yourself that's a really good way to put it and VJ was very adamant about highlighting that in our NLS fam and I think that that was extremely insightful and if you really truly follow that thread of not being able to be transparent to yourself and just constantly wondering you know where am I fraudulent where am I full of shit over and over and over again and then following that thread repeatedly because you're humbling yourself through that entire process you're in a sense you're surrendering to the one intelligence expressing itself through VJ saying hey Atlas I think you might be a little bit full of shit here and then basically it's surrendering and saying that you know thank you for this reflection okay so let's investigate am I truly full of shit there and so that process of not being able to ever be fully transparent to yourself and then getting to the point where you recognize even when you are very transparent to yourself that even the sense of I itself that you have to become more and more transparent to how even that is in itself an intoxicative illusion and that you've been perpetually associating yourself with a sense of I your entire life and so that you then have to in a sense disassociate from to be able to commune with this in a sense this last sort of pop this last stage and so you have to find the right master to be able to navigate all of these different lenses or find multiple masters that know how to navigate these different lenses and then pull from them into this navigable lattice work yeah and also I think that this kind of purification process or what you mentioned that to somehow expose bullshit and stuff like that I think also it can become a trap in a way totally that's something that I have like a little bit been considering myself that what my view about this in our what the family is no limit family is that because it's quite simple the mooch is pointing for example that you always go to the I am and actually the purification it's not the main focus but it's always like about exposing the person because the person is interested about purification but the absolute truth is not the one that needs to be purified so when your attention is always directed to the absolute essence of what you are then you don't have to actually worry about the purification effect so much but also I have found very valuable when Bentinio has talked about this emotional guidance system I think it's very beautiful way also to somehow catch yourself but now I'm arguing with God because there's this kind of thing or something like that but also somehow not to go overboard with that because sometimes God happens and it's part of the part of the game the very nature of redirecting attention is that realignment to the one heart to the I am to the absolute repeatedly and while you do that it's a self purification engine mechanism beautifully said so it's like Nisargatta Maharaj said something like I believe my human nature to unfold according to its own tendencies and I remain as I am so he doesn't mind what the human form how it unfolds but he remains as he is something like that yeah I like that a lot as well it's this abiding repeatedly in these pops so the more that you abide as awareness itself formless subtle impersonal eternal the more that you dissolve the person conditioning and then the more that you abide as that which is the source of perception itself the more that you dissolve the person conditioning and even you dissolve perception itself yeah actually it's a magical process because many times when you just focus on that essence of what you are some things that you have thought about that I want to purify this one day they vanish like you don't even have to worry about them at all at one night you don't even remember that you had such issue with your personality or something like that but if you concentrate and focus on some impurity that you have and you want to get rid of it or somehow it somehow also makes it stronger and it becomes like an actual thing when it somehow disregarded it might just fall away from negative tendency for example yeah it says though abiding equals purification yeah well said well said yeah that's a good headline yeah that's a good one let's put that one in there abiding equals purification and that's really what the know yourself and accept yourself is that really is that is the more that you just bathe in this right here you can almost see the timelines where there's one of them that is this this person conditioning timeline as the onion layer the continuous abiding timeline and so the know yourself accept yourself is to become more and more subtly aware of when that other timeline is like nope and you can yeah and then you just abide in this ineffable perfection and it purifies you it is the purification engine itself and you become more and more of the creator as you do this process and you become less and less of the person conditioning and you become a better and better steward slash shepherd for igniting that planetary awakening but also I have to add that in the end even abiding is yeah so of course it's a beautiful dream but you can I've noticed that I'm still right now at the place where it's become really helpful to in a sense like pop back into witnessing or observing or awareness and then pop again into that impersonal eternal all inclusive awareness and then pop again into the ineffable that makes perception I found that entire process to be in itself the core for abiding for me and as I do that right now it is taking me so far away from person