– Transcript 66
R: Good afternoon. Someone asked me to say a few words about freewill and predestination. I’ve already talked to you about those things. But we forget.
It’s just like the fellow who told me he’s been seeing a psychotherapist for twelve years. And the psychotherapist told him something this morning that made him cry. So I said, “What could he have told you this morning if you’ve been seeing him for twelve years?” He said, “He told me, no speakie English, no habla English.” (students laugh) So we talk about the same things again and again.
SB: Was he cured of his psychosis?
R: Who knows I never saw him again.
If everything is predetermined where does freewill come in? For instance if someone has cancer and they’re dying and this is predetermined, everything is predetermined, so should that person use their freewill to try to heal themselves? Or should they just let themselves die?
This is quite a paradox but it’s easily resolved as soon as you ask yourself, “For whom is freewill? Who is the person that predetermines anything?” And you tell me, “The inner guru.” The inner guru knows the time when you’re going to be enlightened and that time cannot change. So again where does freewill come in? I ask you again, “For whom is there freewill?” Freewill is for the ego. Freewill is just another game. And as far as things being predetermined that’s also part of the game.
It appears as if everything is predetermined. Just as it appears that you have freewill. But I say to you that there is only the Self and you are that. Does the Self care about freewill or predetermination? You do. Can’t you see the error you’re making. You’re so concerned about freewill and predetermination, it’s like being concerned with what came first the tree or the seed, the chicken or the egg. That’s how it is when you’re concerning yourself with freewill and predetermination.
There is no real answer it’s part of the game. Everything is predetermined. Even when I raise my hand like this (raises hand), it’s predetermined. Everything is preordained it has been pre-planned before you came into birth. But don’t you see the truth? The truth is you were never born. You never came into birth. Therefore there is nothing that’s predetermined because you don’t even exist.
Nate (SC): Excuse me Robert you’re talking about consciousness, you’re not talking about the human body, isn’t that right?R: I’m talking about what? (SC: You’re talking about consciousness, you’re not talking about the human body are you?) I’m talking about the human body that believes everything is predetermined. (SC: But you just said we don’t exist?) That is what I’m saying, in reality you don’t exist but you keep thinking about your life, about your body, about your affairs, about circumstances, about if everything is predetermined or if you’ve got freewill. Who thinks about these things? You do. (SC: How can I think about it if I don’t exist?) But you think you exist otherwise you wouldn’t react to conditions. So by saying you don’t exist that’s the highest state of consciousness. Where you do not really exist. It’s like a dream.
But as far as your concerned, as long as you react to conditions, as long as you react to person, place or thing, then you believe you exist.
Nate (SC): Okay, I was going to ask this question later but I think it will go along with what we’re saying. I think I got a trillionth of a second flash that I’m not the body, okay, whatever it is. If I’m consciousness how does one know when one is going to die? For some it take an hour, some have days and some have ten years and it’s set. A human being can live so long and not live so long.
R: But if you had a glimpse of consciousness that question would not enter your mind because there would be no one left to ask and there’d be no one left to go through those experiences. As long as you can ask the question, as long as you’re concerned with who lives how long, it’s not consciousness you’re speaking from. (SC: Okay, consciousness is separate from the body right?) Consciousness is not separate from the body, consciousness is and you’re not! (SC: Alright, right. But how does one know when consciousness leaves the body?) There is no one left to know? And consciousness doesn’t leave the body because it never entered the body. (SC: So when is the body dropped, if I can use those terms. One day, two weeks, ten years, a hundred years, sixty years…) You’re speaking from different levels. As long as you think about bodies dropping then bodies will drop forever. They’ll never stop. You’ll take on one body after the other and it will drop. When you awaken, when you become liberated there will be no one to ask those questions and you will not be interested in those things. Because they will not exist for you. They wouldn’t even enter your mind.
Nate (SC): Right so as far as that is concerned there is no difference between that tree out there and me?
R: As far as that’s concerned that’s true because there is only consciousness. (SC: Now that’s what I meant.) But you’re not seeing it from your point of view where you are realized. You are seeing it from an intellectual level and that’s not worth a hell of beans because it doesn’t do you any good. (SC: So I suppose the next question is how is one to see it? I know it’s been asked a hundred times but I’ll ask it again.) You see it by asking, “To whom everything comes to.” (SC: I know I’ve asked that…) “To whom do the trees come? To whom do the problems come? To whom does sickness come? To whom do everything in this universe come to?”
