– Transcript 79
your Body And Mind!
R: Shanti, shanti, shanti, om. Peace, peace.
Greetings and salutations. It’s good to be with you again.
I trust you had a great week. If you didn’t too bad for you. Every week should be great, there shouldn’t be any exceptions. It makes no difference what your body is doing.
It has absolutely nothing to do with it. Every week should be great because in reality you are consciousness. You are great! That is your true nature. Everything else does not matter.
It appears to matter but to whom does it appear to matter. You are absolute reality, pure awareness, everything else is incidental. Therefore you should not take life too seriously.
You shouldn’t take it seriously at all.
If you look at life the way it is, it appears confusing because things are always changing. You may expect one thing and get another thing. But, if you stick to your guns and you keep identifying with the Self, what you are, then it will not matter what happens.
This is why the transcriptions that we give you are most important. Due to the fact they go over the talk and you can take your time reading it. Let me remind you once again the way you should read a transcription. Go through it, the whole thing, the first time.
Then take it paragraph by paragraph. Concentrate, cogitate on each paragraph. Even if it takes you all night. Do not go through the transcriptions like you do a book and say, “Where is the next one?” But try to go through each paragraph, intensely, so-to-speak. Try to read between the lines. What does this really mean. Take your time.
If you spend your time reading the transcripts, practicing self-inquiry and coming to satsang, then you can’t lose with the stuff I use. But if you run around all over the place and go from book to book, teacher to teacher, you become confused. You don’t know who to follow, what to do?
Of course the ultimate truth is within yourself. You are the ultimate truth. That is where all the answers are. Sometimes it’s better to stay by yourself and read nothing and sometimes it’s good to concentrate on certain works for a while. But not to go in one week to thirteen different books and ten different teachers. If you do you will become completely disgusted with the whole spiritual thing.
Something else we should talk about is this: Most disciples still believe that the object of Jnana is to change bad experiences into good.This couldn’t be further from the truth. We are not trying to change poverty into abundance, sickness into health, misery into happiness and so forth. The whole idea is to realize that they are both impostors. The body has absolutely nothing to do with the teaching. Let the body do what it may. If the body wants to become sick, watch it become sick.
If it wants to become healthy, watch it become healthy. If it wants to become rich, watch it become rich. If it wants to become poor, watch it become poor. Then it has absolutely nothing to do with you. You are beyond that.
To the extent you feel your real Self, to that extent you will feel your body less. So if you feel your real Self 40%, you will feel your body 40% less. If you feel your real Self 70%, you will feel your body 70% less and so forth.
You are not your body. The body cannot be anything without your mind. It is your mind that feels pain in the body. It is your mind that feels depressed and causes the body to become ill. It is your mind which catches a cold. It is your mind which develops cancer and it appears as your body. But if you had no mind your body would simply be just an inert piece of flesh. It wouldn’t be sick, it wouldn’t be healthy. Therefore when you think about being healthy you have to be sick first otherwise why would you want to be healthy.
One leads to the other.
When you think about taking care of your body all of the time you’re simply saying to yourself that you don’t want to become sick, so you’re taking care of your body all of the time. Therefore your mind will simply give you a taste of each experience over and over again. That is why sometimes you catch a cold and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you have a fever, sometimes you don’t and so forth.
Stop identifying with your body. Stop identifying with your mind. Leave them both alone. It really makes no difference what they do. They’re not important. If you’re inclined to exercise, exercise, if you’re not, don’t. But don’t keep thinking and feel guilty that you have to do something or if you don’t do it something is going to happen.
You and I have both known people who have never exercised a day in their life and they are 90 years old and they are healthy as a horse. (How healthy is a horse?) (laughter) And we both know people who exercise violently everyday and then they just drop dead or they contract some disease.
It all has to do with your karma. It has absolutely nothing to do with what you do with your body. Don’t believe that by eating certain foods you’re going to become healthier. But if it is your karma to eat certain foods to become healthier you will do it. Do not be for or against anything.
What I’m trying to say is: Leave the world alone! Leave your body alone! Leave your mind alone! Leave others alone!
