– Transcript 70
R: Good afternoon. Happy fathers day.
SH: Thanks dad.(laughs)
R: Thank you. I think it’s awfully funny. I was talking to Tom driving up here.
After last mothers day we had a little discussion, what comes first in your life. So this time I received a few calls from people apologizing for not being able to come because of papas day. Never feel as if you’re obligated to come here. You are a free soul. Your heart will always tell you what to do. I do not give you karmic debits for not showing up. Go where you like. Do what you want. Be happy.
I think we’ll talk a little bit about Jnana, siddhis and spiritual healing. Many people ask me, “Robert, how come Jnanis never get involved in spiritual healing, nor cause miracles to occur? Why don’t they use their powers, like Sai Baba, to produce verbuti, necklaces, rings? Why don’t they heal people like Jesus did?”
Now that’s a pretty intelligent question. First of all you have to remember what a true Jnani is. The word Jnana and Jnani have been used very loosely in this age. A person who practices bhakti is a bhakta, devotion and devotee. So it’s easy to say, “I am a bhakta,”
no matter what level of consciousness you’re on. But when you come to Jnana, it’s completely different. You can’t say I am a Jnani if you’re practicing Jnana. A Jnani is a sacred word. It implies that you have transcended the universe, that you are no longer your body or mind phenomena. You are totally liberated. And of course if you were, you would not say that I am a Jnani, for there would be no one left to say that. You would remain silent.
When we speak of such things as spiritual healing, and we try to compare Jnanis to people like Sai Baba, Jesus and others, where we’d be better off if we would not compare at all. Every teacher has their place, and every teacher did what they were supposed to do. Those of us who are aspiring Jnanis should not even think of those things. We should not have concepts or preconceived ideas of what somebody is supposed to be or not to be. We should rather practice self-inquiry or becoming the witness, spend our time doing that rather than comparing teachers and trying to understand why a Jnani acts the way he or she does.
The answer of course is very simple. There is no one home. No one is left to perform miracles. When you perform miracles, it is an emanation of the mind. Miracles are in the mind. There has to be a subject and an object. There has to be a doer and something to be done. Immediately you can see it has nothing to do with Jnana. A Jnani is totally free of those things. Yet it is true, when devotees think of the form of the Jnani grace begins to flow. The grace is already flowing, but the sincerity of the bhakta, the strong desire for devotion, love and freedom, pick up the Jnanis grace and he also becomes free.
This is why it is written in the ancient scriptures, in the Upanishads, in the Vedas, that the words and the silence of a Jnani is more powerful than what you consider God to be. For God is unmanifest grace. Shiva, the Self, is unmanifest grace. But the Jnani is a channel through which the grace flows. And again those devotees who put realization in their lives first, they want it more than anything else in this world. They want it so badly, they don’t want it. They want it as bad as wanting food or water. Then they become silent and the grace begins to flow by itself. Here’s a story that explains what I’m talking about.
There was once a sadhu who was totally destitute, very, very poor. And on top of that he had cancer and was wasting away from cancer. For years he had prayed to God, “Oh God, if it is my karma to have these things going wrong in my life, please give me the strength to be able to bear it. I don’t care if you remove them from my life, but just give me the strength to be able to bear it.” This is sincere prayer. This is how you should pray. Not to pray for something to be taken out of your life, not to pray for enlightenment, not to pray for things, but to pray to be able to have the courage and the strength to go through whatever situation you’re going through.
Anyway, after doing this for many years, God finally heard his prayer. One night he had a vision. God came to him and said, “You have been very sincere. You’re a true bhakta, and I will abide in your request. I will send someone to see you. Do whatever he tells you to do and you will be free.” The sadhu opened his eyes, he couldn’t believe it.
And the next morning he waited for someone to show up. Finally at about 9 a.m. there was a knock on the door. He opened the door and there was a great Sage standing there.
He was able to feel that this was a real high evolved Sage. And the Sage looked at him and he said, “I have two bananas here. One banana is to take away your poverty, and the other one is to heal your cancer. But you must follow these instructions. Eat the first banana at 11
o’clock, and eat the second banana at 11 p.m. And he left.