Nate (SC): If I created my own sickness, then I can get rid of it?
R: You didn’t create your own sickness because sickness doesn’t exist for you to create. (SC: Are you talking about consciousness or you the body?) I’m talking about you as yourself. You are your pure Self and there is no sickness, there is no body, there is no one that is born, there is no one that dies, there is no one that goes through experiences. But as long as you believe you do then you have to work on yourself until the day comes when all of these things begin to drop away. (SC: Then I’m confused between the self with the little “s” and the Self with the big “S.” When you’re talking, I don’t know whether you’re talking about consciousness or the body? And that’s why I’m confused now.) First I talk about the body I talk about where you’re coming from. I talk about what you see and then I say to you, “All this is false imagination. It is all false imagination. Only reality exists. Only pure awareness exists.”
Nate (SC): What is pure awareness or reality?
R: Pure awareness is something that you’re not right now. Pure awareness is silence. Pure awareness is where there is no question, there is no answer, there is no body, there is no one interested about knowing anything. (SC: Then where does sickness come from?) Your imagination. (SC: My imagination, then I can cure with my imagination?) If you want to use your imagination to cure sickness you will, but then other sickness will come, death will come, everything will come and you’ll spend your life curing yourself. Rather than doing that why don’t you find out who you really are and understand your divine nature.
When you understand your divine nature there is no room for sickness, there is no room for anything. There is no room for health. (SC: I understand it intellectually but the connection isn’t there.) Well what do you want me to do. (SC: Connect me of course.) (laughs) As far as I know you are already connected. (SC: But I don’t know it?) So what can I do? You’ve got to do it yourself.
Nate (SC): I’ve been attempting as best as I know how. I’ve got your tapes I listen to them everyday I ask, “To whom do these problems come to?” And my feet still hurt. (laughs) R: Of course your feet still hurt but your head doesn’t hurt. Your body doesn’t hurt only your feet hurt. Think of everything else that hurts, therefore you are a step ahead of the game. You’re here, you’re able to listen to these things even though you’re not really practicing too much. You’re still able to hear these things and you’re better off than you would be if you were somewhere else. Therefore try to still your mind, try to quiet yourself. (SC: So I’m listening to you from my head instead of my heart? Or it doesn’t make any difference?) Whatever you say, however you feel. Whatever you think. But the day will come when you will awaken to the fact that you are not the doer, you are not the body, you are not the mind. Until that day comes you do the best you can with what you’ve got. But I say to you again, the more you quiet your mind the greater experience you’ll have. As you’re beginning to stop identifying with the world so much and stop seeing things and reacting to them. You are going to find that you become happier and happier. That joy wells up in your heart. You become peaceful and everything will be alright. Then it wouldn’t even matter what’s going on in your body if you had sickness or whatever is going on. You will not see it that way.
I admit it’s sort of a hard thing to comprehend. When a person like Rama Krishna or Ramana Maharshi or others were dying a terrible death of cancer themselves, the question is, “Who sees that? Who feels that?” Certainly the Sages did not feel that, but you did.
You feel it for them. That is your story. That is how you see things. But I say to you that no one died of cancer. No one died for no one ever existed. To die you have to exist. To become sick you have to be well. To go up you have to go down. To go forward you have to go backward.
Now ask yourself, “Now what have I got to do with all of those things?” You are free, you are Sat-Chit-Ananda, you are Parabrahman. If you can only learn to keep your mind on the source. Never mind what the world shows you. Never mind what the world gives you. Never mind what is going on in your affairs or in the world. Identify with the source. And how do you identify with the source? By abiding in the I. The I is really the source. As you abide in the I and the I goes further and further and deeper within yourself, it turns into the source. Which you have always been and which you are now.
So right now you’re like the sun that’s covered with clouds. You look at the clouds and you don’t see the sun. But you know you’re the sun. And you try to tell everybody that you’re the sun, but everybody looks up and sees the clouds. So you’re saying that you are reality, but the clouds are your body, your mind and your affairs. All you can identify with right now even though you say you are reality, is your body, your mind and your affairs. And that’s like identifying with the clouds. The truth is the sun is above the clouds.
It always shines. There never is a time when it does not shine. But you are seeing only the clouds, so who’s fault is that? What can you do?