Some of you are saying, “But Robert, don’t I have to learn how to control my mind, how can I leave it alone?” You control it by leaving it alone. Don’t you see? By interfering with it you make it stronger because you’re giving it power by admitting to yourself you have a mind that is out of control and now you’ve got to put a stop to it. That statement
alone gives more power to your mind. When all you simply have to do is observe your mind, observe your thoughts, question, “To whom do they come?” question again, “To whom do they come?” Every time the thoughts come, observe them, but do not try to take any action to control your mind.
As I said if you do, you’re feeding your mind. That is the fuel that makes your mind become stronger and stronger and stronger. By self-inquiry you’re not interfering with your mind. You’re simply asking in a gentle way, “To whom do these thoughts come?
To me? Who am I?” Or you’re becoming the witness to your thoughts and then you finally ask, “Who is the witness? I am. I am. I am.” Somehow I’ve found, if you ask three times and you answer three times it has more effect. Have any of you had that experience?
In other words if you begin the self-inquiry process and you ask, “Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?” Three times and then you wait and ask a few times again and then you wait. And when the thoughts come to you use the number three again and you ask, “To whom do these thoughts come? To whom do these thoughts come? To whom do these thoughts come?” I somehow feel if you try that it will be more effective. The only thing that you’re trying to do is to stop your mind from thinking.
You are not trying to become self-realized through self-inquiry. For you are already self-realized. Self-inquiry is to still the mind. When the mind becomes still everything takes care of itself. Remember this. You are not using self-inquiry to awaken. If you do you will never awaken. For you are using a method to become something you already are. Have no attitude when you practice self-inquiry. Have no desire, no need.
In other words do not think I have to get enlightened before I die because I don’t want to come back. That is the worst thing you can do. For you are believing deeply, aren’t you? That you are the mind and the body. Because you’re saying intensely to yourself, “I have to become enlightened.” And as you know by now, your personal I can never become enlightened because it doesn’t exist. So you’re working under an illusion when you say, “I’ve got to become enlightened before I leave my body.”
Rather do the procedure. Follow the principles as outlined. Have no want, no desire, no request, nothing. You have to realize again there is no birth and no death for the Self. There is no one who ever dies, no one who is ever born. When you say, “I have to get enlightened before I die,” you have everything backwards. You’re believing something has to happen before you leave your body. But the happening has already happened. All you are trying to do is quieten your mind so that you can see it. Can you see that?
You are just trying to quiet your mind. You’re not trying to get enlightened. You are not trying to awaken. You are not trying to become liberated. You already are. You think you’re something else than that. So you practice self-inquiry which is the fastest way to wake up because you think you have to wake up.
But imagine if you didn’t believe you had to wake up. You did not have that belief.
Would you have to do anything? Of course not. Does God have to do anything to know he’s God? Of course not. You’re doing all of these things because you think you are a human being. You think you are mortal. You think you’ve got problems. You think there is something wrong or you can believe the opposite. You think everything is right, the world I mean. You think you’re very happy. You think you’ve got everything you want so everything is right. That is an attachment to good things. It’s just as bad attaching yourself to bad things. They are both the same they are impostors.
So if you attach yourself to material good things, you may have a so called happy material life in your body at this time because you deserve it karmically. But, there is a lot of karma you have to experience. When you identify with the good material things. And when you leave your body, you come back again, things will not be so good for you this time. You will experience the opposite for you have to have a taste of everything. Do not be fooled. Do not be deluded into believing, if I experience a good material life, I’m making progress. Think about that for a moment.
If you experience a good material life you are not making spiritual progress. It has nothing to do with your spiritual progress. It’s a completely different ball game. Spiritual progress is when you transcend good and bad. When you become the witness to all your spiritual experiences.
As an example: If you win the lottery tomorrow and you win 50 trillion dollars, you become the witness. You realize this is karmic. It doesn’t change you. It doesn’t turn you into a blubbering idiot. You understand, this too is karmic. If you get hit by a train and they have to cut off your legs and your arms, the same thing, there is no difference. It’s karmic.
If you do not train yourself to see that, you’re going to have a long way to go before you become free and wake up. Everything you attach yourself to in this world, person, place and thing keeps you back. You have to become totally non attached. You have to become totally free of attachment to your body, to you mind, and to others.
