– Transcript 82
with Self-inquiry
R: Welcome to this glorious celebration. What are we celebrating?
Fred (SF): We’re here. (SB: Groundhog day?)
SL: And Dana feeling sick too - but we’re not celebrating that! (laughs) SB: Today is Ramana’s birthday? What is the official celebration, guru…?
R: Jay what are we celebrating?
Jay (SJ): I don’t know? We celebrated Thursday night. We can celebrate today also.
R: Well we’re here. (laughter) It’s good to be with you again. I welcome you with all my heart. Mary can you read the Jnani? We’ll have a reading first.
(Mary reads “the confession of a Jnani,’ Refer to beginning of this book. Tape break cuts out the reading as Robert continues referring to the reading.) This is the truth about each one of us. Everyone here is absolute reality, pure awareness. This is your real nature, right now. Not some time in the future, not when you get enlightened, not when you search for the answers, but right this minute. This is what you are. Why will you not accept it?
When you think about yourself, do you think you’re a puny human that has to struggle for existence and fight for survival? As long as you believe this, that’s the way it’s going to be for you. But as soon as you accept the truth about your Self, that you are a delight, divine, Sat-Chit-Ananda, you will be free. You simply have to accept this. There are no rituals you have to go through. There are no prayers you have to chant. You simply have to awaken to your true nature, pure awareness, nirvana, bliss consciousness. This is what you are right this moment.
There is a story about a Jnani who was sitting on the edge of the road, with his eyes closed and his head on his knees, merged in the divine. A young boy walked up to him and said, “Master, can I be your disciple? Can you teach me?” And the Jnani said “I have no disciples and I give no teaching, but I will allow you to sit next to me for the day.”
The young man sat down and observed.
All day long people from various beliefs, religions, came to the Jnani, asked him questions, wanted boons, wanted healings, wanted different magical tricks to be performed. A lady came to have her daughter married. She wanted the Jnanis blessing so she could find a husband. Another one came to be prosperous in his work. And this went on all day. The Jnani never opened his eyes, nor did he answer. He said absolutely nothing.At about 4 o’clock, a beggar came over with a bundle on his shoulders. He was disheveled, in rags. He went over to both of them and asked, “Can you please show me the way to town?’ and the Jnani opened his eyes, smiled, jumped up and said, “Certainly.
Follow me.” He took him a quarter of the way, held his baggage for him, and pointed the road to town, and went back and sat down.
The young fellow was beside himself. (Have you ever been beside yourself?
(laughter) Who makes up these cliches? “Being beside yourself?”) He asked the Jnani “I do not understand Master what you did. All of these people came to you, lawyers, judges, various people from different religions, asking you profound questions and you would not answer them. But the beggar made you smile and open your eyes and you showed him the way. Can you please explain this.” The Jnani said, “The beggar is the only honest man we had come today. He knew what he wanted, and he had his way.”
What this means is, most people are hypocrites. They want teachings for their own benefits. They’re not thinking of the absolute. They’re thinking of what the teaching can do to them materially. They want to remove a problem, change their lifestyle, gain material wealth, rid themselves of sickness, and so on.
Now these are all legitimate desires, but they have absolutely nothing to do with self-realization. Self-realization is your true nature. It is what you are. It has absolutely nothing to do with your body. It has nothing to do with your mind. It has nothing to do with your affairs. For the one who is self-realized is not the body. The body can never become self-realized. The mind can never know enlightenment.
People still believe, no matter how many times I say this, that it is the mind that becomes enlightened, the body rises in consciousness and becomes liberated. Nothing can be further than the truth. You are not the body. You have no body. You have no mind. This is why in the past, Sages, such as Ramana Maharshi, Shankara and others, have said that self-inquiry is for mature persons. You have to be mature spiritually to understand self-inquiry, to understand Advaita Vedanta.
When I say to you that you are nothing, everything is no thing, and you’re good for nothing, people still believe that I am insulting them. But I am paying you a compliment when I tell you you’re good for nothing. This really means you are good for no thing that the senses can perceive. Everything the senses perceive is false. No thing appears as it appears. Everything is a mirage, a dream. It is not what you think it is. So to be no thing is a great blessing. To be good for nothing is a greater blessing.
Know who you are. Understand your true nature. Practice self-inquiry. Be yourself. Awaken to your true Self. Yet most people cannot do this because they’re so involved in the world, that their mind keeps them from thinking of themselves as God, as consciousness, as absolute reality, and it is difficult for most people to do this. Therefore there has to be a way for the average person to come up to the point where they can practice self-inquiry. We’ll talk a little bit about this.