conditioning so that's why it's in a sense helpful but then you're right that at some point even that quote it's like sitting on a cushion you transcend sitting on a cushion and now you're going to transcend eventually these your little training wheels of abiding mm-hmm yeah and I think one of Bentonio's favorite quotes that similar to what I earlier said that Osho said meditation has to become your whole life that Bentonio said that seek your ass off or something like that because I mean if there's nothing nothing else makes sense to do when you are alive and to seek that's how I feel that if it's abiding and purifying I think that's the most beneficial work you can do and help others to do that same for you yeah you'll probably find this to be interesting I'll go ahead and post it here so perfectly plays with what we just said he is born in vain who having attained the human birth so difficult to get does not attempt to realize God in this very life amen what a perfect wrap you too yes exactly yeah it's great in the physical it's across this Atlantic Ocean and then on this all inclusive awareness it's like indescribably already next to each other yeah ah ah yeah this was so nice so grateful Vijay thank you thank you for coming on the program thank you Atlas thank you so much for organizing and putting all this together it's beautiful it was so fun we had such a good time I know that I know that there were a lot of good pieces of wisdom for others as well to be able to take and leverage I really loved our let's see I'll bring some back up our meditation has to become your whole life we had the beautiful I am the one seeing it all we had the manifest is such an amazing mystery we had how could we know how could we know the mystery we had the sort of couple step seeking impulse finding a right master following the master to the end redirecting attention to the I am absolutely repeatedly abiding equals purification it's so many good ones in there you are very skillful at collecting those fruits fruits yeah the tennis game has its beautiful fruit that then we share in this lattice work yeah very beautiful and everyone you can find some links in the bio below we'll have some stuff there to VJ what's the best place for people to follow you follow me I don't know I have a YouTube channel but not so much there but VJ they have some Santa Claus non dualist stuff there maybe that's the place to start excellent Santa Claus non duality we'll have that down there and we'll have the no limit society link as well for you guys to check out and thanks everyone for tuning in infinite adoration we'll be very much thank you we would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below on that episode let us know what you think and if the video brought you value give it a like it helps the algorithm subscribe if you haven't already share the interview the conversation with people that you feel like this would resonate with and that is all you beautiful souls costumes units of the one intelligence thank you so much all right thank you VJ you and I will stay in the studio and I'll go ahead and the broadcast


The next item of business is a statement by Jenny Gilruth on A9 dualling update. The minister will take questions at the end of her statement and therefore there should be no interruptions or interventions. I call on Jenny Gilruth minister up to 10 minutes please. I welcome the opportunity to provide an update to Parliament on the A9 dualling programme. The A9 cuts through the heart of Scotland, some call it the spine of Scotland, linking Lowland with Highland. It is a vital route for the people and the businesses of the north of this country. It is a road on which we have witnessed a devastating increase in fatalities in recent times. Before Christmas, I committed additional investment of £5 million from this Government to improve short-term safety measures on the A9. I am very clear that the main route to improving road safety will be in the full completion of the dualling programme between Perth and Inverness. That has been a long-standing commitment of this Government and we remain absolutely committed to fulfilling that. I recognise the significant public and parliamentary interests in the progress of the route championed by organisations such as the A9 dual action group representatives of whom I met very recently, and also my members of this Parliament who I have met on a number of occasions in recent times to discuss the A9. As MSPs will know more recently, we have been actively progressing the procurement of the next section of the programme from Tomaten and Moy. The process has now concluded and I wanted to take this opportunity today to advise members of the outcome and also to provide an update on the remaining sections of the programme. Before turning to those matters, it might be helpful both to reflect on the scale of the programme and also on the progress that has been made thus far. The programme comprises 11 projects, which together will provide approximately 80 miles of new dual carriageway between Perth and Inverness. With an estimated cost of £3 billion at 2008 prices, that is one of the largest infrastructure programmes ever undertaken in Scotland. Two of the 11 projects providing over 10 miles of new dual carriageway section are complete and are open to use. Those are the Concrete, Delradi and Lunkarty to the Passive Burnham sections, which opened in September 2017 and August 21 respectively. Ministerial decisions to complete the statutory process have been confirmed for eight of the nine remaining