– Transcript 86
(Getting Rid Of Negative Habits)
R: Good afternoon. Welcome. I know some of you aspiring Jnanis do not enjoy chanting too much. (laughter) You’re making a big mistake. In all of the traditions of the world there has been chanting. The Catholics, the Jews, the Protestants, the Baptists, the Hindus, the Islams.
Why? If it weren’t significant, why would they have it? Well, when you come in here, the world has had you for a week, influencing your behavior. The chanting sort of goes deep into the subjective, calms you down, prepares you for something higher. Even changes your consciousness lifts you up. Chanting is very good. At Ramana ashram they always had two hours of chanting prior to anything else, in the morning and the evening.
The same with Ramakrishna ashram. Everywhere.
So, aspiring Jnanis believe only in the word. The word is insignificant. Many of you just come to hear me talk. How do you know I know what I’m talking about? Words are words. Chanting is thousands of years old and has it’s value.
The main difference between occidental thinking and oriental thinking is this.
Occidental thinking accepts everything it sees in the external world as being good and bad. Oriental thinking, to an extent, realizing everything comes from within, does not accept everything they see, or what the senses tell them. They observe it without attachment and without reaction. This oriental thinking has been around for thousands of years.
The United States is only 200 years old. You should think about this.
Most people in the west strive to be something outside of themselves. The outside world affects them. They believe what they see. The outside world includes their body and their thoughts. Naturally they believe that they are a body and a thought. They also believe what the world shows them is correct. This is not true. Everything in the world is a result of something inside of you. The whole universe is a manifestation of your thoughts.
No thing exists without your permission. I know this sounds strange to some of you, but it’s the truth. The things that you hate and the things that you love in this world are your own projections, your own Self. When a being begins to realize that they are the world, they are the universe, they then become very careful of what they think about, of how they perceive things.
All things in this world are subject to the law of change. No thing ever remains the same. Consequently, if you attach yourself ignorantly to person, place or thing, you’re going to suffer, for it must change. When you dislike something or someone external from you, you are truly disliking yourself. For your Self is omnipresent. You are the Self of everything you perceive. How can you dislike anything? It all has to do with you.
Everything is your Self, not some things. If you have a bad temper, if you’re ignorant, if you hate, you’re doing this to yourself. It behooves you therefore to love everything. Say to yourself, “I do not understand what it’s all about.” Be honest with yourself.
But if I hate that tree outside, I’m hating myself. Why? When you are in deep sleep, does the world exist for you? You cannot say the world exists, because you are in deep sleep.
You are as good as dead. The only thing about what you call death and being in deep-sleep, is in deep sleep you wake up again to this world. In death you wake up to another world. That’s the only difference between deep sleep and death. So as far as you are concerned you have absolutely nothing to do with this world, when you are in deep sleep.
When you drop your body you again have absolutely nothing to do with this world, and you carry on somewhere else.
Find out what you are all about. No things are as it appears.
This is the reason so many people tell me that self-inquiry is sort of hard to do.
They can’t keep up with it. They can’t take it. This is why all of the great Sages have said to you that self-inquiry is only for mature souls. What do they mean? They mean those beings who have transcended to an extent their bad tempers, their ignorance, their obnoxious ways, their belief system. In order to have done that, you would have had to practice in a previous existence various sadhanas, spiritual disciplines. When you’ve done all that, self-inquiry becomes easy. You love it. It becomes a part of you. But when you still have some of your old habits, they get in the way immediately when you start practicing self-inquiry. Your ego, your mind, the I-thought is very big. It encompasses you and you cannot do atma-vichara. You get bored with it. You say it doesn’t work. You say it’s too hard.
That is because you’re filled with yourself. Your ego monopolizes everything.
Just think for a moment, since you woke up this morning, how much you thought about yourself. Doesn’t everything concern you, I, me? “I’m getting up, I’m hungry, I want to read the paper, I want to take a walk, I feel hot, I feel cold, I feel this, I feel that, I need this, I need that.” Always me, me, me. Always I, I, what I need. Therefore when you try to find the truth about yourself, you’re looking to the external world. You’re looking to the external world for a teacher, for a teaching, for a book, for a tape, for something to do something to you, something to turn you on. And when that doesn’t work you go to drugs, grass, heroin, cocaine, whatever. People are looking for something to make them happy, outside of themselves.
