– Transcript 75
R: Om, shanti, shanti, shanti, om, peace.
Welcome this Thanksgiving eve, New Years eve, July the 4th, Columbus Day, Christmas, it’s all the same. The question is, “Who are you?” Do you identify with a holiday or with the Self. What is most important to you, to watch somebody shooting fire-works or to discover your true nature? You have to answer that question yourself. Whatever you give importance to you ultimately become. Whatever becomes first in your life, that’s where your heart is, and that’s what happens to you, sooner or later.
I’m not saying this because I want everybody to come to satsang. I’m saying this because it’s the truth. What you really feel deep in the recesses of your heart is what you really are. If you give 50% to your spiritual work you will get 50% back. If you give 70%
you will get 70% back. If you give 100% you will get 100% back. You can only get out of a satsang like this what you put into it. You’ve got to give of your heart, your feelings, your emotions. You’ve got to give your Self, with a capital “S,” to the universe.
The universe, the world, God, everything, is what you believe it is. The only reality there is for you, is the reality of your belief system. If you believe things are tough, things are hard to come by, spiritual unfoldment is only for the few, that’s how it is for you. You are the controller. You are the one who makes the decisions. Your life follows your mind. Yet when you begin to realize that your mind does not really exist, then the life you’ve been following becomes invalid. It just dissipates, as if you awoke from a dream.
But as long as you’re following the world, then your mind determines what happens to you. Your mind is not your friend. Your mind is an accumulation of past karma, past thoughts, and future worries. Therefore you should not rely on your mind. You should not even rely on your instincts. You should not even rely on your intuition. You should rely on no thing.
When your intuition, when your mind, when your instincts are transcended, then consciousness appears by itself. This is because consciousness has always been your real nature, and all you have to do is focus your attention on consciousness. You do this, of course, by asking, “Who am I?”
The sun shines. When the sun seems to disappear at night, the moon takes it’s place, and it appears to shine also. But the light is only an appearance in the moon. The reality is it’s using the sun’s light to shine. It’s a reflection of the sun. In the same instance, the light that you see here, that causes you to see images, subjects, mountains, trees, stars, the universe, is simply a reflection of the Self. It is the light of the Self. You’re making a wrong identification, for you believe it is the light that shines by itself. In other words, you believe the world to be real.
But just like the moon would have no image if it wasn’t reflecting the sun, so also you have an image as a body, as a mind, because you are reflecting the Self, the light of the Self. And instead of identifying with your source, you are identifying with the self with a small “s”. You are identifying with your body-self. Wrong identification. To get back to your Self, your real Self, you simply have to identify with consciousness, and when you do the world will disappear. Again, you do this by inquiring, “Who am I?”
One of the most recent questions that was asked of me, and I get this question again and again, is this. You say Robert, that the body will take care of itself. You do not have to think about your affairs, or about the world. Your job is to identify with the Self.
But yet, when I read the books of Sages and Jnanis, they’re usually hermits. They live in ashrams or in caves. So do you mean that self-realization will cause me to leave my family, to leave my work, not to be interested in anything, to become a hermit?” And that’s a very paradoxical and perplexing question.
The reason the books are written by people like that, is because it was their karma, as far as their body is concerned, to become a recluse, a hermit, to shun the world. That’s why they had the time to write the books. Yet there are self-realized people who are living in the world, have positions in the world, have families, and do worldly things. They are also self-realized. You do not hear too much about them because they have nothing to say.
You see, your body is an image. It is not real. It appears to be real. Because you believe your body is real, the world becomes real to you also. And yet these things have absolutely nothing to do with you. You are apart from these things. Your real nature is nirvana, absolute reality. Everything else is superficial. You should not react to the world. I never said you should not be in the world. You can do whatever you wish. Whatever your karmic instincts tells you to do, your body will do it, for this is the reason you appear to take on a body. But you have nothing to do with those things. You are total freedom. You are not confined to a body, or to a world, or to a universe.