projects that covers over 92 per cent of the length to be dualled. For the one remaining section, we are continuing to progress the Passive Burnham to Tay crossing to identify a preferred option following an innovative co-creative process with the local community. An announcement on the preferred route there will be made this spring. Our investment of more than £430 million to date has meant that much has already been achieved. All of that has been done alongside the successful delivery of a number of other significant investments by the Government, including, of course, the Queen's Ferry crossing, Aberdein western peripheral routes and the M8 motorway improvements, delivering really tangible benefits to lives right across the country on a daily basis. Although much is still to be done, this Government is absolutely committed to completing the A9 dualling programme. Separately, as previously mentioned, in recognition of the immediate road safety concerns following fatal accidents that occurred on the route in the second half of 2022, A9 is an investment of approximately £5 million in additional road safety measures for the A9 back in December. I am pleased to confirm that those have now commenced and are progressing well, as was confirmed to me by Bear Scotland at the A9 safety group meeting held last week in Inverness. That includes enhancements to signing and road markings, initially between Burnham and Delgais, and installation of electronic signs to display safety messages between Perth and Inverness. Furthermore, a road safety campaign targeting driver fatigue will begin on the 13 February next week, and preparations for a drive on the left campaign are well under way ahead of a launch this Easter. Next month, I will convene a stakeholder summit with car hire companies serving our main airports to discuss further work that we can undertake with the sector to improve for and drivers understanding of the A9. My sympathies continue to be with everyone who has lost a loved one on Scotland's road. One life lost on any of Scotland's roads is, of course, one too many. As a Government, it was imperative that we responded to the devastating increase in fatalities on the A9, and I am hopeful that those more immediate measures will help to support a reduction in road traffic accidents. I turn now to the outcome of the procurement of the Tomato and Tamoy project. Back in December 2021, three bidders were invited to participate in a procurement exercise with final tenders that were required to be submitted by October of last year. That coincided with external factors, including the pandemic, disruption caused by Brexit and the war in Ukraine, with the inflationary impacts of all those impacting, of course, significantly on the construction market. Unfortunately, the final return yielded only one tender submission. You will note the anticipated cost of the constructed contract was £115 million at the time. Following careful consideration of the tender, the price of which was significantly higher than expected, even allowing for the real-world impacts of the volatile economy, ministers have concluded that a ward of the contract at this time would not represent best value for the taxpayer. At any time, but particularly in the current climate, protecting public finances is an essential part of responsible government. Members will appreciate that due to commercial confidentiality. It would be inappropriate for me to provide any further details of the bid, but I do want to make very clear our firm intention to retender for Tomato and Tamoy at pace and with some urgency. I can confirm that the tenderer concerned has been informed of the decision in respect to the procurement today. I fully appreciate that that will be disappointing news for many people. However, I want to be absolutely clear to members of this chamber and to the communities and businesses that are served by the A9 between Perth and Inverness, that the Scottish Government's commitment to dualling the section between Tomato and Tamoy remains absolute. This has been a very difficult decision to make, but we believe that it is the only responsible one to take given the circumstances presented. I also want to reassure members that Transport Scotland is already taking the necessary preparatory steps for the retendering of Tomato and Tamoy. Work has begun to update contract terms and work will continue on preparations for the new procurement for Tomato and Tamoy, with the firm aim of achieving a contract award before the end of this year. At the end of last year, I invited MSPs to meet with Transport Scotland and wider stakeholders to discuss the range of short-term proposals for investment on the A9, specifically in relation to the increase in fatalities that we have seen on the route in recent times. To that end, and in a similar spirit, I propose that, soon after the retendering process commences, I will convene a meeting with interested MSPs Transport Scotland and relevant stakeholders to discuss next steps, and MSPs should have a letter from me this afternoon to that end. I think that it is imperative that MSPs are engaged with this work, and I recognise the rightful strength and constituency interests in that end. As part of the retendering process, Transport Scotland will engage with representatives of the construction industry, including the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, on how elements of its standard terms and conditions for such projects might be modified to encourage more bidders to participate in future. I think that we also