The sadhu was so happy, so overjoyed. He couldn’t wait for 11 o’clock to come. At exactly 11 o’clock he ate the first banana, and he sat down in meditation. 12 o’clock came, 1
o’clock, 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock, nothing happened. He was getting disappointed, and he turned on the radio. He had a little radio. The day before he had bought a lottery ticket and they announced the winning number, and it was his. He had won 50 million dollars.
He was overjoyed. Now he couldn’t wait for 11 o’clock to come, 11 p.m.
And about 10 o’clock there was a knock on the door. He opened the door and there stood a disheveled old man, totally emaciated. He appeared as if he had not eaten for about a month. He was in rags about to drop dead. He held out his hand, “Food please, food,” and the sadhu didn’t know what to do. His only possession of food was the banana.
He was thinking to himself, “What should I do?” I am supposed to eat this banana at 11
o’clock, but here is another human being who is dying from want of food. Surely God would think that he comes first. So he gave him the banana. And the old man left.
Now the moral of the story is simply this. If you find a Sage that your heart tells you is an enlightened being, you must listen very carefully to his eloquence and silence.
You must listen to what he or she has to say in the silence. Even when the Sage speaks, it comes from the silence. The words are really silence.
A true Jnani has no time to go around the country healing people. He spends his time in the bliss of eternity, all pervading, omnipresent. This means that a person in Japan, who tunes in to the vibration of the Sage, can become healed of a physical problem, and yet the Sage has absolutely nothing to do with it. If he comes to the Sage and thanks him and says, “You healed me Master,” the Sage will deny it, for he mentally, humanly, had absolutely nothing to do with it, since he has no mind and no body. But it is the grace that flows through him that can be picked up anywhere in the universe.
Now let’s talk about you. Some of you sitting here today believe you have problems, mental, physical, or otherwise. This is the first mistake you’re making. For there exists only one power. You can call that God. There are not two powers, God and something else. There is only the one. Your job is to identify with the one. Your job is to understand that there is no room for anything else. If God be all pervading, omnipresent, where would there be room for mental anguish, or sickness, or lack, or limitation, or anything else. The trees do not want for leaves. The flowers do not fail to bloom.
Look at yourself and see your desires, what you’re really looking for. It is only when you take your mind off your humanhood, that something may happen to heal you of a condition that you think needs healing. It’s as you begin to understand, “My real nature is absolute reality. I am that. I am pure awareness. Even though I appear to have a body and I appear to think, I know that this is like a mirage, like hypnosis, and the body does not exist.” So the abnormality, the sickness, does not exist. The lack does not exist. The appearance of the world does not exist, and you identify in a simple way with your real Self.
Of course you do that by inquiring, “Who am I? What is the source of the I?” You forget about time and space, for the past and the future are in the now. You do not make it complicated, wordy, intellectual. You become simplicity itself. You simply remember everyday that, “I am not the body-mind phenomena. I have nothing to do with the world. I is really consciousness, emptiness, nirvana, Sat-Chit-Ananda. I is really Parabrahman. I am that.”
Just to remember, not to forget, to remember, is the important point. You must remind yourself, as soon as you open your eyes in the morning. Do not think about the world’s affairs. The world will take care of itself. The world is unfolding as it should. Do not think about your affairs. As far as you know you are under the law of karma, and the lord of karma, Ishvara, will take care of everything.
So don’t even think about those things. Do not think in other words of the world, as manifestations and do not think about the body and it’s problems, but rather inquire, “To whom does this body come? To whom does the mind come that keeps thinking and thinking and thinking? Who possesses it? I do? But my real I is absolute reality. Therefore the I that appears to have a body and it’s problems, the I that appears to perceive the world and the universe, must be a false I. Yet where did it originate? What gave it birth?”
Then you can think of the power source, the spiritual heart on the right side of your chest. If you desire, you may see a picture of your deity that you respect, in the center of the ball of light on the right side of your chest, whether it’s the Buddha, or Moses, or Jesus or whomever. And you can watch the I as it comes out of that center and goes up to your brain. And then all of a sudden you identify with a body and the world comes into being. And the mind appears to sustain it all.