This seems very funny to me, for your nature is happiness. Your true nature is happiness. It has always been that, never anything else. Peace is your true nature. Therefore it is amusing to me how people want to make this world a peaceful world. They want to find happiness in a peaceful world. Such a world does not exist and never will. But you cannot deny that you exist. And because you exist, everything you’re looking for is within you. You have to learn to dive deep within and find that truth. But how can you when
There’s too much of you left. The you has to be destroyed. The mind, the personal I, the ego has to be annihilated. Only when that happens will you begin to feel something else.
So what to do? If you cannot practice self-inquiry, you may say to yourself, “I’ll never awaken, I will never become self-realized.” And then again it’s funny to me, because the truth about you is you already are. It’s so simple. All you have to do is get rid of yourself. You have to negate everything you think is important, good and bad. You have to stop worrying about yourself. What can possibly happen to you? What’s the worst thing that can happen? You can die? Is that bad? What is life? Life is being born, going through experiences, then dying. It’s when you drop your body, that the fun begins.
You have to begin to look at your life differently. Who exists? Who’s living this life? When I tell you the ultimate truth you will not believe me, and I don’t expect you to, because in the ultimate truth, nobody is living this life. What you see, smell, taste, feel and hear does not exist. But before you can come to a conclusion like this, you have to start at the beginning. You have to practice sadhana, spiritual disciplines. And the practice does not begin in trying to change other people to do what you want. The practice begins by looking at yourself and seeing the nasty habits that are within you.
If you have a bad temper, you cannot go through life like that. You have to first admit it to yourself and then ask yourself, “How do I get rid of it?” If you sincerely ask yourself that question, the answer will come. And this is also true of every negative habit you’ve got. Only you can get rid of it within yourself. Do not try to change your environment, for you’ll take your nasty temper with you. When you think you can’t get along with people, for no one is abiding in you, and letting you have your way with your nasty temper, and you’re always argumentative, and see things wrong everywhere, by believing you’re going to move to Tucson, where you’ll have peace, is a lie, for you will have to bring yourself with you.
When you first go to Tucson, everything will appear fresh and new. You will meet new people, You will go to a new satsang, you’ll find a new teacher, and you’ll find a new job, you’ll get a new apartment, and you’ll say, “Hey, this is great.” How long will it last before you’re back again where you were before? There is no escape. The only escape is to stay where you are, see yourself for what you really are, and work on yourself to transcend and transmute all of those nasty habits.
How do you do this? When someone asks me for advice of this kind, I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m interested in spiritual life. But I also realize the folly of saying to the person, “Identify with your source. Practice self-inquiry, and you will remove your nasty temper.” This is well and good. It can be done this way, but it is not easy for most people.
There is a way to get rid of your nasty habits, bad tempers, emotions, whatever, depressions, all those things, and this way is not hard. What you do is you become the witness to your nasty temper, to your obnoxious ways, to your greed, to your selfishness, to your lust and whatever. You observe yourself going through this. In the beginning, I admit, it’ll be a little difficult, because when you become violent, when your temper arises, it’s difficult for you to observe yourself at that time. But as you begin to observe yourself when you become a little angry, then the observance becomes much greater than your temper, and here is how it works.
You watch yourself going into a rage. You observe yourself going into a rage. You identify with the rage you’re going into. You totally identify with your rage. I know you’re saying “But Robert, if I identify with my rage, it’ll become greater.” On the contrary, when you totally identify with your rage, you will see that the rage belongs to the I-thought. You will find that you realize that I am in a rage. I and the rage are the same. But I is not me. I is totally separate than me. And this will make you laugh, for you will realize that you are not the one with the bad temper. I is. Blame it all on I, and observe the I having that attack, that rage attack. As you observe the I, the I also being your bad temper, will begin to diminish. It will become weaker and weaker.
I will repeat this again. Any quality that you want to get rid of, observe it and identify with it. When you’re able to look at it, it begins to dissipate. It doesn’t like to be looked at.
I’ll give you an example. Say you have a friend and you’re always getting into an argument. Your friend has a bad temper. Usually when your friend becomes violent like that, you also become violent, and your temper starts and you have a big argument, you get mad at each other until the next time. Nobody won. Then you begin to understand what I told you. So when your friend comes back to you, and you have another violent argument, this time you don’t respond. You stare at your friend, that’s identifying with the I, and you do not respond.