need to recognise, however, that the construction market has changed substantially in recent years, so we want to work very much with the supply chain while securing, of course, a good deal for the Scottish taxpayer. Undoubtedly, the delivery of the overall A9 dualling programme has been impacted by a number of external factors. Although good progress has been made securing the statutory consents, like many other construction projects across the world, progress has been significantly disrupted by the pandemic. In addition, I do not need to remind members that the UK economic climate has been extremely volatile in recent times, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the UK Government's mini-budget in September of 2022. Members will also be aware that Transport Scotland has been assessing the most suitable procurement options for the remaining sections of the A9 dualling programme. Following the principles of the Scottish Public Finance Manual, that work has included consideration of whether procurement should be on the basis of a series of capital-funded design and bill contracts, similar to that used for the recently completed Lincarte to Pass of Burnham project, or whether a number of larger-scale resource-funded public private partnership contracts similar to that used on the Aberdeen-Western peripheral route should be used instead. Due to recent economic volatility, including, of course, as I mentioned, impacts on the borrowing costs of the UK Government's mini-budget, it has been necessary to look at the market changes on the available procurement options. In light of the outcome of the tomato-moi procurement, that assessment must now consider the potential cost implications of any changes to the terms and conditions in our roads contracts. Members will know that the original completion date for the dualling of the A9 was scheduled to be 2025. As MSPs will now understand, that timescale is simply no longer achievable. However, I will set out a revised timescale as soon as possible, seeking to minimise delay as far as possible. It is true that the target date originally set was always an ambitious challenge. It was also reliant on the timely and positive outcome of a range of factors, for example completing public and stakeholder consultation, statutory approval processes, market capacity, supply chain availability and, of course, the availability of funding, all of which have been significantly impacted by the events that I outlined earlier. That has made the 2025 deadline simply unachievable. I appreciate that members will want to know what that new target date might be for completion of the A9 dualling programme, as I previously stated, Transport Scotland is urgently considering a range of different options to provide ministers with advice on the most efficient way to dual the remaining sections. I expect to have that advice by autumn of this year, at which time I will update Parliament to put forward a renewed timescale for completion. I want to close by reiterating the Government's unwavering commitment to deliver the benefits of the completed A9 dualling programme to the people of Scotland. We will support that commitment by continuing to work to obtain the outstanding statutory consens for, of course, the pass of Burnham to Tay crossing project and by completing the land acquisition required as soon as possible. We will also urgently engage with industry partners working together to progress the Tomathe and Tomoy project in a way that offers a good deal for Scottish taxpayers. The Government committed to dualling the A9 for good reason. Dualling of the route will improve connectivity between the central belt and the Highlands of Scotland. It will deliver better opportunities for tourism and business and it will fundamentally improve road safety on the A9 and the lives of those who live in communities alongside the route. Scottish Government's resolute commitment to full dualling of the A9 remains absolute and I look forward to continued engagement with members as we refocus our efforts to deliver the outstanding sections of the road in as timely and as efficient manner possible. Thank you minister. When I take questions on the issues raised in her statement, I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions after which we will move on to the next slide to business. I would ask those members who would wish to ask a question to please press the request to speak button and I call Murdo Fraser. I thank the minister for advanced site of her statement and I welcome the temporary road safety measures that are currently being implemented. Communities along the A9 in Perthshire and the Highlands have been waiting more than a decade for this Government to fulfil its commitment to dualling the A9 in its entirety from Perth to Inverness, and in that time we have seen just barely 10 miles completed out of a total of 80, just one eighth of the total project. Today we might have hoped for some positive news, some detail on the timetable for the long delayed completion. Instead all we have is more bad news with a further delay to the Tomatin to Moe section. The minister could tell us nothing about what the progress will be on the remaining sections, no details, no timescale, no hope, just empty words repeated over and over again about an unwavering commitment. Actions speak louder than words. Last year 12 people lost their lives on single carriageway sections of the A9.  