This doesn’t mean you become a cold fish and you don’t care about others. It simply means that you understand, you realize that everything is you. Whatever is happening in this world is happening to you. You are the cause and when you realize there is no cause then there is no you and you’re free.
First you realize that whatever you see in this world, the beauty you see outside, the trees, the sky, the mountains, the smog, everything is you. Then you ask the question, “Who am I?” And you realize that the I is impersonal. It has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with the world. It has nothing to do with the universe. The I is I-am, I am that I am. Pure awareness, pure intelligence, nirvana. That is really I.
But when you identify your I as a personal I and you say, “I am experiencing this,”
and “I see that,” and “I feel happy because I see a tree, I feel sad because I see something wrong,” then you are making the I personal and you begin to feel that you are a body and a mind. You have to suffer the consequences thereof.
So, lets talk about you.
How do you see life? What has been happening to your life since you’ve started coming to satsang? And since you’ve started practicing self-inquiry? What is going on in your life?
If everything is the same or if your affairs are becoming better you’ve got a problem. But if things appear to becoming relatively worse and things are happening to you that have never happened before, that is a blessing in disguise. It sounds strange doesn’t it.
I bet you thought I was going to say, “Things will get better for you materially and you’ll be happier than you’ve ever been in your life.” (laughter) You’ve got the wrong idea about these things.
Material happiness does not bring you realization. The closer you get to realization the more upheavals you get in your life. That sounds strange, it’s not always like that.
It depends on the maturity of the soul. There is no soul. It depends on the maturity of something or nothing. It depends on maturity…, it depends…, it…, nothing. But when you’re speaking in delusion, you believe that karmically you have accrued certain debits that will come to you slowly but surely through many incarnations.
But as you begin to mature spiritually and as you become closer to the goal. As you get closer to awakening there will be many upheavals in your life. Due to the fact, all of the karma is coming to you at once. That’s how it affects some people, not everyone. All of your karma that would take many incarnations to get rid of is coming to you all at one time. That’s why there appears to be upheavals in your life.
So you do not become despondent, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you do not think something is wrong, you rejoice! You observe, you watch. You can say, “I wonder what is going to happen now?” and you inquire, “To whom has this come? To whom has this come? To whom has this come?” If you’re doing it correctly, you will find you’re becoming less and less attached to the situation. Until finally there is no situation at all.
There is no longer any karma. There is no longer anything you have to go through. You become totally free.
I admit also that this is some what paradoxical for when you take great Sages like Rama Krishna, Ramana Maharshi and some others that appear to be going through some dastardly experiences of cancer where the flesh was rotting away. So you ask, “Did they have to go through their karma, I thought they didn’t have any?” And that is a good question, I’m glad it’s over. (laughter) The answer of course is, they are not going through anything. It appears to us that they are. It’s our experience, we’re going through the experience. It’s our karma not theirs.
Does that make sense? We’re going through that kind of karma. Sages are absolutely free from karma no matter what they appear to be going through. They’re totally free. But with our eyes, with our emotions, with our minds, we observe something else. We need that experience, to watch them suffer. In truth they are not suffering, we are suffering.
Many people that I spoke to that watched Ramana Maharshi when he was dying, months later, years later, they became totally different people. The word suffering left their consciousness. That never disturbed them again. In other words, when they saw death, when they saw man’s inhumanity to man they completely transcended it and realized that it did not exist.
Remember the world does not exist. Human beings do not exist. You body-mind does not exist. The universe does not exist. God up in the sky does not exist. So how can suffering exist? Can’t you see that death, suffering and the rest of it is part of the grand Maya. It’s all a joke, it does not exist. So how can Ramana Maharshi’s body die of cancer?
So how can Rama Krishna’s body die of cancer? If you think that these people died of cancer you are acknowledging that the world exists. You are acknowledging that suffering and death are a reality and you cannot awaken this way.