So you run to gurus, you run to teachers, you run to India, you run to Hawaii, you run all over looking for answers. Whereas the real answer is within yourself. The time has to come when you stop running, you stop searching, you stop reading, you stop wanting, you simply look at yourself as the source. When you look at yourself as the source, the light begins to shine brighter and brighter and soon you’re cooked and you’re out of this world. Even though you’re in a body.
Therefore do not judge by appearances. Do not look at facts. Facts are subject to change. Anything that does not last forever cannot be the truth. So if you think you’ve got problems it’s only because you’re not seeing yourself from the right viewpoint. You’re identifying with the problems. You’re identifying with the world, with your body. But yet if you see it in the right perspective you will understand that it has taken you many many incarnations, so-to-speak, to even be where you are right now. This is why we must always be thankful.
If I right now were wasting away or I appear to be wasting away as a body, from leprosy, cancer and every other horrible disease known to man, I would be thankful. That this is the last of it and I’ll be free.
When you have a thankful attitude it’s like identifying with God, with the Self. But when you complain and you see things wrong with yourself and the world, what you’re really saying karmically is I want more of that. The law of karma only knows what you feel in your mind and if you feel something is wrong the law of karma doesn’t care why you feel something is wrong, but as long as you feel something is wrong it’ll get worse.
But when you look at the situation from a different viewpoint and you see it as something that is subject to change, no material thing lasts forever. Therefore sickness, lack, limitation and the rest of these so-called negatives are not reality so they do not last forever. They must change.
When will they change? When you take your mind off them and identify with the source.
How do you identify with the source? You ask, “To whom do these things come?
They come to me I feel them. Who am I? Where did the I come from?” And you follow the I thread. You trace the I to the source and you can say it’s located on the right side of your chest. As I said before, once before, twice before, a hundred times before, you can see the source on the right side of your chest as your favorite deity, or you can see it as a sphere of light like the sun, only a million times brighter. And you see your I dissolving in the source. Then the I becomes I am and you have now become the Self.
You haven’t actually become the Self you’ve always been the Self. You have rather awakened to the fact that you are the Self and all of the nonsense about sickness or health or money or poverty or happiness or misery are no longer a part of your life. You’re just free of the whole thing.
The choice is always yours. I can lead you to the vein of gold but you better do your own mining. I can keep telling you that you are absolute reality, that you are ultimate oneness, that you are nirvana, emptiness. Your true nature is pure awareness. Parabrahman. And this alone should lift you up and make you understand that you are not the other things. But you have to keep up realizing that you are that.
When you leave here today and you walk out the door, what happens to you?
Most of you begin to identify with what you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you taste, what you touch. That’s the mistake you’re making. You begin to act like the doer.
You have to totally surrender to the Self. Your whole life, your happiness, your sadness, your health, your sickness, your lack, your abundance, they’re all two sides of the same coin. Everything has to be surrendered.
Think how joyful you will be when you mentally surrender everything to the source. All the responsibility is off your shoulder. You no longer have to wonder about what you should eat, what you should wear, whether you should take vitamins or whether you should go and see a movie, whether you should go find a healer, whether you should go to India or find a spiritual teacher. Those questions will no longer come into your mind when you totally surrender, totally, completely, absolutely. You will be empty, free. And then you will understand. There are two ways you can work with. You either practice atma-vichara, self-inquiry or you totally surrender to God which is surrendering to your Self. You have the free will to do that.
Remember when we talk about freewill, freewill is only for the ego. Does God need freewill? What you call God is all pervading, omnipresent. If something is all pervading there is no room for anything else. So how can there be God or the Self and your problems? That’s virtually impossible. Don’t you see there is no room for your problems.
But somehow you’ve been mesmerized. The illusion is you think and things happen. Who told you you have to think? The illusion is, the belief that if I don’t think my world will fall apart. I’ve got to think about my business. I’ve got to think about my health.
I’ve got to think about the world. I’ve got to think about karma or predestination or freewill. Who said you do?
The world has gone on before you came into existence in your present body. It didn’t need you at all. And it will go on after you appear to leave. Therefore what have you got to think about? Why do think I have to think or I have to do this? Or if I don’t do that somebody will take advantage of me. If I do not retaliate people will laugh at me.
That’s thinking and that’s called false thinking.