Now I’m not speaking of the God up in the sky. I’m not speaking of an anthropomorphic deity. I’m speaking of pure reality, of consciousness. When I mention God I mean absolute intelligence. Think of God whenever your problem comes along, whenever you feel despondent, whenever you feel out of sorts, whenever you feel something is wrong, think of God. “How do I do this?” they ask. “How can I think of God? What we call God is invisible. Absolute reality has no form and no shape. How can I think of God?”
I’ve gone over this once before. Who can tell me? How does one think of God?
How does one meditate on God? I’ll give you a hint. What is the first name of God?
Student: I-am
R: Exactly. I-am is the first name of God. When you want to think of God, you think of I-am, with your respiration. I-am is the first name of God. Close your eyes and try it. Inhale and say “I,” exhale and say “am.” Inhale, say “I,” exhale, say “am.” Doesn’t that make you feel good? Just by saying “I-am” to yourself it lifts you up.
So, the thing to do is this. Whenever you have a problem, I don’t care what it is, I don’t care how serious you think it is, whether it’s personal or worldly, wherever it came from, the secret is to forget yourself. For the moment forget about the problem, for as long as you can, and do the I-am meditation. Every time the problem comes back to you, do the I-am meditation. If your mind wanders, bring it back again and do the I-am meditation.
When I explain this to some people they say, “Robert, but you tell us we have to get rid of our minds. We have to annihilate the mind, not think with it.” This is true. This is the highest truth. But yet most people cannot do this.
Remember, Advaita Vedanta is really for mature souls, people who have practiced sadhana in previous lives. It’s like going to school, self-inquiry, Advaita Vedanta is like the university of spiritual life. You cannot fool yourself. There are so many people who try to practice self-inquiry and they give it up.
Then I tell them to surrender, surrender completely. That’s the other way. Again this becomes difficult. They try it for awhile and they always revert back to themselves, their personal self. So I give them the I-am meditation. Everybody can do that. When nothing seems to work, go back to I-am. It’s really very powerful. Do not take it simply.
I can guarantee you this. If you can practice I-am for one day, just one day, all of your troubles will be transcended. You will feel happiness you’ve never felt before. You will feel a peace that you never even knew existed. As you keep practicing I-am, your thoughts will become less and less. Your personal self will go into the background and you will begin to feel an inner joy, an inner bliss. You will begin to feel that it no longer matters what I am going through. It makes no difference, because it is God who is going through this, not me. And God has no problems. You automatically become happy, just by using the I-am meditation.
In the Bhagavad Gita it says, “Out of a million people, one searches for God. And out of a million people that search, one finds him. “It’s sort of difficult. That’s how it appears. But if you begin to use I-am as a meditation, and you allow the I-am to go deeper and deeper, your bodily consciousness will disappear, and I-am will take over.
If you want to mix self-inquiry, atma-vichara, with I-am, that’s permissible. You can use them both together. I’ll explain how.
Say you’re using the I-am meditation. In between, thoughts keep popping up.
Whether they’re good thoughts or bad thoughts, makes no difference, but thoughts keep interfering. You can now inquire, “To whom comes these thoughts?” and you don’t have to go any further. Just observe and watch. When your mind becomes silent again, you go back to the I-am meditation, with your respiration. When thoughts come again you inquire, “To whom do they come?”
As you progress in this method you complete the question. “The thoughts come to me. What is the source of me? Who am I? What is the source of I?” You begin to feel and see that the I that seems to have problems is not you. You begin to feel, I have a problem, I am sick, I am angry, I have no peace of mind, and you begin to laugh, for the realization tells you I has all these things, I don’t. I is the culprit. I appears to want this and need that, filled with desires, wants, self-aggrandizement. All this belongs to the I. “Who is this I?
Where did it come from? If the I isn’t really me, then who am I?” And you keep still.
Now you may go back to I-am again, with your respiration. You inhale and you say “I,” you exhale and you say “am.” As you progress this way you’re going to find something very interesting happening to your life. You’re going to find there’s more and more space between I-am. It’ll happen by itself. You will inhale and you will say I, and all of a sudden nothing will come out of that. Then you will exhale with “am.” You will inhale again and say “I.”
Remember, you’re not putting this on. You’re not making it happen. It’s happening all by itself. And the space between I-am is the fourth dimension of consciousness, after waking, sleeping, dreaming. It is the state of the Jnani. It is your freedom. It is pure awareness. Pure awareness is not the I-am. The I-am leads you to pure awareness. And when you keep practicing, “Who am I,” alternating with both of them, there will be a greater space before you say, “Who am I?” again. That space is bliss. You will feel something you’ve never felt before, an inner joy, an inner delight. You will just know that the whole universe is the Self, and I-am that.