What do you think will happen? Your friend will wear themselves out, and realizing you do not respond, will become weaker and weaker. Then the next time they see you, they will think twice before they get angry and argumentative, for they know that you’re not going to respond. You’ve become the witness. Either one of two things will happen.
Your friend will see you’re not responding any longer. So he or she can’t get off with arguing with you and will leave, and you’ll not see them again. They’ll find someone else to fight with. Or they will apologize and still want to be your friend, and change their ways.
You do the same thing with yourself. Say you’ve been selfish all your life. You and I know many people who have thousands and thousands of dollars in the bank. Yet when it comes to feeding the homeless, helping the poor, doing some thing for somebody, they cry poor mouth.
They don’t want to think about all the funds they’ve got in the bank. They act as if they’re going to take it with them. And they have some mistaken belief, “Well, I’ll leave this to my children or to my relatives. They lead their miserable lives, because they’re afraid to touch their money and live good and help others. And when they finally die,
See you have the wrong outlook on things. What do you do? You witness your selfishness. You witness your greed. You try to understand it. You try to realize why you’re like this. The reason you’re like this is because you are brought up the wrong way. The wrong beliefs have been imposed up on you, about everything. Most of the things that most of us sitting here today believe in, are all erroneous. 99% of the things that you believe are erroneous, about life, about things, about people. But you work with it the same way. You identify with your greediness, with your selfishness, with your temper, with those emotions. You observe them. You watch them. As you watch them, they will become weaker, and weaker, and weaker, and you will grow.
As you continue to work on yourself this way, the day will come, whether in this life or the next life, where you will be attracted to an Advaita Vedanta teaching, a non-duality teaching. Then when you’re told to practice self-inquiry, it will be just the thing you’re looking for. It will become a pleasure for you. You’ve already gone through the Kundalini trips, through the Ashtanga Yoga trips, through mind control trips, through occult power trips, you’ve gone beyond all that. It was necessary at the time that you learned it, but now you’re beginning to understand that all of that is from the mind.
Everything is in the mind, every teaching, everything. Because of your spiritual discipline in this life and past lives, you come to see, “I don’t need a teaching. What I need to do is to get rid of my mind.” When the mind is gone, then the I am will pervade. The I am will prevail. Then you will become I am. And the I am is not your body or anything special about you. The I am is another word for omnipresence. It is all pervading. It is the Self, the real Self. You will feel within yourself an expansion. The whole universe will be you.
Of course in your present state you wonder about this, “How can I be the universe?” due to the fact that you’re thinking of yourself as a human being. You’re thinking of yourself as an entity, as an ego. You have imprisoned yourself to your body, and that’s the limit. But now, because of your training and because of your discipline, you begin to feel that you are the universe. And you know that’s your mind that is the universe.
So you want to get rid of your mind. And how do you begin? By again seeing your mind is really a bundle of thoughts. Thoughts about the past and worries about the future. That’s all your mind really is. It’s nothing else. You therefore begin to inquire, “To whom does this mind come?” When you’re saying to yourself, “To whom does this mind come?” You also mean, “To whom does this universe come?” What you really mean is where did the universe come from? Where did God, the world, my body, my affairs, my belief system, where did it come from? That’s what you mean when you inquire, “To whom does the world come, to whom does the universe come?” And of course the answer will be, “Why, this comes to me. I perceive it. I feel it. I see it.” Because of your previous training, it will be easy for you to discern, “Look what I said? I said, “I see it.” In other words, it isn’t me. It isn’t my true self. It is I that perceives the universe, that perceives a God. Who is this I? What is the source of the I? Where did this I that appears to be the universe come from? Who gave it birth? How did it come into existence?” As you keep practicing the answer will come, “No one gave it birth, and it never came into existence.”
Then there will be a silence, a quietness, and you will feel blissful. You will feel a happiness that you never dreamed existed. It will be so great, that you will immediately transcend your body, or I should say transmute your body, your world and your affairs into bliss.
To other people you’ll look the same way you do now, but you will know. You will not give yourself a name and say, “Now I am enlightened,” or “Now I am a Jnani,” or “Now I am this,” or “Now I am that.” Those names were given by the people who are not that to the people who are that. The realized person has no name, for they are Sat-Chit-Ananda.
They are Brahman, emptiness, all pervading, never born, always has been, always will be.
Those words will not come to you, but the feeling of being will come to you. Pure being.
Not being this or being that, but absolute reality, pure awareness. That is the final result.