Can the minister give us any indication when this long standing commitment will actually be met and this long delayed and vital road safety project will actually be completed? I very much recognise the strength of interest from members, particularly Mr Fraser, who I recognise raises the A9 with myself and the Cabinet Secretary on a fairly regular basis, noting his own interests in his region. I recognise that there will be similar members from other parts of the local area who will want to do likewise. There are fundamentally a number of challenges that the Government has faced in recent times. He will be aware, I heard the First Minister in response to a question from his benches earlier on, laying out rather some of the financial challenges that the Government has faced in recent times. First of all of course in relation to the impacts of the pandemic, which cannot be understated, particularly in relation to the construction industry, we recognise right across the piece not just in relation to roads building, the impact of the pandemic on more broadly some of the challenges that we have faced in relation to construction. We have had the inflationary impacts in relation to Ukraine and layered on top of that, of course, the impacts coming from his colleagues down south in relation to the mini-budget. All of that needs to be looked at in its totality. That is why the work that Transport Scotland is undertaking at the current time is hugely important to assess the market implications for where we can make the best progress in the quickest and the most efficient way possible. I recognise some of the challenge here and that is why this afternoon I have written to members to outline the approach that I intend to take working with members, such as Mr Fraser, to reassure them of the approach that we intend to take in Government. It is also worthwhile to reflect on the fact that we have made progress in recent times. We have invested, as I mentioned, £431 million to date in delivering the dualling programme. Of course, we need to adhere to the statutory processes in relation to roads building, which takes time. I recognise that there are processes that we need to adhere to in relation to roads building. More generally, as I have outlined to the member, I am keen to come back to the Parliament later this year. The tomatoes and tamoy section has been obviously a challenging one. I do not think that it is one that ministers would have expected. It has been quite an unusual occurrence, having only one tender in this instance. Therefore, we are moving forward at pace in the re-tendering of that specific section. I will come back to Parliament later in the year to set out the timeline that the member has asked for. Rhoda Grant. Presiding Officer, this is a total betrayal of the Highlands, a broken promise that I wonder if the Government ever intended to keep. The scale of the project is exactly the same as it was 16 years ago, sadly almost exactly the same given the lack of progress and the lives that are being lost on this dangerous road. This is an issue of her own Government's making. Have they even attempted to adhere to their own timescale contracts? That would have been awarded by now. It is also shameful that, on the day that Volodymyr Zelenski is addressing the UK Parliament, the SNP ministers are trying to blame the war in Ukraine for their failure to deliver a manifesto pledge from 2007. I ask the minister now to come clean on the estimated timescale of dualling the A9 to Inverness. If she cannot answer that, can she at least give an indication of when the route between Inverness and Dalwini and between Perth and Ballan-Lewig will be fully dualled? Will she now apologise to the people of the Highlands for this gross betrayal? To ask Ms Grant's question, I would ask the member to reflect on some of the other investments that the Government is delivering in the region in which she represents. I was in Inverness last week, for example, opening in Inverness airport station, a significant investment in the local area that will help to improve connectivity. She also mentioned the increase that we have seen in recent times in relation to the number of fatalities on the road. She attended the meeting that I convened with MSPs to look specifically at that issue and asked questions of Bear Scotland and Police Scotland. It is hugely important to recognise the additional investment. I am sure that she does in the short-term measures that I brought forward at the end of last year, which will help to improve road safety on the route. Ms Grant has asked about a timetable. I gave Mr Fraser an answer to the substantive point that that work is being taken in its totality to look at the outstanding sections in its totality, the most efficient route for delivery, and I will come back to the Parliament to update members on that later this year. I am certain that correspondence is already coming in from constituents who are extremely disappointed and concerned about the news about Tomaten to Moi. I have to say that I share their disappointment. I cannot overstate how difficult it will be for locals to believe that this project will be carried out in the face of another delay. I hope that the minister is able to provide assurance that the Scottish Government remains committed not only to this project but to the people of the Highlands amidst continued accidents and fatalities on the road that it has committed to dualling. Can she please give some more detail on how severely restarting the procurement process could delay the dualling of this stretch of road? Can she tell me whether there is an issue with the Transport Scotland procurement process, which