– Transcript 76
R: Welcome to the house of Henry. It’s good to see you again. It’s good to be with you. I love you all with all my heart.
We have two types of people that come here. One type is Bhakta’s, devotional people. The other type is aspiring Jnanis. They’re both very different. The bhakta’s are usually the devotees. The aspiring Jnanis are trying to get out of their mind in unusual ways.
As an example: We had a bunch of people come here from Santa Cruz. I think they came about eight times. From the information I received yesterday is that they all became Jnanis. So I received a letter also to confirm this from Richard Hill. Do you remember him?
Mary (SM): Yes.
R: Would you like to read that letter? (Robert asks student) (SM: Yes.) I get a lot of letters and share them with you because it’s interesting.
Mary (SM): (Mary reads) He says:
Dear Robert,
Long time we haven’t connected. I’m visiting my mother and haven’t been disturbed yet. I just got word you got another earthquake. Amazing this consciousness, well miracles never cease.
Saw Jay a couple of weeks ago. I heard he’s claimed to be enlightened although he didn’t tell me that. In Santa Cruz enlightenment claims are up ten thousand percent. Jim, Trish and numerous others have all registered claims. I think if you live long enough you hear and see everything. What a dream.
Well I trust satsang and all is going well. To me it boils down to, do I have to give up my sense of humor, if enlightenment means talking all this …? (four letter word, seriously!) Well as the claims mount and the sun sets I bid ado and must express my gratitude for all your help.
Love,
Richard Hill.
PS. You can’t buy a home in Marin unless you fill out the form about who your Guru is.
Mary (SM): Sounds like registration forms. (laughter)
R: I receive many letters of this type. Actually what difference does it make?
SH: You should issue certificates of enlightenment. (laughter) R: Yes. I’ve been told that before. (laughter)
Glen (SG): Sell it! (more laughter)R: It’s interesting with some of these people. The first calamity that comes along in their lives they become hysterical, they go bezerk, they can’t handle it and they say they are Jnanis. Well this is good I suppose, it makes life interesting.
(silence)
One of the problems we have with the teaching is that when I say, “You are not the body,” many of us still believe we are spirit in the body.
As an example: When someone with a disease or any other problem comes to me and I tell them they are not the body, they believe that their true Self is within the body, but they are not that body.
Now this couldn’t be further from the truth. There are never two bodies. There is not your physical body the body with the problems, and then there is another body which is consciousness or the Self. And the idea is you’ve got to turn within the Self and let go of the first body. In all actuality and in all truth there is only the one. The body that you identify with does not even exist.
When you first start spiritual life you pray to God. You believe God is separate from you, and this is good for most people, there is nothing wrong with that at all because at least they’re praying to a higher being. If they are sincere, there comes a time when they get the experience that what I have been praying to is within me.
As Jesus said, “The Father is within me.” And we go around believing that our outside body is a body of sin, but the inside, wow! That is something else that is where God lives. So if I cut that person open will I find God? But that’s also good, because now you are believing that consciousness, God, Brahman is within you. And that usually goes on for years and years and years. But again if you are sincere and at this time you should have the experience of having a teacher or a Sage to go to, or you have done other things, or you have gone deep, deep within yourself. The realization comes by itself that there is no body at all. No body exists whatsoever. There is no one within. There is no one without.
There is only consciousness, absolute reality and I-am is that.
In other words you come to the conclusion, there is no body to make well. There is no body with problems. There is no body that is unenlightened and has to become enlightened. There is just no body. And yet the appearance is very strong. The mind is very strong with some of us. It tells us all sorts of things. It fools us, it plays games with us, it makes us believe something is wrong someplace or it goes to the other extreme and makes us believe I am enlightened. Now the very thought that you think you are enlightened shows you that you are not. There would be no one left to claim that. The claimant has been transcended. You just become beingness. You just become your Self.
There is no one that has to become themselves really. That’s why words, words, words are all fictitious. But to make you understand what I’m talking about we have to use some words. There is no-one to become anything that one never existed. No one. You can never say, “I have become,” because the I is dead if you have become. There is no claim
that you can stake. There is no one left to make the claim. You just are. You have become Infinity.
How do you know when you arrive at the goal?
It begins with your Self first. You just have no connection with the body again. The body that never existed to begin with, is gone. This is very paradoxical. No body exists.