That’s when you catch yourself. You reverse the process. You watch the I returning from the brain. You abide in the I. You hold onto the I. You follow the I-thread. You trace the I as it returns to the spiritual heart center and disappears. Then you keep silent. You just keep totally silent. If thoughts do appear you inquire, “To whom do they come?” and you keep silent again. As you practice this every day, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, something will give. Something has to give, and you will become free. Free in the silence.
(silence)
Shanti, shanti, shanti, om, peace, peace.
Any questions you would like to ask?
SB: Robert before your enlightenment, what disposition were you in. Were you established spontaneously in silence without any teachings?
R: Since I was born, the appearance of birth I always felt different. I always felt that I did not belong in my body. I never realized what was happening but I felt out of place. As if I was carrying a load and I had sporadic realizations where I lost consciousness. SL: Robert those of us who are allegedly living a creative life and who have been trained and praised for good imaginations, find it very difficult to stop images and flights of fantasy and romantic notions about this teaching from flooding the mind?
R: Do not try to stop anything. Simply inquire, “To whom does this come?” Always go back to the inquiry. (SL: Continuous.) Continuous. “Who thinks these thoughts? What is their source? To whom do all these thoughts come?” Never let a day go by when you do not do that and as you persevere, something will begin to give, ultimately. (SL: It is a strange feeling or something that happens?) To whom is it strange? (SL: Yeah.) All these things you have to inquire. “Who has the strange feelings? Who feels this way? Who feels that way? To whom does this come?” And as you do the thoughts will come less and less. And the space between the thoughts will expand greater and greater everyday.
SL: And then those of us with a practical nature, do also wonder, what is the actuarial percent of having this happen? I just read somewhere that there is just so few people who make this?
R: Never mind what you read. There are all kinds of stories about all kinds of things. Keep your mind on yourself. Abide in the I. You are unique in your own individual way. Do not compare with anyone, be yourself. You can read ten different books and they will give you ten different ways of doing things. Dive within yourself, go deeper and deeper everyday and I can assure you something will give and you will eventually become free.
SB: Robert is there a stage I’ve read about bhaga-samadhi, is there a stage that your consciousness is so identified with itself that even the objects of the world are out shined and they disappear in consciousness. That is called bhaga-samadhi.
R: Yes. When the objects of the world totally disappear, then you will be left without a body. There will no longer be a need for your body. (SL: It’s called translation.) Then you will be dead. (SB: But even with the eyes open, the objects supposedly … being so identified with consciousness the objects appear only… I mean there’s no objects they are outshined and there only is consciousness.) What is consciousness? If there is only consciousness what is it? Who is to experience it? As long as you still have a body as it appears you will always observe the trees, the people, the flowers, the world. But you will not be attached or fooled by those things. (SB: Isn’t there a point though if you’re so absorbed in reality that the physics of everything changes and you’re out shining images.) You are aware, when you take the case of the chalkboard. That you are like the chalkboard and the images are superimposed on the chalkboard. And then they are erased and new images are drawn. Then they are erased and new images are drawn… (SB: Isn’t it a radiance, a certain kind of a light, radiance?) You go beyond the light and the radiance. The radiance and the light is of the mind.
SB: That’s like the outshining like if you’re so absorbed in the radiance that even the objects just absorb into the radiance and they are out shined in the radiance of that consciousness?
R: That’s all of the mind. (SB: Is that right?) That’s all of the mind. Pure consciousness can never be comprehended by the finite mind. There are no words to describe it.
There is nothing you can do or say… (SB: So it’s not even light?) It’s beyond light. (SB: So in that state if your eyes are open the objects still appear?) The objects appear as appearances, but they still appear or you would leave your body. (SB: Is there a state where the objects dissolve in light with your eyes open?) When you leave your body. But as long as you appear to be carrying a body or it appears to be doing that you’ll see objects. But you will know that they are not objects. They are like water in the mirage, they appear to be real but they are not. And you can’t be fooled by anything in this world. This is why a Jnani loses all concept of fear. There is nothing that can frighten him. There is nothing anybody can do to him or her. They’re free, totally free. But they see objects. (SB: But the funny thing about the image is everything that we’re sure of is real, is absolutely unreal.) Acquire that experience and see it for yourself.