makes it unattractive to bidders? I thank the member for her question. I want to give that reassurance that Ms Roddick was seeking in relation to the people of the Highlands. She will know as she was at the opening of Inverness airport station last week how committed the Government is to continuing investment in that part of the country. I recognise very much her interest in the route as a local MSP. Transport Scotland's design and billboards contract has been successfully implemented for the past 20 years. The member asked a question around some of the challenges in relation to that. That is all being considered in the round in relation to how we can move forward at pace. If there are changes that we need to make within Transport Scotland to the way in which we approach those projects, that will be looked at, because we need to make sure that we are attracting as much opportunity for investment as possible and that bidders are not put off potentially from the process. Recent years have seen a decline in the numbers of tenderers, which is fair to say. We understand from industry contacts that that is largely due to the terms and conditions that are set out in our contract, including risk transfer. However, as I mentioned, Transport Scotland is reassessing that approach in light of the current market conditions, which also sit alongside changes that we might have to take moving forward. We will carefully look at how we can get that best balance between achieving cost certainty, making our contract attractive to the market, looking at appropriate risk allocation, which is fundamentally important, but also looking at the role of contracting parties and improving that collaboration between Transport Scotland and the contractor. I call Jamie Halcro Johnston to be followed by Ferkus Ewing. The minister has admitted today what we have all known for some time that the 2025 date isn't going to be met. Communities along the A9 and road users themselves have been kept in the dark on when and if this project will ever be completed. How many years behind this project currently is? When she was first told that the 2025 date was not going to be met? I thank the member for his question. In response to Mr Fraser, this work is on-going and will report later in the year. I would like to come back to Parliament later this year to give that update and reassurance in relation to the deadline. We have to fulfil the statutory processes in relation to carrying out any major roads project in Scotland. It is also clear that the market conditions at the current time would not have allowed us to deliver the full-dueling programme within the original timescale, as previously set out, regardless of the delivery model that we choose. Therefore, we are looking at the most optimal delivery programme to give that certainty to the public. I recognise the member's point in that regard. That is why I have been working closely with MSPs, including the member, on how we can better work with communities to ensure that they understand the next steps in relation to the programme. To that end, of course, I have written to MSPs this afternoon inviting them to engage with me and Transport Scotland on the next steps in the delivery of the project. Today's news will be met in the Highlands with shock, incredulity and anger. I ask the minister why does Transport Scotland, unlike its counterparts south of the border, put all risks of unforeseen costs on contractors? Surely that makes and has made bidding less attractive. Why is that? We are nearly two years into this Parliament that we still do not have a revised timetable to replace a deadline that every single person in the Highlands knows was never going to be achieved? I recognise his strength of feeling, of course, on the A9 in particular, but also on the A96, which is in his constituency. We have met on this route and on the A96 in his constituency and in the Parliament on a number of occasions. I am keen to work with the member on supporting his interests and other interested MSPs, because it is important that we get the next steps right. I have outlined to him some of the challenges that we face in recent times. We have had keen interests at the industry event days when the tender for tomatoes in Moibos was first launched. That was positive at the beginning of the procurement process. We had three contractors pre-qualified before the bid. One of those was withdrew earlier in the process, with a further contractor withdrawing on the day before tenders were due for submission, resulting in only one tender being submitted. Transport Scotland's design and billboards contact, as I mentioned in response to Ms Roddick, has been used for over 20 years. I think that some of the points that Mr Ewing has made are fair. Those are all going to be considered in the wider work in relation to how we move forward at pace with the totality of the sections of the route that remain outstanding. As I mentioned, we have seen a decline in the numbers of tenders on the Conservatives of MSPs that are coming forward. We need to look at the approach that we use within Transport Scotland. That fundamentally will be addressed as part of the wider advice that will come to ministers in the autumn to ensure that we have the best approach within Transport Scotland to attract the most number of bids that are moving forward to deliver the programme as efficiently and as seamlessly as possible. The minister said several times today that the Government is absolutely committed to fully dualling day A9. Are the Greens fully