You are free from that and yet everyone else sees you as a body. And they see you going through experiences like everybody else. But I can assure you that there is no body. And those words don’t even come to you that there is no body because those words become ludicrous when you’ve arrived.
You no longer state, “I am not the body. I am consciousness.” That becomes a joke.
All those words, liberation, moksha, illumination, absolute reality, ultimate oneness, nirvana, emptiness they become a joke. It is only the ajnani that spots out those words and of course I do it in the teaching.
You become omnipresent, all pervading. That is what you really are to begin with, I use the words, “You become.” Yet you no longer feel anything. There is nothing to feel.
There is no thing to be. There is nothing to experience. We use words like bliss. Bliss simply means a state beyond the norm that is so joyous, compared to the joy that you know. It is beyond that joy. It is too happy to be happy. It is too loving to be love. It is way beyond those qualities. There are no words that can describe it.
So what is all this talking for? Why do you want me to say these things?
Because you believe you’re human and you want to listen to the word, the good word. The good word is “Silence.” This is why I tell you so often when I speak, I am really silent and you sort of have to read within the lines. It’s not the words, that goes to your heart. It’s what you read between the lines, between the words. And what you read between the lines, between the words is nothing else but your Self. You are that.
Therefore when you are really that, the oneness pervades in your heart and there is no separation between you and me. There is no separation now but most of you insist on believing you are the body. You tell me about your pains, your problems, your troubles.
Who has these pains? Who has these troubles? See you’re making a mistake if you say the body, because there is no body. Don’t you see now the fastest way to remove all of these things from your consciousness. Don’t blame it on the body. You’re giving all the blame to the body now. You used to blame the devil. Now since you got into Jnana Marga you’re blaming the body. “It’s the body’s fault, it’s not me. I didn’t do it the body made me do it.
It’s the body that got angry. It’s the body that gets sick, gets upset,” and so forth. But if you could only keep inside of you someplace that there is no body to do anything. There is no body that you have to make well.
So many people tell me who have a sickness or a disease, they say, “Robert while I’m on the path and I still think that I’m a body can I cure the body and make the body well. As long as I believe I am the body?” That’s a mistake because you’re reinforcing that there is a body to become well. There was never a body that became sick or had a problem of any kind.
What do you see with your eyes? What do you feel? What do you see in the world?
Most of you still want to pray for the world, to bring peace to the world, to bring harmony to the world, to alleviate man’s inhumanity to man. That is very well and good but you’re working with an illusion. For none of these things are really happening. They appear to be happening, that’s a false appearance.
Of course you should not ignore a situation when it comes in your vibration.
When someone is in your vibration and they’re in need of anything there is nothing to think about. The mistake you make is when you think you’re helping. That inflates your ego and you’re thinking you are doing somebody a good turn by helping.
This is what it means when it says in the Bible, “To agree quickly with thy adversary.” It means that you should help immediately without thought. I am not helping you and you are not helping me. There is only one and what you think about the one and what you do to the one is none other than your Self. Therefore you do not think I am a good person. I help the homeless. You just do it if that’s what you’re going to do.
Many times I go downtown to the shelter with Dennis Weaver and a few other people and help serve food. I usually don’t tell anybody about this. I don’t think about this. I am not doing a good deed. I’m just doing because it’s happening and yet in reality there is no one doing anything. You have to get rid of the notion, I am the doer. And if you have to think, “Should I or shouldn’t I,” forget it, do nothing.
It’s very paradoxical but a true Jnani or enlightened Sage has a great compassion, a great love, a universal love, a universal compassion. Many people still believe that to be a Jnani you’re not supposed to care about anything. Just by having that opinion, by having that belief shows you’ve got a long way to go. There are no thoughts, there is no idea of doing anything. You just do it. If you’re meant to do it. But you don’t think about it. Your body or what you call your body, that doesn’t exist will appear to do whatever it has to do.
It has nothing to with you.
Some people think it’s virtuous to worry about others. Worrying about others comes from the ego. But doing for others and helping others without thinking, that comes from the Self. So a real Jnani does not sit in a cave and meditate all day but appears to be active in the world sometimes. But there are no thoughts, there is no attachment, there is no sense of doership, yet there is pure love. Love that the average person can never understand.