I know it appears strange, and you say, “How can I possibly be free, and all pervading, and omnipresent, when I feel my body as real?” You have to ask yourself, “Who said that?” The one who said that is the one I have to get rid of. And that is your personal I. It is the personal I that wants you to believe that you are a body and a mind, and that everything is real, and that you have to become spiritual, and lift yourself up.
Nothing can be further from the truth.
You are not the body. The body does not exist. The mind does not exist. It appears to exist, like the water in the mirage. The world appears to exist like the water in the mirage. Everything else you see with your eyes, and feel with your senses, appear to exist like the water in the mirage. Why does it exist like that? Because you think it does. Your thinking process causes you to believe all these things. Therefore everything has to be explained.
But in truth, in reality, none of these things exist at all. You are absolute freedom.
You are total bliss consciousness. That’s what you are, and there is no explanation. When you experience this for yourself, the question will never arise, “What is my body going to do with itself while I am self-realized?” Even though to others you may appear as having a body, you will know that there is no body. There is no personal I. There is no mind. You will be all pervading, and you will be at peace. Asking all these questions is like asking what came first, the tree or the seed, the chicken or the egg?
Do not try to analyze what I say to you. Do not even try to understand it. When I say to you, “No thing exists except consciousness, and you are that,” I know it appears to sound ludicrous, and that is only because you have not experienced that state. It is simply the fourth state of consciousness, after sleeping, dreaming and waking. In that state you are absolute freedom. Yet when you try to analyze it, when you try to understand it, when you try to compare it, you get nowhere, for it is beyond the finite.
The only way you can really understand what I am saying is in the silence, where there are no words. This is why I say to you, “When I appear to speak to you, I am really silent.” There are no words. The only one who can hear the words that I speak to you is your mind. And if you’re listening to me with your mind, you will attempt to analyze everything I say, and there will be total chaos and confusion.
The proper way to listen to me in satsang is through silence. You are not attempting to think what I’ve said. You’re not even attempting to hear what I’ve said. You do not analyze what I say. You do not ponder what I say. You’re simply there, in nothingness, hearing nothing, being nothing, responding to nothing. As soon as you start to think about it you spoil it, and you’re back to your body-mind. As soon as you want to argue with me, or debate with me, or bring up certain points to me, you are working out of your body-mind. There can be no conclusion.
This is why when some of you, sometimes, when you see me personally and ask me certain questions, I remain silent. For there are no explanations. Even if the explanation I give to you satisfies you for a while, after a couple of hours you will be right back where you started from. And then you will say, “Lets go hear that teacher.” You will say, “This teacher is coming to town. Lets go listen to her, or to him.” You’re working out of your body-mind. You believe some teacher has the answer. You’re looking for some profound statement of truth, where you will see lights and hear sounds, and it will put you into a state of samadhi. Forget it.
Anything that happens to you, you have earned. Therefore the wise student keeps silent. When I say, “Keep silent,” I don’t mean just not to talk, but causes the mind to be silent. For you can be silent and you can be cursing under your breath, as you know. And you can be saying statements like, “He’s crazy. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Your mind is working. Silence refers to the mind.
This is why self-inquiry has been given to you, for it is realized how difficult it is to make the mind quiescent. Therefore instead of making the mind silent, which is impossible to do for some people, you practice self-inquiry. When your mind tells you there’s something wrong, when your mind wants to argue with itself, you simply inquire, “To whom has this come? Who feels this way? I do. It is I that feels out of sorts. It is I that feels argumentative. It is I who wants to get even. It is I who has a chip on their shoulder. It is I who wants to put on an act.”
Once you realize it is I, you spend the rest of your life eliminating the I. It is this personal I that gives you all the trouble, that causes you to think, to argue, to discern, to be intellectual, to try and attempt to analyze everything you see. You’ve been doing this for years, most of you. Where has it gotten you? What has it done for you? All of your running around the world, going from teacher to teacher, from book to book, where has it really put you?