So let’s talk about you. What are you going to do about all this? You hear the words. They hit a nerve in some people, and some people will begin their training within themselves. Others will go to another teacher next Thursday, next Wednesday, and see what that teacher has to offer. Others will read another book and add it to their collection.
Others will say, “Teacher so and so is going to be in Hawaii next week. I’m flying out to see them.” And this will continue incarnation after incarnation, after incarnation.
Everything you want is within yourself. Your true teacher is the Self. And where else can the Self be except within yourself. You are that. Stop searching. Start doing, and become that.
Feel free to ask any questions.
SK: Robert you said everything is predetermined. Would the discrimination that God gives us, what latitude do we have with that discrimination? How far can we go with it? Like I’ve made a decision to live the rest of my life listening strictly to my heart chakra and nothing else. Not to argue with my intellect anymore, not to listen to the intellect just to the heart. I feel that I have certain powers of will that God has given me, that gives me the right to choose this path or that path within a certain perimeter. I have a hard time understanding that everything is preordained.
R: As long as you are living a worldly life, as long as the world affects you and you affect the world, everything is predetermined, everything. But as soon as you become humble and you acquire humility, you begin to turn within, instead of thinking, “I am great,” and “I can do this,” and “I can do that,” you would rather feel that you are nothing and surrender everything to God by turning within and offering to God. That is the time when the predetermination becomes weak. But as long as you are living in this world as a worldly person thinking, I am that and this is this and this is this way and that is that way, everything, even the raising of the finger is predetermined. Only when you dive deep
But as long as you react to conditions and to the world you can never be free, it’s all predetermined. And you go on life after life after life until you give it up. The ego appears to be very strong. It will tell you you’re this or you’re that and you’re good person and you should become this and you should become that, that is your ego at work. You should smile and say, “No, give it all up to God,” become empty. When a vessel is empty you can go to the ocean and …
(tape break)
… is full of dirty, filthy water you cannot add anything to it. It remains the same. In the same way we have all been impregnated with delusion, with ideas of grandeur, with all kinds of heart beliefs that we are important and have a mission to perform. (“God gave me a mission,” like the blues brothers, “I’m on a mission from God.”) We all believe this, all that has to go. We have to develop a tremendous humility. We have to look at the bum in the street as being God. We have to look at the worst situation we can ever imagine and look at that as God and in all humility become still and quiet, surrendering completely, everything. At that time you become free and you are no longer under the jurisdiction of karma, until then you are bound to the laws of karma.
SE: To be real clear about what you talk about, what is the relationship between the world we perceive, our bodies, minds and so forth, the I-am and consciousness?
R: The world we perceive is from the ego. Consciousness and I-am are synonymous. Consciousness and I-am is when the ego has been totally transmuted and transcended. What is left is I-am consciousness. They’re both the same. I-am consciousness means that you are emptiness. You are nirvana. Everything in the universe came out of you. You’re no longer the world, you’re no longer the ego, you have expanded and your real nature becomes consciousness without words. You really do not think that I-am consciousness or I-am. You have become that and there are no words to use to describe it.
Others will use those words to describe you but for you there are no words. You’re totally free.
SE: What do you mean when you say that the world is totally illusory even the illusion doesn’t exist? You mean compared with your true nature it’s illusory?
R: Compared with yourself, your true nature, the world is illusory. The world only exists because your mind exists but when you are consciousness there is no world. It’s like a dream. In the dream everything is going on just like this but you are aware that you’re not the dream. You are reality, you are consciousness.
Jorge (SR): Robert, who is the…I know this is back to a question that keeps coming up and probably I know what the answer is going to be from you but I’ll ask it again. Who is the author/creator of the ego that did all of this? I mean if you’re acknowledging that there is an ego I that exists and we all seem to share it in this room to some degree, maybe it’s academic but where did this come from and why? I think a lot of people ask… (R: I know.) Why? Why have it to start with?
R: Yes. I’m only acknowledging there is an ego for your benefit. An ego never did exist. It doesn’t exist now and the only words I can use to make you understand this is the water in the mirage. When you see water in the mirage you say it’s water but when you come up closer and you inspect it, there is no water it’s a mirage. The same way that the ego and the world looks real. It appears real because we’re so bound in the illusion. Yet nobody created it. It never was created. I admit the finite mind can never comprehend this.