committed to dualling day A9? I am not a Green Minister. I call Jim Fairlie to be followed by Liam McArthur. The A9, my constituency, is fully dualled, but the Shinnifoot junction has been an on-going concern for local folk for many years. Following the minister's visit to the junction we made last year, which I would like to put on record my thanks for doing so, I was delighted to learn that local authority listened to those local concerns and rejected the housing developers' plans to only put an offslip on place when the requirement for the continuation of the housing development required both an on and an offslip. Can the minister say anything about what she will do to ensure that, as the A9 developments continue, she will press to make sure that those incredibly dangerous junctions are given proper consideration to ensure that they are safe for those trying to navigate them? I think that Mr Fairlie raises a fair point. I met with him, of course, and community representatives to discuss some of their concerns about the Shinnifoot junction. As I noted at the time, the junction proposals there were subject, of course, to the on-going planning considerations with the local authority. My officials are still in dialogue with Perth and Cynroth Council and local developers on that matter to ensure that the safety on the A9 is maintained in that location and that access to and from the local communities is improved where possible. It was really helpful to get a site visit with Mr Fairlie to see some of the challenge in that regard locally. Of course, it sits with the developers to develop proposals necessary to access their developments, but I am more than happy to continue that dialogue with Mr Fairlie noting his constituency interests on the section of the route that he has identified. I thank the minister for advance sight of the statement. I think that Fergus Ewing and Emma Roddick have eloquently expressed the reaction that will be among people in the islands to the announcement that, effectively, the promise on dualling the A9 has gone the same way as the promise on rolling out superfast broadband. However, the A9 does not stop at Inverness, so what reassurances can the minister offer to communities north of Inverness that the Government is committed to investment and improvements in the safety of that road? That is Richard The A9. The Government is absolutely committed to continuing those investments, and I want to give the member a reassurance to that end. I also would more generally observe that investments from the Government in terms of road safety have been increasing and will be increasing. I have outlined some of the measures that are taking in relation to the short-term measures. Of course, those target the route between Perth and Inverness, but I recognise some of the further challenges that are on-going from the route north of Inverness. During the October recess, I met with Bear Scotland and Transport Scotland representatives to look at some of the junction closures that will be happening further north of Inverness, and I am more than happy to write to the member with further detail on the financial investments that we have made on that part of the route. It is clear from speaking to Persia constituents living alongside the A9 that accelerating road safety work is everyone's top priority. The minister has helped to outline some of the urgent safety measures that are being delivered, but can she update me on what consideration has been made of proposals to reduce speed limits on dangerous sections of the road, particularly between Burnham and Dunkeld? We have no plans to reduce speed limits on the A9, and those proposals to amend speed limits generally would emerge as the outcomes of the national speed management review conclude. I am more than happy to give the member an update on that. That work is on-going, expected to report in the coming months, and that national speed management review will provide us with the evidence-based to consider any changes in future. Inflation is clearly an issue in all of this. We were told at the finance committee that some projects have gone up by 30 per cent in cost, caused perhaps by Ukraine and also Brexit. Is the minister concerned that we run the risk of tendering again and reaching the same process that there is very little interest and a very high price? I recognise the challenge that the member has outlined and, as I have mentioned in a response to another member, we did originally have three bidders pre-qualified for the bid, which is important to observe. As I have mentioned, one of those bidders, which was due early in the process with the further contractor withdrawing on the day before tenders, was due for submission. That resulted in only one tender being submitted. The outcome of that procurement competition was fairly unexpected—it is quite unusual. We have looked at some of the external factors that have contributed to that. As the member alluded to, Brexit, Ukraine, Covid-19 and inflation, caused by the UK Government's mini-budget, have all had a wider and broader impact on the construction industry. The end of 2022 was also an extremely challenging time for the construction sector more generally, because we had peak inflation and market volatility additionally. Forecasts from the building cost information service show that the market is likely to settle over the coming months and years, and we would anticipate that that will help us to get best value in the re-procurement exercise. Transport Scotland will engage with industry partners such as