True surrender is when you allow the world to do whatever it does but you’re never involved in it again. Mentally that is. You will go to your work. If you’re supposed to get married you’ll get married. If you’re supposed to get divorced you’ll get divorced. If you’re supposed to have children you’ll have children. If you’re supposed to live in a nice house you’ll live in a nice house. If you’re supposed to live in a shack you’ll live in a shack.
Everything will take care of itself without you thinking.
Stop thinking that you matter so much that you’re so important. You’re a grain of dust in the wind. Here today and gone tomorrow. Now that is the appearance. That’s how it seems. You have to see yourself for what you really are.
When things happen you always have to ask, “To whom do they happen? Who is going through the experience?” If you do this enough I can assure you something will give. But what is enough?
I get calls from people that are here today, people that are not here today. They tell me they’ve been practicing for two whole days now and nothing has happened. They’ve been practicing for six months. The whole understanding is you give up looking for anything to happen. See that has to go. After all to whom is it to happen to? To your ego. To your small self. You are not that.
As you surrender everyday as you practice self-inquiry. The first signs you will see will be signs of peace and happiness. The things that used to annoy you will stop. The chip on your shoulder will fall away. You will no longer be annoyed by people. You will understand. As you continue to unfold you will begin to realize that you are all the people. There is no one separate from you.
As Emerson said, “I am my brother and my brother is me.”
And you will treat others the way you treat yourself. And as you keep unfolding you will see that there is only one Self. And what you do to others you’re doing to yourself. It all happens in due time. But if you’re still selfish and you still have a big ego everything is going to ruffle your feathers. When somebody bumps into you, you will think they did it on purpose and you will look for an argument. if someone looks at you the wrong way, you will imagine what they’re thinking and perhaps insult them. You will see things that do not exist but you will believe they do. The bigger your ego is, the more of that takes place in your life.
I therefore say to you, “It makes no difference what is going on in your life at the present time, drop it. Leave it alone. Live in the moment. Be spontaneous. Forget about yesterday. Forget about the way you were brought up, what happened to you, who hurt you. That’s the past. Surrender it totally, completely. Do not concern yourself with the future. For the substratum of all existence is divine harmony. There is nothing but good, happiness and love. That’s awaiting you. In order to experience it you have to see it.”
The question I ask you is, “What do you see right now?”
Do you see yourself as a miserable sickly person? As an old person? As a person with problems? Why do you see that? Because that’s how it appears? Doesn’t water appear in the mirage? But the water’s not real. Doesn’t the rope appear as a snake? The snake is not real. Doesn’t the sky appear as blue? And yet there is no sky and there is no blue. In the same way, whatever appears to be going on in your own life is only for a time. It appears to exist.
It’s like watching a movie. You identify with the movie, it has a beginning, a middle and an end and that’s it. But while the movie was going on you identified with it. You didn’t think of anything else. Now you are identifying with the movie called your life. You appear separate. You appear as if you’re involved in this and involved in that. But I say to you that you are already free. You are already bright and shining. You are already absolute reality. Pure awareness. That is your nature.
Why do you want to cause so many problems for yourself? By continuing to think and imagine that things have to be this way and things have to be that way. And you have preconceived ideas of the way that you’re supposed to live or the way you think you’re supposed to live.
So you set up goals and then you try to reach the goals. And as many of you know when you do reach the goals they are really never what you really expected. So you set up new goals. It never ends. And because you’re so involved in setting up goals the Lord of karma makes it easier for you. He let’s you continue in another body. You are therefore born into a family with goals and they’ve got goals for you. And the goals never stop, it’s unending. Until you’re ready to say, “Wait a minute! Who needs this? What is it going to lead to?” A semblance of wisdom begins to make you understand I have been searching for the wrong things. For everything in this world is subject to the law of change. Nothing is permanent including this world.
You begin to turn within. You begin to realize the happiness that dwells in your heart. You begin to talk less, to think less, to complain less, to criticize less. You begin to leave everyone alone. To leave the world alone. When you see a situation that is not pleasing to your mind you re-evaluate it and you understand where it’s coming from and what it is. You become peaceful, harmonious. It is only then that you can begin working on yourself really. And practicing vichara, inquiry.