Glen (SG): Has anybody who as heard your teaching become enlightened?
R: Can you say that again? (SG: Has anybody who has heard you or followed you become enlightened, that you know of?) Yes.
SE: Last week I asked Robert, a tree, how the hell can you say that that’s unreal, that it’s an illusion and Robert said, “It’s like a dream, when you wake up what happens to the tree.” So this morning I was kind of agitated so I called Jean Dunn, up north in Packerville who was Nisargadatta´s student. I said, “Jean what do you mean that the world is unreal.” And she said, “Well it’s like a dream, when you wake up what happens to the dreamworld?” And I said, “I’ve heard that before.”
And I said, “What’s real then?” And she said, “The absolute is real.” And I said, “How do you know the absolute?” And she said, “Find the sense of being, the source of being inside of yourself, the Self and just dwell in it. And keep dwelling in it.” And I said, “I have been doing that.” And she said, “Well it worked for me.” (laughter) But it seems like the Jnanis get together and coordinate their stories. (laughter) R: Yeah. I told her he was going to call you in a couple of minutes. (laughter) (general talking and laughter)
SB: Maybe it’s so hard because it’s so extremely simple. Maybe the hardest thing in the world is to be the infinitely simplest…
SE: Would there be any advantage to having intensives like they have in Zen? Where for a week you do nothing but practice, “Who am I? or “I am?”
R: All these thing help but in the last analysis it’s between you and yourself. You and I know many people who have been to Zen monks, been Buddhists, been everything under the sun for many many years. And they still haven’t realized the Self. This is because they are usually following external procedures. Instead of introverting everything within the Self they are still reacting to outside conditions.
Taking for instance, that a lake, or a tree is so beautiful and you want to be like your tree or the lake. Where in reality the tree or the lake only exists because the mind exists. You’re giving form to everything in the universe. Therefore when you become introverted and your mind goes back within the heart, the beauty and the joy and the love that you felt toward the tree or the mountain or the lake becomes the love for the Self. You are that and you’re at peace. For you never have to go out again looking for beauty, looking for happiness, looking for joy. You have become a living embodiment of that yourself.
SY: Robert, I’m asking a very mundane question. I was reading here that you were 18
when you went to India? (R: Umm.) Right? (R: 17, 18, yeah.) Along the analogy that you were giving, everyone’s heard of sister Theresa helping the pariahs and the… (R: Mother Theresa.) What? (R: Mother Theresa.) What did I say? (SH: Sister.) SY: Oh I’m sorry I didn’t realize it. (R: That’s alright, Freudian slip.) Freudian slip, yes.
Everyone’s heard of Mother Theresa, if all of these poor indigenous pariahs of India came and she said, “Don’t bother me, I’m about my own business today, I’m perfecting my self-realization.” The question I’m asking is, how come some of the most selfish, egotistical, abominable, someone who’s been in Zen or whatever and they couldn’t give you a ride to get some food if your life depended on it. And they’re so busy doing their own thing. So I understand that you’re saying that you have to get in yourself, but there is a difference between… (R: Yes.) …going beyond the common austerity and helping people out and being so selfish you don’t give a darn about anybody.
R: Exactly I’ve explained this before. Most of the people you’re describing are under the erroneous conclusion that they have to only work on themselves and the rest of the world doesn’t exist for them. But what I say happens is this, as you work on yourself you become more compassionate and automatically you have service to humanity. You don’t really go out of the way, but the people who come into your aura, into your life, you’re always of service to them. You become more loving, more compassionate. But you also realize that you are the Self of all. Everybody, everything is an emanation of your own mind.
So when you find yourself and you became alive and awakened then you will include everything and everybody in this world. And you will be an asset to humanity.