I know some of you will say, “Well I’m ahead of the game, because if I didn’t read the books, I wouldn’t be aware of this. If I didn’t go see many teachers, I wouldn’t know what they have to offer.” Well, let me assure you, it is your intellect that tells you this.
Every real Sage had their experiences prior to reading books and seeing other teachers. Reading books first will confound you. There is so much to read. There are so many concepts. There are so many teachings. You will become a very intelligent idiot. You will be able to memorize passages from books, and recite them frontwards and backwards.
You will show people how intelligent you are. You will think you’ve accomplished something. But the first negative condition that hits you, you will respond negatively, such as a death in the family, the loss of a job, loss of income, and so forth. You will respond to these things in a negative manner. This shows you you’ve gotten nowhere, with all of your reading, with all of your running around the world.
If you truly wish to experience a higher state of consciousness, you have to acquire spiritual discernment, which means you realize that the world emanates out of your own mind. Therefore, why should I respond to the world? It doesn’t mean you have to leave the world. It simply means that you are not attached to the world. You do not react to the world. You are in the world but not of the world. You are free, in your heart. You only see the heart. The heart is another name for consciousness, for “I am that I am.” I-am is the first name of God. God is consciousness. I-am is consciousness, and you are that.
This is why the first step in spiritual practice is to leave the world alone. Have no opinions for or against. Leave people alone. If someone is rubbing you the wrong way, this is all karmic. If you react to that position, to that person, you are simply setting more karma in motion, which you will have to experience again, and again, and again, until something happens within yourself, and you leave everything alone. Instead of reacting to the world and to people, you question yourself, “To whom has this happened? To me?
Who is me? Where did me come from? Who gave birth to me?”
I appears to have always been with you. Since you can first remember yourself, you referred to I. I need this, and I want this. I am happy. I am unhappy. I, I and I. You start to think, “If I were eliminated what would be left?” You don’t answer that question.
You do not say what you read in a book, Consciousness would be left, or absolute reality would be left. You have not had that experience, so how do you know it’s true?
That’s why self-inquiry is such a superior method. For you do not say, “I-am consciousness,” or “I-am God,” or “I-am absolute reality,” or “I-am nirvana,” for you begin to realize what you call I-am, your body, can never be any of those things. So rather than affirm those things, you ask, “Who am I?” What you’re really saying is, “What is the source of I?” and you never answer.
Even if something makes you feel you are all pervading, you are ultimate oneness, emptiness, you realize that can’t be I, because I is experiencing that. The experiencer has to go. The one who experiences samadhi, the one who experiences higher states of consciousness, has to go, has to be transcended, eliminated. Therefore, as you practice “Who am I?” whatever comes to you, you merely observe. You realize back in your heart, that the observer has to go. As long as there’s somebody there to experience anything, you have not arrived anywhere. So you continue to practice, “Who am I?” and you keep still. When thoughts come to you, you inquire, “To whom do they come? They come to me? Then who am I?”
Now again, the question that’s usually asked to me is, “What is happening to my affairs, and to my life, and to my body, while I am doing this?” What affairs? What body?
The wisdom will come to you, “As long as I believe I have a body, I have to question more intently, “Who am I?” The intent has to be there. The intent that I am not what I appear to be. You know that intellectually. Even though I appear to be the body, and I am wondering what is going to happen to my body as I practice “Who am I?” somewhere deep inside the recesses of my heart, I know that I will come to the conclusion one day that there is no body.
In the meanwhile, what appears to be your body will be under the guidance of the universe. That’s the phenomena. The same power, which is called Ishvara, who looks after the universe, and causes the grass to grow, the flowers to blossom, the sun to shine, the fruit to grow on fruit trees, the wheat and barley that grows in the ground, and you are supplied and maintained and sustained by these things, the same power that does all this will take care of you as you appear, as an illusion.