But as long as you’re filled with hours and times and you’re always thinking about your body or your affairs, it’s best if you surrender these things. Give them all to God, give up everything. Get rid of your needs, your wants. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You are greater than you think. Do not think past your nose. The world will come, the world will go. But reality has always been where the world appears to be and you are that.
(tape break)
(Robert continues) …if you’ve got plenty of questions.
SD: Robert is surrendering to the guru the same as surrendering to God?
R: There is no difference. (SD: So could you give an…) Guru, God, Self are one.
SD: Can you give an example of surrendering to the guru. Say you were ill how would you surrender that to the guru?
R: You would merely say to yourself, “Guru take this from me. I give it to you, you know what to do with it. I surrender every iota of my being to you. I no longer care about it or will concern myself about it. It now all belongs to you. My feelings, my emotions, my body, what appears to be sickness, I hand it all over to you. Do with it as you will. I am free of it.” And that’s it. (SD: And what would you do as the guru do with it?) Never mind that.
(laughter) I chew it up and spit it out. (SD: Because you’re not affected by it right? Is that how that can be done?) There is no one to be affected. Nobody’s home. What you are really doing is giving it to the universe and since it doesn’t really exist, it doesn’t go anywhere. It becomes a non entity. It becomes God. It’s always been God but you’ve seen it differently.
Can you see now why Ramana Maharshi when he was dying said, “Who dies?
There is nowhere to go where can I possibly go. How can I be sick. How can I die?” And Rama Krishna said basically the same thing. Because to them what is called cancer is God.
I know it’s hard to see it like that. What you see as sickness as being a horrible manifestation, a Sage only sees God. They don’t see God as the sickness, there is no sickness to change into health. They only see the Self. The Self as the Self.
A mirror may reflect cancer but cancer does not affect the mirror whatsoever does it? In the mirror you may see somebody dying of cancer but nothing happens to the mirror. The Sage is like the mirror. Absolute reality. Therefore when you give the Sage or the guru your problems, you’re giving them to eternity and they’re all dissolved into the nothingness they came from.
ST: So we can also spellbind you? (R: Be my guest.)
SS: Are you then giving to yourself too when you do that? (R: Am I giving to myself?) When you give to the guru are you giving to yourself?
R: Exactly, the Self, Guru, God are one. You’re giving it to yourself because the Self is omnipresent. You’re therefore not doing anything to this body. This body doesn’t exist.
Everything is the Self. Whatever you see apart from that is an appearance. An illusion like the water in the mirage. Like a dream but it appears real.
Let’s imagine again that you’re having a dream and you’re wasting away from cancer. Or let’s say I’m in your dream and you see me dying from cancer and I’m wasting away to 60 pounds, 40 pounds, 20 pounds and you looked at me and say, “Robert look what’s happening to you. How can you allow this to happen to yourself? Why don’t you heal yourself?” And I laugh at you because I realize the dream. And I tell you, “Don’t you see this is a dream, this is not really happening?” But you say, “Yes it is, look at you you’re bleeding, there are sores all over you, you are nothing but a bone.” And I just keep laughing. That’s what you’re seeing because you’re identifying with the dream. And you’re saying, “No I’m not. See I can pinch you and you feel it don’t you? I say, “Yes, but it’s a dream pinch.” And then all of a sudden you wake up and you’re yourself. None of those things really happened.
So, this life is called the mortal dream. We appear real. The world appears real there are beautiful trees, mountains. There are horrible things going on, all kinds of things are happening in this world. But it’s a dream world. You are the dreamer, when you awaken you will be the Self, self-contained, absolute reality. That’s how I see you now. If you want to see something else that’s your business.
Nate (SC): What happens when you don’t identify with what you see?
R: If you don’t identify with what you see, you will not experience anything else but the Self. You will only experience absolute reality. (SC: Let’s say someone is sick and they don’t identify with that sickness? Does that mean the sickness will go away?) Again you’re missing the whole point. To whom does the sickness come to? The sickness is a complete illusion. Just like the person is an illusion. In the dream, the dream person was an illusion and the cancer was an illusion. (SC: But it’s still happening to that person even though it’s an illusion.) It appears to happen. Just like the water appears real in the mirage. It’s an appearance. But as long as you’re identifying with the world it’s real. To the extent that you believe that you are the body mind phenomena, to that extent everything is real for you. (SC: But how can you not identify with the body when the body is so obviously there?) By working on yourself and inquiring, “To whom does the body come?” And following it through. Or surrendering to God,all of your problems, all of your thoughts and all of our bodies. Taking the responsibility off your shoulders.