Think about yourself for a moment. What do you really think you are? Now don’t think what you’d like to be. What do you think you are right now? And you have to be honest with yourself. Honesty is very important. Think of what you are right now. What do think you are?
That thought of yourself has to become transcended. It has to be transcended. The thought has to be stopped. For whether you think you’re good or bad or in between, it’s a thought. And as long as it’s a thought it will lead to other thoughts and they will lead to other thoughts and pretty soon you will have a whole bagful of thoughts to get rid of.
Therefore when you think about yourself, catch yourself. Ask yourself, “Who thinks? Who thinks?” No matter what it’s about, it makes no difference how beautiful your thoughts are, you still have to question yourself, “Who thinks?” There is no beauty, there is no chaos, they’re both impostors. Yet there is a … I’m looking for the word … there is a joy, there is a bliss that cannot be explained. That joy and that bliss is the nature of the universe. It has nothing to do with the universe. It has nothing to do with God or the world.
God, the world comes from your own imagination. consciousness, absolute reality comes from your own imagination.
For remember there is no one to experience absolute reality. You cannot say, “I think I am experiencing absolute reality, or I think I am experiencing consciousness.”
That’s laughable. There is no one to experience that. For when you awaken to that you have awakened to spontaneity. You have awakened to the moment. Where there is no past and no future. There is just that wonderful bliss.
What can ever happen to that wonderful bliss? Can anyone change it? Can anyone take it away? Can anyone destroy it?
There is no one to do those things. For there is not bliss and something else. There is only the bliss, for want of a better word, that is. And as you awaken to that your body disintegrates, so-to-speak. It doesn’t really disintegrate because it never existed to begin with. You simply awaken to your Self. And this is something to be experienced. You learn to leave the world alone. Yet this sounds like a contradiction because before I said, you automatically help and you have an attitude of loving kindness. Now I say you leave the world alone. It’s not really a contradiction because by leaving the world alone you automatically become an asset to others. How can that be?
As your consciousness expands you become all pervading. It’s like as if you were a light in a room of darkness. And the light shows the way. The darkness turns into light.
It’s as if you were one of those dimmer switches, the light turns on and on and on until the whole room is filled with light. That’s how it is when your consciousness expands. Without thoughts, without emotions, without feelings. You become the light of the world, so-to-speak. And anyone in your presence receives the grace and benefits of that Self which you are.
So to the question of, “What is the fastest way to awaken?”
The answer is always, be in the company of a Sage. At satsang or otherwise and have no thoughts about it. Do not think what is happening but open your heart and you will feel the grace that exists there. Even when I say, “You have to work on yourself, is a misnomer.” For there is no self or body to work on. This is just an answer to give to a question that people ask. How can you work on something that doesn’t exist. Therefore I say,“Just be yourself.” So if the persons a bank robber they believe that I said they’d have to be a better bank robber and they have to be themselves so they go rob more banks.
But if you live in the spontaneity that I’m talking about, if you live in the moment, your Self is the pure Self. The unadulterated Self. The Self which is divine love, peace, happiness.
The best way to do this, again is to be in the company of a Sage and give up all desires. Give up all of the desire of wanting to attain. There is nothing to attain. There is nothing to do. There are no disciplines you have to follow. Even self-inquiry is only to keep your mind still. Everything is to quiet your mind. When the mind is quiet things begin to happen. It’s not a question of agreeing with what I say or disagreeing with what I say, it makes no difference. Simply be your Self, just the way you are. When I say, “Just the way you are,’ I don’t mean how you were five minutes ago or a minute ago. Just the way you are implies, your true nature right this moment. In this second. In this second you are free.
(slight pause)
See what you’re doing now. You’re thinking. That spoils it. Learn to stay without thought. Even if for a few seconds. It’s hard isn’t it. This is the reason you have to ask yourself, “To whom do these thoughts come?” It’s only a modality to cause you to stop thinking.
(slight pause)
Some of you are beginning to feel what I’m talking about. No thoughts. Nothing to remember. Nothing to do. When thoughts come to you about your affairs, about your predicament, realize that you have surrendered your affairs and your predicament to the Self and all is well.