I know it’s paradoxical again, for you’re saying to yourself, “How can an illusion take care of me?” The illusion takes care of the illusion, so it appears. But I say to you, persist in inquiring, “To whom does this come?” Who believes the world is real, and who believes the world is an illusion? They’re both concepts. They’re both wrong. Reality has no belief system. Reality is not maintained and sustained by anything. Reality is I-am. It is beingness. Not being this or being that, but pure beingness. And as long as I don’t understand what that is, because I’ve not experienced it, I will continue to ask, “To whom has this come? To me? Then who am I? Where did the I come from?”
One of these days you will fall into the Self, and you will disappear. There will be no body, no image, no concept, no I, no mind, no universe, no God, yet you will appear to be all of those things. That’s the paradox. You will appear to people as an ordinary human being, but you will know that you are the screen upon which images are superimposed.
You are not the images which keep changing. You are forever, eternal, unborn. You are the one. You are total freedom. Your real image will shine forth, and the whole universe will emanate out of you. You will not have normal feelings, but for want of a better word, you will become bliss. You have always been bliss. You have simply awakened to reality.
Again, what are you doing with your life now? What do you believe? What do you do every day? Do you allow the pressures of the world to cave in on you? Leave the world alone. Do not attempt to figure it out. Do not attempt to argue about it, whether it’s real or not. You must find it out for yourself. In the process all will go well for you, no matter how it appears. Your job is to find out your true reality, to surrender to yourself, to surrender your ego, your mind, your body, the world, the universe, God. Surrender all of that to your Self. Let it all go into your spiritual heart, on the right side of your chest.
Above all do not worry about anything. You are well taken care of. The Self which you are, knows when the time is right for you to discover your reality. Have faith in yourself. Know it’s there inside of you, awaiting your surrender. No longer will you fight this world. No longer will you react or respond to this world. No longer will you be frightened by this world. Your wants will become simple.
SV: Robert, I have a question. There are certain Masters like Muktananda and guru Mai, who give shaktipat to people. Is that beneficial in any way at all?
R: If you wish to become a performer of siddhis, and develop magical powers, then it’s important to you. All of these things come out of the mind. There has to be someone to experience all of these things. Every power, every miracle that someone performs, is out of the mind. (SV: So if one is doing inquiry, it wouldn’t benefit them to partake of this?) If one is doing inquiry they want to become the Self. They want to awaken to their reality, and that’s the only goal they’ve got. Therefore they will bypass all these things. Powers, miracles, even if you’re able to bring somebody back from the dead, what good is it ultimately? It’s all in the world. It has to do with the world. It’s interesting that when you practice self-inquiry all of these siddhis will come to you, but you will bypass them. You will not be interested.
It’s like the example I give of the person who is invited to the king’s palace to share the kingdom, and they’re driving through the gates. The palace is on twenty-five acres. On the way they become fascinated with the flowers, and they forget about the king and the palace. And they learn how to grow the flowers, how to make them into beautiful flowers, and make them larger. They learn all about flowers. But then they remember the king in the palace, so they forget about the flowers and they keep driving. Then they see wonderful caves. They go on exploring the caves. They explore one cave after another, and they forget about the king in the palace. Years pass. They become fascinated over caves.
They know all about caves. They know all about flowers, and all about everything else they found on the way. If they went straight to the king they would have shared the whole
country, but they became fascinated in the objects of the king. They have not gone to the top.
So it is with someone who chases siddhis and powers. Where do these powers come from? What is the source of them? To whom do they come? Who needs them? You will understand that you are absolute reality, pure awareness. You are beyond all siddhis, beyond all powers, and the person who wants to experience all the siddhis has been eliminated, annihilated. You have become the Self. You are free and totally happy. So go for the gusto. Do not concern yourself with worldly powers. They come and go.