SB: Robert when we inquire and we ask finally, “Who am I?” And then it goes through the silent phase. Do we inquire silently, like non verbally, non mentally by going deeper into the silence…R: As long as thoughts come you have to continue inquiring. When the thoughts stop the Self within will pull the mind into the heart and you will awaken. (SB: So we don’t have to concentrate on that though?) No. (SB: Because before you were saying to imagine where the light is to the right side, but that’s still the ego imagining right?) Yes. The ego has to imagine that in order to destroy itself that is the beginning stages. Remember you use the mind to destroy the mind? (SB: So which one should we do if we’re…) You do whatever you have to do. (SB: If we inquire and go into the absolute silence we don’t have to worry about concentrating on anything?) No you don’t. Concentration automatically stops. because there has to be somebody left to concentrate. (SB: Concentration is of the ego then.) Yes. (SB: So even attention is of the ego?) Yes. (SB: It will all happen by itself?) All movement is of the mind, of the ego.
When movement stops then there is reality. Which ensues of it’s own accord.
SB: So the basis of movement is the word right, the sound current the sharp?
R: The sound current, that’s the movement. (SB: The first movement in creation?) Yes. (SB: So I followed the sound current for 12 years and I got a headache from so much concentration.) (students laugh) SJ: One headache in twelve years that’s pretty good. (laughter) SB: No it was a continuous 12 year headache. (laughter) R: Well now you know what to do. Take an aspirin. (laughter) SB: Flush it down the toilet and call the doctor. That’s what my doctor said, take two aspirin flush it down the toilet and call me in the morning.(laughter) So really Robert what you’re saying is there is only two things in creation like - no that’s not a good way to put it - there is motion and motionlessness. Motion is ego mind and motionless is everything?
R: When creation begins there is the sound current. But the sound current doesn’t really exist because it’s beyond the phenomena. Therefore the sound current, the silence that you’re trying to experience is part of your mind. But when you stop thinking then the true silence comes.
SB: But we were supposed to concentrate on the light and the sound and that was supposed to bring God into expression and it’s supposed to take us back. But then the ultimate thing is after a hundred years of doing that is seeing all the inner planes and concentrating on the sound current and becoming that and then it goes back to this point of where we are starting with right now. In other words we’re starting with the non-manifest.
R: We’re starting from the top. (SB: From the top instead of starting from the bottom and going through creation with the sounds and planes and lights and all that. ) Yes. (SB: So this is the absolute direct way.) If it’s right for you, practice it. (SB: Because that is always duality.
There is always me concentrating on the sound current.) Umm. (SB: So you’re beginning with duality and then eventually beyond the highest planes there is no more light and sound and then it’s a matter of absorption and here we are starting with the matter of absorption.) You are starting from the ultimate. I’m not against any path. All paths are good because they take you away from world thinking. But where you go is determined by your karma and by predestination. So you are here because you are supposed to be here. There are no mistakes, all is well.
(tape break)
Every once in a while your raw talent comes out. We’ve got a lot of poets here. A lot of good writers and what I’d like to do is share with you a writing that comes from Lee.
Lee is sitting over there asleep. (laughter) (SB: No he’s drunk.) (laughter) R: He wrote something very beautiful and I’d like to share it with you. We’ll have Dana if she will, read for us. (SD: Lee says that he would have preferred to remain anonymous.) (laughter) That’s what they all say.
Dana reads:
Beloved as you write this love poem to yourself fill the song and poet with your love till nothing else remains. A universe ecstatic.
Beloved I feel your love hugging friend I feel your lust offering a short skirt. I’ve seen your joy seeing my lady smile. I feel your awe knowing this.
Beloved I ask to feel your love, yet the love I feel for anyone or anything is you loving you. So fill me with love for all your creatures, for all your forms, your loving feel Beloved fill my eyes with the ecstasy of seeing you in all your forms.
Fill my ears with the ecstasy of hearing your song in all your voices.
Fill my heart with the ecstasy of loving you as all your creatures, fill me with the ecstasy of you being you.
Beloved I think of you and bubbles begin rising and tickling from my center, filling the universe.
Beloved I thought I was a flute being played by you but now I know I’m your breath vibrating as a body entombed.