How can nothing be created when I see everything with my eyes? It’s like hypnosis, you’re made to see something that doesn’t exist. Why? There is no why because nothing does exist. If it really existed then there would be why. But since it doesn’t exist there is no one to say why.
To understand this better you have to dive deep within yourself and you will find that you never existed and you do not exist now. Do not try to analyze it, you’ll get nowhere, you’ll go crazy. This has been my experience. But of course do not believe me why should you. But do the practice. You have to work on yourself until the question is answered.
SE: How can that which never existed, practice?
R: That which never existed does not practice. But that which believes that it exists practices. So as long as you believe something exists you have to practice until you find out nothing exists and there will be no practice.
Jorge (SR): Robert I get a clear picture of, once you step through that sort of mirror of illusion then it does become clear because I can see where you would not ask the question because you now see it from a whole new view, but we see it from a different perspective. So you wouldn’t ask the question any more but those on the other side of that are sort of trying to extricate themselves from that mirage out there or the idea of the mirage, I guess they’re still going to ask you that question over and over and if they, once they understand it then they probably wouldn’t come to these satsangs any more or they would move on?
R: Move on where? (laughter) (SR: Oh there is another teacher that talks about the next step up and you got to go there.)
(students laugh and make comments)
SB: Robert, Maya Baba I used to read Maya Baba, and he said that originally God was unconscious of his divinity and he created the whole creation to separate himself into creation and render himself and then going through all the animal kingdom, plant, vegetable, mineral, worm, human being then realizing himself as the occult stuff, like lights and sounds and higher planes, then only to realize that he’s the beloved that he’s been searching for and then he’s conscious he’s God.
R: Those are stories for children. (laughter) (SB: But it makes sense.) Of course it makes sense. To whom does it make sense? (SB: To the mind.) Of course. (SB: It makes sense that there is a reason for all this nonsense you know?) Just like “Adam and Eve” makes sense to
Jorge (SR): Robert, sometime just for fun would you make up a story of the answer to why?
R: There are many stories. (SR: Yeah I know.) Read the Upanishads, read the Old testament, stories are all over the place. Volumes have been written on stories. The Upanishads are about this thick (holds up his hands to show) filled with all kinds of stories.
When all you have to say is, “I am that.” Who will read it.
Mary (SM): Robert, the only thing I can say is that, the idea that, “What does it matter?” it only comes form my mind “What does it matter?” (R: True.) It’s only the intellect. (R: Of course, of course.) It really doesn’t matter. (R: It doesn’t.) It’s pretty simple. It just is, freely surrender.
Inquiry then surrender.
R: True. As long as these things matter jump within yourself and go deeper and deeper until you find the answer.
ST: Why would suicide be bad if it doesn’t exist?
R: Who said suicide is bad? (ST: You said that’s why we have stories related to us.) Oh I mean we probably could be ahead of the game. It doesn’t matter if you commit suicide.
The whole thing is a joke anyway. For there is really nobody to commit suicide. If you do not exist how can you commit suicide? But if you’re playing the game you can commit suicide, you can commit hairy carey, you can become the bomber of the pentagon. (laughter) SB: But if you commit suicide you cut yourself off from the possibility of realizing your divinity right now? (R: Not necessarily.) Then you have to start all over and you might become a worm and have to go all the kingdoms of nature… (SE: …or a bus driver?) That’s probably what I did in my last life and having to be here and have to put up with all you characters. (laughter) The teachings that I have read say that suicide is a great, great sin.
(students joke and laugh)
SB: It’s like murder right. You’re murdering the body which is not even you, it’s like murdering somebody else’s body.
R: Well it’s not like murder because you’re doing it to yourself. (SB: Yeah but you didn’t create yourself so it’s like murdering yourself…) Then who created you? (SB: Well who ever did. Why do all the spiritual Masters say suicide is a heinous crime?) Ask a spiritual Master.
(laughter) (SB: They say that really Robert, spiritual people, realized Masters…) People say all kinds of things. They say so many things people go insane. Say less. Think less. Be yourself and become free.
SE: How does mind give rise to the world? What is the process?
R: Mind that appears to exist thinks about itself. When it thinks about itself the body is formed. When the body is formed it expands into the world and into the universe and God and everything else. So mind began to create everything that you see. If you want to change the condition, you’re not going to start chopping the trees down and making this a better world to live in, you get rid of your mind that created everything.