Another example of this is there were two brothers. And they told their father, one said, “I’m going out to become a worldly person, and make a lot of money, and own property. “And the other one said, “I’m going to pursue the spiritual life.” They left to go their own way and years passed. They returned home after twenty years. And the father asked them “What have you accomplished, my sons?” And the worldly son said. “I have amassed a fortune. I own castles and mansions and Rolls Royce’s. I’m married and have a family.”
So the father said, “Well done.”
And he asked the other son, “What have you accomplished?” And the other son said, “Come, I’ll show you.” He took him to the edge of the river, proceeded to recite incantations, and make all kinds of kriyas and mudras, and he walked across the river and he walked back. And he said, “See what I’ve accomplished?” The father said, “Follow me.” He took him to a certain place in the river where there was a ferry. He paid five cents, and went across and came back. And he said “See, I can do that too.” In other words, he’d accomplished nothing by being able to walk across the water. What good does that do? The only thing he’ll be able to do with that is to charge admission in the circus, and show people he can walk on the water. But what benefit is it?
So it is with people who chase after powers and siddhis. They accomplish nothing.
Many times they’re stuck in millions of reincarnations. They have to come back again and again until they find their way out again. So go to the top, and leave the world alone.
Glen (SG): Robert, You were saying that going to these teachers and reading these books is kind of a waste of time. Then what’s the value of coming here and reading the handouts?
R: No value. The only value you have in this is what you believe it to be.
Being in satsang is good because you’re with like-minded people, and the shakti is greater. It sort of gives you a push to go back into the Self. If you find a teacher, or even a book, or a tree, or a rock, and you begin to study this, and you stay with it, that’s the best course. But to go from book to book, and from teacher to teacher, is a waste of time. It just builds up your intellect.
Glen (SG): What about a group of teachers in the same vein. Like, in this stuff, Kline and Ramesh and Nisargadatta, and Maharshi. It seems like if you read that, it seems like they’re all kind of… it’s like a diamond, they’re all have different facets of it.
R: They may have different facets of it, but if you go deeply into their works there are certain contradictions. Yet they’re all good. Your heart should tell you where to go and what to do. But my advice is to find one of the teachers, that you identify with, perhaps from a previous existence, and stay with that person until you find yourself.
(long silence)
Sometimes, to give you a rest from self-inquiry, you may alternate and try other forms. For instance, I have found the I-am meditation to be of great benefit to people. Trying to do that for a while, and dropping the self-inquiry, is beneficial to some people. It’s like when you take a certain vitamin. After you take it for a while it’s good to rest for a week, and refrain from taking the vitamin. And so it is, as you get into self-inquiry, after a while you can give it a rest, and you can practice something else. I suggest the I-am meditation. Many people tell me it’s been very beneficial to them. Therefore, let’s practice it together. You make yourself comfortable, and you relax your body, and you close your eyes in order to remove distractions. The first thing you do is you focus your attention on your breathing. You observe your breath. Do not emphasize your breath. Simply observe it, and observe the sensations in your body, at the same time.
(silence)
After a while of doing this, you inquire of yourself, “Who is the observer? Who is observing the breath?” And you say, “I am.” With your respiration, you inhale and you say, “I,” you exhale and you say, “am.”
(meditation)
R: Om, shanti, shanti, shanti, peace, peace.
Let me remind you that the answers I give to most questions are specifically to the person asking the question. That’s why I appear to give different answers at different times.
Do we have any announcements?
Mary (SM): A number of the transcriptions have come in.
R: Would you like to read the Jnani again? (SM: Oh yes.) (Mary reads the confessions of a Jnani. Refer to the beginning of this book) SM: Thanks Robert. (after reading)
R: Thank you, Mary. Any other business to take care of?
Remember to love yourself, to worship yourself, to bow to yourself. God dwells in you as you. Peace, I love you. God bless you.
Happy fourth of July. Happy New Year…
(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.