Beloved hugging any of your forms my arms are filled with you and I know I am you hugging you.
Beloved every poem you write fills me with greater joy. Such grace, such ecstasy.
Beloved now I see the cosmic joke. Thinking I lacked always withheld.
Knowing I am everything you give me more and more, upon gift upon gift.
If I weren’t infinite I’d burst.
Beloved you give me the task of loving my beloved and reward me with her joy when she meets your love, such grace.
Beloved you must know when I win, how else can I explain the path without pain? You lure me on with joy after joy and light upon light, lest I search with fear. Seeing the progression I trust. Drop all resistance and kneel to the ecstasy.
Beloved it can’t be me I’m no bhakti my love calls to you. If the words flow to this Jnani learning labels proving you.
Beloved your timing your networking push coincidence beyond credibility you’re such a show off.
Beloved now I see the cosmic joke, thinking I was separate I was left alone.
Knowing I am one you fill my life with others, full of love and light, If I were infinite I’d burst.
Beloved you’ve appointed me your energy junkie. Sending me from place, to high place letting me be the one for whom your experience, your light and vibration, such a gift.
Beloved now I see the cosmic joke. Thinking I was in time things took forever.
Knowing I’m eternal everything happens now, joy upon joy, if I weren’t infinite I’d burst.
Beloved now I see the cosmic joke thinking I was in space all this removed from me.
When I’m infinite you put everyone here, lovers and beloveds, if I weren’t infinite I’d burst.
Beloved will you speak to me direct me, use me, let me be your tool or shall I be consumed by this ever increasing fire of bliss and ecstasy. Ecstasy until there is only you.
Beloved I know you’re having a blast experiencing all this joy through me, I am.
Beloved When I think thy will be done I giggle at my breath.
Beloved every face reflecting your light in every face in the thousand faceted jewel.
Beloved when I finally unite with you it won’t be through works, not through meditation not through your fire. I shall simply burst with joy.
Beloved scan the monkeys in their trees that I might hear in the ensuing silence, your song.
Beloved you must be testing me, trying to find out how much joy I’ll permit before I panic or shut down or block, well I am only beginning to let.
Beloved the more I let the more I get.
R: And that was written to the divine mother.
SL: Well Robert I have a question. (R: Okay.) With all of this joy that we feel, I think there is some kind of threat that comes from this teaching that what goes up goes down. I feel the same way he does. Everything is just so wonderful, I mean… (R: It is wonderful.) Yes but what is this thing that, what goes up has to come down?
R: This is the way of the world. When you only identify with the world everything that goes up, comes down. But if you identify with the Self, that is permanent and that is always and that is true love. The world is miserable by itself. But the world as God is beautiful. (SL: But as long as the focus is on the Self then everything is alright?) Of course. How could it be any different?
Any more questions or statements? Ed do you have any announcements?
SE: Yes. Satsang begins at 1:30 now, not at 2 o clock. We chant for the first half hour and if you don’t want to participate that’s fine if you just want to sit and wait for 2 o clock to come, but if you do come in please don’t talk because it’s very difficult to get the chanting to go. It takes 15 - 20
minutes for people to get into the chanting. Chanting is a very high spiritual practice and we’d like to see if it works out to do chanting successfully. Arak is here today and he may come in the future and we can’t always depend on him but when he’s here it’s special.
R: We have prashad thanks to Ruth. Lee did you want to say something?
SP: Yeah I have a picture of Ramana Maharshi for those who want it.
R: Oh great. We have prashad. Ruth brought us a lot of beautiful rolls today. So why don’t you bring them over here and I’ll hand them out.
SL: Also if anyone who didn’t see the pictures of Robert last Sunday they are over by the donation box for anyone who wants to sign with a red pen on the back to get a copy.
(tape ends)
Absätze ohne Sprecherpräfix gehören dem zuletzt genannten Sprecher — so steht es im Buch, wo der Präfix nur den Anfang einer Rede markiert. Die Zuordnung ist eine Folgerung dieser Ausgabe. Namen in Klammern sind aus dem Text erschlossen: sicher belegt sind SM = Mary, SF = Fred, SJ = Jay, SC = Nate, wahrscheinlich SG = Glen, SR = Jorge. Alle anderen Kürzel bleiben stehen, weil der Beleg nicht trägt.