This is why when you can’t help it and you still react to these things, you should try to become impersonal. Where you just watch. You have a great compassion, but you do not react. If a person needs help you help them. You do the best you can, but you do not react. Why? Because something in your heart tells you this is an illusion. I can’t say in one breath that the world and my body does not exist and in the second breath say that Ramana Maharshi died of cancer. It’s a contradiction.
So my question to you is: What do you see all day? What did you see today? In the world? In your life? What did you feel today? Did you feel stress? Did you feel burnt out?
Did you feel there was something wrong with someone or with yourself? Did you feel things are not going right for you? Or did you feel the opposite? Did you feel everything is so beautiful in your life, you can’t stand it? You’ve got everything you need and you’re satisfied and contented? They’re both impostors. If you get stuck on one or the other, you have to keep working on yourself until you become unstuck. And you do this by inquiring, “To whom has this come? Who is seeing all this? Who is feeling all these things? I am.
I am. I am. Well who am I? Who am I? Who am I?”
(silence)
Fred (SF): Last week Robert I started a question and I got kind of confused and I didn’t finish it. I think I have a statement in my mind now. Since both space and time are creations of the mind and exist only in the mind then if I’m contemplating situations in which time is an element then I’m spinning my wheels? There will be nothing accomplished. For instance, both desire and fear come in this category since desire expects something better to happen than the non existent future or fear expects something bad to happen also in a non existent future. Is that a fairly accurate intellectual concept, what’s going on?
R: Whatever is going on you simply ask yourself, “To whom does this come?” You make the whole situation very simple. When you think you’re lost in time and space or whatever you think is going on in your life. You go within yourself and you ask, “Who is feeling this? To whom do these things come?” And you follow it through. It makes no difference what it is. It makes no difference how long you’ve had it or how much it annoys you, or whatever it’s doing to you. It makes no difference how complicated or how lengthy it may be. It’s always the same. To whom does this come? Who is feeling this? I
am. What is the source of the I? And you abide in the I, following it back to your heart center and then everything will take care of itself.
Fred (SF): Thank you. Another thing I’ve been wondering about. It maybe so that whatever transpires in the waking state, is no more or less real than what happens in the dream state or hallucination or a drug trip or anything else that we think is transpiring … no one of those is any more real than another? (R: That is correct.) Thank you. Another thing I might mention, when I first came up here you asked me why I asked these questions? I forgot what I said but these things that I have in my mind are intellectual concepts and some of them I feel are pretty solid, it also feels right to have them evaluated in the light of the absolute and I feel that you are in a position to do that.
R: There is always a personal I that has to evaluate. (SF: Well I have to change all that. To make it, IT!) There is nothing to evaluate. There is just in becoming, in being. You do not have to evaluate anything.
Fred (SF): You reminded me of what you’re saying, what Sri Bhagvan told somebody, “You thank God for the things that seem to you to be good but you don’t thank him for the things you think are bad and that is where you go wrong.” That’s a tough one.
R: Umm, It is a tough one. We have our impression, what is good is supposed to be and we have our impression what bad is supposed to be and we desire one above the other. That’s the mistake. To have the desire for either. The desire has to be transcended. So that there is nobody left to have any desire whatsoever and you become the witness to everything.
SL: What about the desire to understand that everything is alright?
R: That’s no good either because there is a desire that means there is a personal I.
There is a personal I that wants everything to be right. What is right? There is no right.
(SL: Well then know, All is well.) All is well is merely telling yourself that the personal I does not exist. (SL: So is there a difference between all is well and everything is alright?) All is well means everything is good just the way it is. (SL: Yes.) This second. Everything is well.
There is nothing wrong no matter how it looks, how it appears and to whom it comes. All is well. It’s like saying, “I am that!” And you become still you don’t qualify it. When you try to qualify it that is when the mistake comes. You make the statement, “All is well! I am that! I-am, I, Silence.” It’s all the same. But when you qualify it you spoil it.
SL: I don’t see the difference between all is well and everything is alright.
R: Well if it’s the same to you that’s fine. It depends how you interpret it in your own mind. (SL: But whatever is happening is happening?) Whatever is happening is right.
(SL: Yes.) However it appears. It makes no difference what it is.
SH: Why call it right or wrong? (R: Exactly.) You’re hung up either way.