In other words there should be no situation that appears strong enough to set you off. Feeling miserable or feeling too happy. No thing should have that power. It’s called the thoughtless state. It’s really not that hard. Let go. Close your eyes, it’ll help. If you have to do something, observe your breath. But if you can’t, forget about your breath. After all, to whom does the breath come? To the body. Since there is no body there is no breath. Then what is? I-am. What is I-am? Silence. Open your heart, let go. There is no past, no future.
No thing can ever harm you. You exist in eternity. Be still. The breath does not exist any longer. There never was a body. There is only that. Silence.
(silence)
Well do we have any questions?
Mary (SM): We have some transcriptions and we also have the list of the number of the transcriptions. So those of you who have transcriptions at home with no numbers on them, you can take one of the pages and find out what numbers they are.
R: Feel free to ask anything.
Nate (SC): Hi Robert. How do I stay in the silence? Instead of just asking myself, like… I can’t say, “I-am he, I-am consciousness, I-am bliss and awareness.” Just that over and over rather than following the I-thought?
R: Why don’t you take a deep breath and do nothing? For it appears when you’re saying all these things you’re still identifying with your body. So try to do nothing at all.
(SC: Yes but the thoughts keep coming, that’s the reason I say that.) Surrender then. (SC: What?) Surrender then, to your heart, to God. (SC: I don’t understand what you meant by that?) Say something like, “Take this God.” Every time you have a thought, a feeling, an emotion, give it to God. Until you become empty. Try that.
SB: Some of the other type of Anandil teachings like the Joshen teachings they don’t concentrate on getting rid of thoughts. They just stay with the present and they forget about the thoughts. They stay in presence and let thoughts come and go and then they don’t get involved in them, don’t even worry about getting rid of thoughts. Just come to rest in presence or that Consciousness.
R: That’s like Vipassana meditation.That’s good,there’s nothing wrong with that.
SB: I was reading something about Ramana he usually talks about getting rid of thoughts but in one passage he said just stay in presence and just forget about thoughts. Just let them come and go and don’t even fool with them.
R: Use whatever method you have to use to still your mind.
Nate (SC): Let me ask you, what do you mean by stay in the presence? (SB: Stay in consciousness.) Well I still don’t understand that?
R: Just stay where you are and let your thoughts come and go. Use whatever method you have to use. Do whatever you have to do but the object is to still the mind.
When the mind becomes quiet, everything happens by itself. All these various methods that different teachers tell you, Zen teachers, Buddhist teachers, even Mystical Christianity, is in order to make your mind quiet. (pause) Feel how quiet you are now. It doesn’t matter if thoughts come or not. Just be quiet. In other words, do not acknowledge the thoughts by feeling them. Whatever you do not acknowledge has to leave you sooner or later. Therefore when your feelings are no longer on your thoughts, your thoughts will dissipate.
SB: Robert I notice that when I’m really resting in Consciousness. I notice a feeling of presence in the whole center of the chest area that never happened before. It’s like it’s being vacated from up here and a fullness in here. And then like a subtle love feeling.
R: What you are actually feeling is the inner guru pulling your mind into the heart. That’s the feeling you have. Let it happen.
Jay (SJ): Robert I met someone who wants to relay a question to you. (R: Umm.) He says, “what is your viewpoint…” (R: Where is he?) Somewhere? He said what is your viewpoint, I think what he meant is what is your response or understanding of the occurrence of Saints body converting into light and not leaving a corpse behind? In anyones viewpoint? And then, as compared to Saints appearing to leave a corpse behind?R: All of these things are possible. Usually people who practice siddhis through pranayama are able to disintegrate their bodies. So no corpse is found. This still comes from the mind. But it doesn’t make any difference. Since a Jnani is not the body to begin with, therefore he doesn’t have to deal with a corpse. Only if there was really a body would you have to deal with a corpse. But since there is no body who deals with the corpse? Who has to make the corpse disintegrate? If it never existed to begin with. (SJ: Well someone’s got to.) There is no corpse for the Jnani.
Jay (SJ): Another question I’d like to ask you. Some siddhas find that one must convert the body to light or rather actualize what the body already is to break the reincarnation cycle or else they’ll be re-embodied? Or else must be re-embodied?