the CECA to consider improvements that can be made both to our design and build contracts, which has been a theme from some member's questions today, but also in relation to the contract delivery strategy and the procurement mechanisms that we use. Jenny Gilruth has put the A9 on hold today. That so-called unwavering commitment to deliver is empty. There is no delivery programme, but I want to ask why she thinks that firms are showing a lack of interest in working with the Scottish Government. This has been known about for years now. It does not exist elsewhere in the UK. What is the problem? I am not necessarily sure that I would agree with the premise of Mr Simpson's question. I think that it is also worthwhile observing that Transport Scotland initially has also been looking at feedback from the construction industry following the pandemic. It is important that we learn lessons from the pandemic and the implications that it has had on the construction industry more generally. That has given us an opportunity to look at closely sequencing, for example, and construction work in a way that will not result in excessive disruption, but there have been several significant changes through the market consultation, including, of course, as I have mentioned, some of the international impacts, challenging economic circumstances, including, of course, the UK Government's mini budget. It is important that Transport Scotland reassess its construction contracts in light of that change more generally to the member's question. We will look at how we can get the best balance between achieving cost certainty but also making sure that our contracts are attractive to the market. That is fundamentally important as we move forward with the re-tendering programme. I call Gordon MacDonald to be followed by Douglas Lambson. This announcement will clearly come as a disappointment to the communities and to those who have campaigned on the issue over the years, but it is important to focus on exactly how this happened. Can the minister confirm that this decision has been taken at a time of extreme financial pressures globally based on an assessment of value for money and, in line with Treasury Green Book requirements, which ministers are required to follow? Yes. The outcome of the procurement competition was, as I think I have said, now unexpected. We have touched on some of the external factors that have contributed to that, but the end of 2022 was a really challenging time to procure a major infrastructure project. Of course, we had peak inflation at the end of last year and that market volatility more generally. All of that coincided with the end of the tender process. Following what was a pretty difficult and complex procurement procedure, Transport Scotland has decided not to award the contract to Math and Timoise section under the current procurement competition. Having carefully reviewed that tender, we have concluded that it does not meet best value for the current time for the taxpayer. We will seek to secure that continuous improvement in performance, while also looking at the appropriate balance between quality and cost. It is hugely important that that has regard to broader factors in relation to the economy, efficiency and effectiveness, but also to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development. I think that the member's question is well put, but I am hopeful that the re-tendering process will deliver a range of options for us to move forward at pace with. Can I ask the Minister of the Delay to the A9 project whether it will have a knock-on effect to other Rose projects? The A96 was meant to be fully dualled by 2030. Will the commitment be met? I think that the member will have received an invitation to meet with the contractors who have carried out the substantive work in relation to the A96. I look forward to meeting with the member on that point and the contractors to talk to the review that has been carried out over the past year. Thank you Minister. That concludes the statement. There will be a short pause before we move on to the next line of business to allow front bench teams to change positions should they wish. Thank you.


Fire and ready. I got you. Get a slice. Put it on the leg. Can you hop? The first platoon's in their submetary. The first X squad is in their submetary. Okay. Do we want to... I guess there's some fighters over there. They're about 300 meters away. They're requesting intel. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Radio check over. Cross their... Cross, cross, cross, cross. There's a fighting position right there. You can get in.


The Black Engineer of the Year Awards, Orbea, took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 19th. The ceremony recognizes pioneers who have made exceptional accomplishments in government and industry. Science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM students from around the country attended the BAEA conference to showcase African-American talent and promote opportunities in STEM fields. We had an opportunity to mentor a bunch of high school students in terms of what our profession is about. That may not have gotten those kind of stories from other venues associated with things. And I know I have valued in the various places I have been assigned, where I have people from a variety of different backgrounds. And as we bring them together, we're able to handle complex scenarios, complex problems through that business. If you would like to learn more about the BAEA conference and STEM programs, visit their website.