R: Exactly. Everything just is.
SL: Well the word “well,” also has a positive connotation? (R: Then get rid of it.) But I don’t mean it that, that… forget it. (laughter)R: I understand. (laughs) The less that is spoken the better off you are, because we get into playing mind games. When I tell you, “all is well,” I do so because I want you to know that everything is just the way it’s supposed to be. There is no right, there is no wrong. (SL: Well that for me is better than saying, “It’s alright,” or “All is well,” or “Everything is the way it supposed to be,” then…) Enjoy it.
SH: Is it the way it’s supposed to be or just the way it is?
R: The way it is. (laughter) (SH: You have to cut “the supposed to be,” out too.) Is it the way it is? (SH: Yeah just the way it is.) …or is it just the way? (laughter) (SH: (laughs) Full stop. (laughter) The next thing is silence.) Right. (laughter) All the words lead to more words.
Glen (SG): Robert, how does compassion, you mentioned compassion move into the heart center.
How does the compassion - if none of this exists, how can compassion exist as a feeling?
R: As long as you believe that you are the body-mind then you should have compassion. When you become the Self, you become the epitome of compassion automatically.
But there is a different kind of compassion. It’s a knowing, a being. You just become. It’s a bliss consciousness state. (SG: So there is no emotion tied to it necessarily?) There are no emotions whatsoever no. It’s an experience. It’s beyond an experience. It’s in the silence. But as long as you identify with the body and you think you are the body then should think of words like love, compassion, joy, harmony and keep inquiring, “To whom do these come?”
Until you transcend.
SL: How does this affect the life of a Jnani who married and has children, and has responsibilities?
R: There is no effect. It doesn’t affect him at all. There is no difference? (SL: It doesn’t affect the Self? What about the Robert for instance?) What about the Robert? (SL: About your experience in marriage and relationships?) No experience, it’s just something that’s going on. There is no real experience involved. It’s just something that is done. The body’s doing, that’s the appearance. It’s the same like having cancer, what I was talking about before, “Who sees all this? Who is the doer?”
SH: There is nobody to whom this happens? (R: Right.) SG: Including the pain that would be associated with this?
R: Pain, happiness, they’re both the same. (SG: If you are in excruciating pain you would also ask these things? To whom does this come?) To whom does it come? And the greater you are able to disassociate yourself from the body the less you will feel the pain.
SH: Nisargadatta answered that very nicely. When they asked him, “Are you in great pain?” He answered, “No, there is great pain.”
R: Yeah. (laughs) Yes. Good.
(Silence)
Glen (SG): So when one says, “I am this,” or “I am that,” or anything, it’s strictly identification that the mind is doing it?
R: The ego mind is doing all of that, asking that question. (SG: That’s like the screen and all the stuff that’s on the screen?) Umm, the images. (SG: The images.) Again try to make everything simple, do not become complicated. It’s a very simple thing. You merely observe what’s going on in your body or in the world, you do not react and you ask, “To whom does it come?” In a gentle way. And then you realize, “I feel this.” You therefore want to find out, “Who is the I that feels this?” And if you follow the I you will find that the I never existed. So there is no one to feel anything. The whole situation is a lie because there is no I. If there is no personal I then nothing associated with I exists whatsoever.
Fred (SF): One Master said, “Be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” The understanding is that no changes need be made, nothing need be added and nothing need be subtracted. (R: Umm. True.) Thank you.
(Silence)
Fred (SF): Nisargadatta also said, “I understand realization is of the fact that you are not a person.”
R: Umm. But what do you say? (SF: Of the understanding of the statement?) What does that do for you personally? (SF: There is a feeling that I’m on the right path.) If it makes you go deeper within yourself then that’s good. (SF: Yes sir.) Otherwise it’s just intellectual jargon. (SF: Too much rhetoric.) Umm.
Glen (SG): I think I read something like that also in the same book. It says, “There is no such thing as a person just limits and restrictions.”
R: We’re all saying the same thing in different words, but again what does it do for you? (SG: When I say that it brings out my humanness.) So then, don’t say it!
(silence)
R: Shanti, shanti, shanti, om. Peace, peace…
(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.