R: Same answer. Who has to do these things. There has to be someone to do all of these things and that’s all mental work. A real Jnani has nothing to do because there is no existence. Therefore they never think of those things whatsoever. Because there are no thoughts. (SJ: Then what is the body?) It doesn’t exist, there is no body. You should ask, “To whom is the body?” To the I. The I believes in the body. When there is no I there is no body and when there is no body there is no one to do anything. All doing comes from the mind.
Fred (SF): Robert, the thought I had, this question was asked is that reincarnation comes from attachment only, nothing else. That question it’s so clear to me.
R: True. As long as there is somebody to be attached, for that person there will be reincarnation. But if there is no attachment, that means they’re not even attached to their body because there is no body. Consequently you are already free. There is no coming or going. Freedom is there already and there is no one to do anything. Jay’s writing all this down. (SJ: Some of it, yeah.)
SB: Robert even modern science tells us that the body is an appearance because when they look at it in the electronic microscope they say it’s only atoms and atoms is only energy and energy is only light. But even modern science, material science is now saying that this appearance that appears solid is only light. That’s their conclusion and that’s modern material science. And you’re saying it’s even beyond light. So even science is telling us that it’s just an appearance. So we don’t even have to believe spiritual teachings we can just believe science and even that is showing us that all of this is an illusion.
R: True. (SB: But nobody believes it.) That’s why you can talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and get nowhere. You just have to make up your mind that you’re just going to get by yourself and be silent. Anyway you know how, until you become free.
SB: Robert what is the place of humor. What is the perspective, point of view of humor in the perspective of these teachings?)
R: The whole teaching is a big joke. (laughter) It’s all humor. (SB: From a material perspective it’s a doubly big joke.) Sure. (SB: And then you need a single joke to take out the double joke and then we throw away all of them.) And you throw yourself away with it. (laughter) SH: Throw yourself away. (laughs)
R: You throw the earphones away, the tapes, throw everything away.
SB: You mean it will be recycled? Recycled ego’s.
Nate (SC): I’m going to ask some questions tonight. For myself I feel that I’m trying to go…before you can go to college you have to go to high school and school and kindergarten. (R: Why?) In order to…I’m talking about everyday living. I feel like I’m trying to get to a place that cannot be gotten because the mind is in the way and I know it’s in the way but it seems to me that there is a way for chipping away the mind. Because I just feel stuck at it no matter what I do. The mind seems it has more power in itself because of my trying to get rid of it all at once. I mean that’s my understanding, but the mind doesn’t exist which I agree but how can you get rid of something that I feel is still there? Unless it’s a slow erosion process.
R: What do you think self-inquiry is for? (SC: Well I ask myself, “To whom do these thoughts come to?” And then I just watch and of course nothing happens so I guess I get discouraged and…) Then you say, “They come to me.’ (SC: What?) “They come to me,” you say, “I think those thoughts.” And then you ask the question, “Who am I?” (S: Right.) And you do that over and over again until you drop dead. (laughter) (SC: What?) SH: Until the ego drops dead. (laughter) (SK: You cleaned it up Henry.) Well I like to help Robert out.
Nate (SC): But isn’t there a process where if the world was too ??? to do calculus? Which I can’t do. Do you understand what I’m…
R: Of course I do. (SC: I know you do.) Self-inquiry is calculus, mathematics, geometry, algebra and 2 times 2 is four. It’s all those things. Therefore if you practice self-inquiry something has to give. As you say, you’re chipping away. As you practice self-inquiry you’re chipping and chipping and chipping and something will happen. Even though you’re having a hard time Nate, you’re way ahead of the game. Keep it up. I think your main problem is you want it to happen like today. (SC: Yeah.) Forget about that, forget about how old you are and how much time you’ve got left. Just do it and let everything take care of itself. Remember everything is preordained anyway, so what’s going to happen to you is going to happen. (pause) Would you like to read the Jnani Mary?
Mary (SM): Yes. (Mary reads the confession of a Jnani, refer to beginning of this book.) R: Any other announcements, statements?
Kerema and Ed’s cat died after sixteen years. And they are both very upset over this situation. So they are having a funeral today. Therefore let’s have a moments silence for their cat.
(silence)
R: Remember to love yourself, to worship yourself, to pray to yourself, to bow to yourself because God dwells in you as you. I love you all. Peace. God bless you.
Oh we have some refreshments…
(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.