When you sit in the silence and do nothing. For it encompasses everything and everyone.Whereas people like Mother Theresa are bhakta’s. They’re devotional people and it’s their karma to spend their life helping like she does. She couldn’t stop it if she wanted to. This is why she came to this earth. And yet we’re all different karmically speaking. We all came to this earth for a certain reason.
Mother Theresa can never sit in a class like this. She would be looking at sick people trying to help, going around patting everybody on their head, putting bandages on people, putting mercurcom or iodine on everybody. This is her karma and this is good.
There is nothing wrong with that at all. This is why it’s so important to understand never judge anyone. Compare yourself to no one and compare no one to no one. But ask for the truth within yourself. Pray to God to reveal the truth to you. Where you belong, what you are supposed to do and dive deeper and deeper into the Self. And if you’re supposed to help others in this world, to spend your life doing that, you will find a way. And it will happen all by itself.
So leave everybody alone, judge no one but continue to work on yourself until you become free. And then you will realize the truth about the whole thing.
SB: Robert if you remain without thoughts after inquiry will you automatically gravitate to the heart center on the right side of the chest and feel the Self there?
R: First you have to gravitate to the heart center before you remain without thoughts. If you do not gravitate there you will have thoughts because the I is in the brain.
And it gives you the idea that you are the body, you are the mind and you are the world.
Therefore the idea is to make the I go into the heart center. Then you will be without thoughts. (SB: And do you do have to…) Inquiry. (SB: Inquiry, and do you put your attention in the right side of the chest?) You can imagine that the right side of the chest is like the sun.
The light of a million suns, with your favorite deity in the center. And you can also imagine that the I is going from the brain to the right side of your chest into the mouth of the deity until it’s dissolved and assimilated and then keep silent. And every time new thoughts come inquire, “To whom do they come?”
(Attempts to put tape on.)
R: I’ll get it right one of these days. (laughter) (SM: Yeah.) (laughs) R: We have some announcements, I think?
Glen (SG): Is Dana still in hospital? (R: No she came back yesterday.) SE: We have some Jnana orange t-shirts for those who are interested in procuring them. I was thinking of giving them out and there are different ways than that but it would only create trouble. So we decided to sell them for a cost. It will be about six dollars each if you’re interested.
Oh yes also I thought it would be a good idea that we start the community meetings that we had had a couple of times when problems arose and they were a nice thing. Maybe we could start one once a month after satsang just to see, you know - things that are going on in our lives, what’s going on with practice, what’s going on in the sangha, beginning maybe next week. People that interested after satsang?
Mary (SM): Last week we had some of the tapes and we sold them all out - I also want to say we have finished our latest transcription and it truly is one of the most beautiful there has ever been. I say that about every one, but it’s true. (laughter) In it Robert said, “Everything is in this one.”
And it’s so I have four of them, if I can get four people to. It really is beautiful. It really is. (laughter) I’ve read it ten times already and I can’t got enough of it.
SL: Robert can we also copy of “What is a Jnani?”
R: Where is that? Oh that, sure of course. (SL: Do you just have one copy for me?) Mary can make some copies and give it… ( SB: Who wrote that Robert? ) I wrote it.
Mary (SM): I made a couple of copies I didn’t ask if that’s all right. (R: Oh sure.) SB: Maybe it should be in the transcript, copied right into it.
(general talk)
Mary (SM): Robert will like me to set it out on the table. The poem that Lee wrote, I think Dana read it once, Jean read it once. It’s a beautiful, beautiful poem.
(general talk between students)
R: We have some prashad. Feel free to help yourself or whatever.
(during prashad Robert plays a song on tape)
(After song is played)
R: We usually do not sell things here but you’ve all met David and he’s a struggling musician and he can use the money.
SB: Robert can we be making progress even though we don’t feel we are? (R: Yes.) SE: Except in your case Bob. (students laugh)
SH: You’re the one exception. You just have to give up that’s all.
(more general talk, students having fun)
R: Remember to love yourself, to bow to yourself, to pray to yourself, to worship yourself because God dwells in you as you, peace, I love you.
Happy mothers, fathers day, sons day…
(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.