As the months progress, the words will come less and less. You may start off with I-am, and then you will be in the silence. You will not say another word. You will just experience the silence. That silence is nirvana, emptiness. It is no thing. It is the nothing I was talking about. You will just sit in the silence.
(long silence)
SL: Robert, before you said you can use “I - I,” instead of just “I-am,” is that still worth it’s standing?
R: I - I is very effective. You can alternate with I - I. When you say to yourself, “I - I, I - I,” (he jokes and says ay, ya, ya, ya, ay and everyone laughs) You can say, “I - I.” Whatever turns you on. The whole idea is to do something so you get your mind off the world.
When you get your mind off the world realization comes by itself. It’s the world, the senses that keep you back. All these practices are to subdue the senses. Take control of the senses, of the mind. The senses are of the mind and the mind is nothing more than the I-thought.
So when you say, “I - I,” or “I-am,” or “Who am I?” it’s all the same thing. It makes you dive deeper and deeper into your Self until your material body disappears and you become the all pervading Self. Never born, never die, unperishable. That is who you are now. Awaken to it.
SB: Robert when the mind is quiet there is still a subtle feeling of me that is like a separation, a feeling of I even though there is no thought I. When the thought is gotten rid of then there is a feeling of I and it feels like the feeling of relatedness and I related to everything else and that’s still an ego feeling?
R: As long as you feel I it’s an ego feeling. So you must inquire, “To whom does this I come?” or “What is the source of the I?” When you find the source which is on the right side of your chest, your spiritual heart center, the I will merge. Once the I merges there is no longer a feeling of I. There is a feeling of emptiness.
SB: So when the feeling on the right side comes up, don’t try to do anything just…
R: Abide in the I. Follow the I-thought to the source… (SB: That’s just emptiness that comes up?) And you will be in the effortless no thought stage. That is the bliss stage, it’s a good place to be. As long as there is a feeling you are not there. All feelings must be transcended and the mind or the I-thought is attached to all the feelings, all the emotions.
Therefore when the I-thought goes, everything else goes with it.
SB: But in one of my experiences when the I-thought goes then there is still a feeling of separation a feeling of relatedness.)
R: You’re feeling the I-thought, that is the I-thought. (SB: Oh, so that’s the I-thought, but even though there is no thought going on in the head.) But you are still feeling it, it makes no difference. (SB: It’s a feeling of the I.) It’s still the I-thought. (SB: Oh.) Whether it’s in the head or in the chest, as long as you feel the I you’re still abiding in the I. (SB: And further will be total emptiness, total…) Effortless no thought stage and there will be no thoughts there will be nirvana, emptiness. (SB: But there is a feeling of that pressure on your…) As long as there is a feeling you’ve got to work on that. “To whom does this feeling come?” and you go right back to I, “I feel it,” get rid of the I completely and there’ll be no feeling because there will be nobody left to feel. (SB: So it’s like evaporating.) It dissipates, dissolves. It never existed to begin with, it’s a thought, an idea.SB: But then those samskaras are still there, the karmas are still there and then it pops up a little somewhere else later.
R: The samskaras are part of the I. Everything is attached to the I. When the personal I goes everything goes with it. (SB: So that’s burning up the samskaras by self-inquiry?) Yes. (SB: Oh okay?) So do not concern yourself with samskaras, concern yourself with obliterating the I and the samskaras will go with it.
SB: I was listening to your tape the other night and it was like a deep understanding of it, something happened and like everything dissolved, everything went and there was a lot of joy but no body having any joy, no one having any joy. Just a feeling of a radiant joy but coming out of total zero, coming out of total emptiness.
R: You’re on the path and you’re going the right way. All that has to go, even the feeling of joy has to go. (SB: Who experiences the bliss?) No one. (SB: No one but there is this love…) The bliss comes by itself, the love comes by itself… (SB: But there is nobody experiencing it?) There is no one left to experience it.
SB: In the Jnani paper you said there is still appearance of the body (R: Umm) and that is something you can’t eliminate? (R: Umm) But when you’re immersed in consciousness, isn’t everything light and no body appearance?
R: It’s beyond light. (SB: Yeah.) For instance, I see my body, and this is paradoxical, but I know for certainty there is no body. There is an appearance. If I did not see the appearance I would not be able to function in the physical. (SB: Yeah.) So the appearance appears to be so. But it’s not! (SB: You know it’s not?) It definitely is not. (SB: How do you know?) I don’t know, I just know. (SB: You just know.) There is nobody left to know.
SH: Knowing without a knower? (R: There is just knowingness. Like beingness.) SB: Being.
R: There is no body, there is no world, there is no mind, there are no others. (SB: Do you ever see the body as all light like the atoms of it or something?) That was years ago. (SB: Tell us about that.) Well you see the body dissolve and the body is made of atoms and you go toward the atoms and you transcend the atoms, where did the atoms come from? The Self. (SB: Do you actually see everything opening wide with the atoms.) You can see everything.
(SB: You can see the electronic structure as if you’re looking through an electronic microscope?) You can see all that yes. All that is possible. But that’s not the final state. You go beyond everything. When there is no thing left, not even the thinker. (SB: So existence is a trickster?) Existence doesn’t exist. (laughter) It has no basis. No cause.
SB: But existence is consciousness? Is there a point when consciousness is not aware of itself anymore?
R: There is only consciousness. Pure consciousness. (SB: So it’s not self conscious anymore?) There is no self. There is the Self or there’s consciousness, they are both synonymous. But it’s beyond words and thoughts. It’s is-ness, beingness. (SB: So the whole problem for us is that we have this belief that we’re the person in the body and the memories.) That all has to go. (SB: That’s the whole problem.) That’s part of your mind and your senses and
SB: So it takes a great amount of faith to believe in what you’re telling us. Faith to the point of giving everything up to see what happens, to feel what happens.
R: In the beginning stages you should have a little faith in yourself that you can do this and you can transcend and know that somebody else has done it and so can you. You have that much faith and then your practice will do the rest. (SB: Because the ego would say that this is all crazy and all nonsense and we’re all insane.) You have to ask yourself, “To whom does this come?” Do not allow anything to interfere.
SB: Is contemplation on the Jnani effective?
R: Contemplation on the form of the Jnani is very effective. It causes the mind to subdue, to become weak. Because what is the Jnani,? The Jnani is the Self and the Self is all pervading. So concentration in the form of the Jnani is concentrating on the Self, and there is only one Self and you are that.
Nate (SC): I just want to say that I know all of this with my head and not with my heart and I think that’s what the trouble is.
R: What are you going to do about it? (laughter)
SB: Is there a surgeon in the house? (R: Horat didn’t come.) SC: One can’t wonder about this. If it has to come to one then there is nothing, to do anything, it just comes.
R: Are you an open channel for it to come? (SC: I feel like it.) Or do you think about the world all day and it’s problems? Do you think about Nate all day long? (SC: Yes.) Well that’s what is keeping you back. Nate has to go. When Nate goes everything else will come by itself.
Nate (SC): Well how does Nate go? If I know that the heart is where it’s at, me and everyone perhaps, I’ll speak for myself and I have been searching many years, when I feel I’ve given up, still there is a little remnant in there fears that one giving up will be the end of me physically, you know…
R: Good! (SC: Well maybe it is good, I’m serious, really.) So am I. (SC: Good.) It’s good.
Nate has to go. You are in your own way. Inquire, “Who am I?”
SB: Robert when a person sees that energy level. They can see the atoms and they can see into things that are busted up into motion and light, what to do at that point? Keep…
R: Ask, “To whom does it come?” You don’t want to see atoms or light you want to go beyond everything and open the heart to the Self and become free. (SB: But what if there are no thoughts when this experience is happening.) If there are no thoughts you won’t have the experience. (SB: Maybe they’re subtle thoughts.) The experience comes from the thoughts. (SB: Oh really?) Yes. Everything is an emanation of the mind. Everything comes from your mind. SB: Could there be subtle thoughts, in other words thoughts that you can hardly feel it?
R: That’s possible yes.
SB: Oh. It seems as you progress a little, thoughts instead of whole sentences there might be a half a word or like little pieces of thought.
R: Whatever it is, get rid of it. (laughter) It’s a disease. (laughter) kill it! Don’t spend time wasting your time thinking of it.
SB: We spend our whole life going to university, going to school learning how to be intelligent and knowledgeable and think and reason and now we have to get rid of it all…
R: That’s the way of the world. (SB: We wasted our whole life.) Not really, nothing is ever wasted. (SB: So why did God give us this intellect and this faculties and…) Who says God gave it to you? (SB: Nature gave it to us?) No one gave you anything. (SB: The faculties, the human faculties prevent realization?) They don’t exist! See all these things keep you back.
Thinking of human faculties, of mind, all the things that come from the mind. Go beyond, go deeper. Everything has to go.
Do we have any announcements? Okay so let’s eat.
SB: Are we going to have entertainment first. (R: No, after.) That’s after.
SE: My Zen teacher used to say to me, “Ed you know too much, you know too much,” and that wasn’t a compliment.
SB: So all this food is unreal huh?
SE: No food is real.
R: It’s as real as you are.
(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.