When your mind goes, the mind by the way is another name for the ego, when the mind goes everything else disappears with it because the mind is also the personal I and everything is attached to the personal I. The mind and the I and the ego go, then there is only the Self. So the mind is the culprit for existence.
SE: How is the mind created and sustained?
R: It’s not. Nothing created it so nothing sustains it. (SE: Who observes it?) No one.
(SE: What’s the relationship between consciousness and the mind then?) There is no relationship. (laughter) What we call consciousness is self-contained which means it’s omnipresent. It’s the only thing that exists. Therefore in pure consciousness there cannot possibly be anything else. There cannot be a mind, or an ego or an I because there is no place for it to be, there is no room. (SE: So it’s neither inside nor outside of consciousness?) Right. (SE: It has no existence or validity or sustaining whatsoever?) There is no place for it to have that. That is why you call it the void. Emptiness. Nirvana. There is nothing else. So mind, the I-thought, consciousness, the personal consciousness they’re all illusions.
ST: It seems like a constant question, but if I don’t have a mind can I balance my check-book? (R: Sure.) What part of me does that? (R: The Self.) ST: So we don’t need our mind, the part that negotiates our way through the world?
R: Your mind is a conglomeration of thoughts, that’s all your mind is. So balancing your cheque book is a memory in your mind. Therefore you know how to do that. Yet your body came to this earth for a certain purpose, that’s the story and your body will do what it came here to do but it has absolutely nothing to do with you. In other words your cheque book will be balanced whether you have a mind or not because something in you will make it happen.
But if you identify with your mind then you’ll be affected by your balance in the cheque book and you will be happy when you have a big balance and you will be miserable when you have nothing. But when you work outside of your mind then you become the observer, you do not react, you become free.
Jorge (SR): Robert what do you think teachers are talking about when they talk about other loco, again maybe those are fairy tale things, like when you move from this state you move to another loca and on and on…
R: That’s part of the story of existence. Of locas like the kundalini, the chackras they’re all in your mind. They all come out of your mind. They have no validity of their own. You have to think of them don’t you? That shows you they’re in your mind. When you are free you have no thoughts about those things. But as long as you believe you exist as a person then when you die you can move to this loca, you can move to the Krishna loca, the Shiva loca all kinds of locas and you can keep localing for thousands of years.
SH: Having to loco for thousands of years.) (laughter) (R: Go loco.) (laughter)
SL: It’s easy for you to say. (laughter)
R: There are no explanations. Explanations confuse you. Again go within yourself.
Find out who you are and then you will know what’s real and what’s not.
Jorge (SR): Robert it seems that electricity is the building block of all of this illusion?
R: So pull out the plug. (students laugh) (SH: Yeh Bravo!) (laughter) SB: So that’s the mind. (R: Of course) Pull out the mind that’s like pulling out the plug.
(R: Of course.) Can we use TNT? (R: Whatever you like.) SU: Robert I don’t know how to put this but I have been trying diligently ever since I’ve come here to practice what you’ve been telling us and then I got all messed up with the inquiry and you suggested surrender and I’ve been trying that and all that I can tell you is that I feel worse than I have ever felt in my whole life… (R: That’s good!) …and that I feel that I am dying. I can’t breath, I just can’t breath, my body is all itchy. I get up at 4 o clock in the morning, I don’t know what what wakes me and I’m trying to practice but it goes beyond my ability to do that. Yeah and I just feel like I’m dying?
R: Something is moving and that is wonderful. All of your samskaras, all of your karma. (SU: Wow.) All the stuff you’ve been holding in for so many years is coming to the surface and you’re able to get rid of it at one time. (SU: You get rid of it at one time you say?) With most people it’s spread out into thousands of incarnations. (SU: Oh I see.) When you get into a path like this everything is coming to the surface so you can inquire, “To whom does it come?” and it falls out and you get rid of it. Therefore the more karma you’ve had, the more samskaras you’ve had the worse you will feel and that’s a good sign. That is why people like Jesus said, “I have not come to bring peace, but I have come to set father against mother, son against husband or wife or whatever.” (laughter) Peace is not the solution. Get rid of yourself and you will be peaceful.
Do not concern yourself about death or living. Concern yourself with getting rid of yourself. Be the witness, watch. Watch yourself going through all those experiences.
(SU: That is what I’ve been trying to do.) Do not try to change bad for good. Whatever comes, watch it go out. Watch it come to the surface. Smile, observe yourself feeling that way. Pay it no mind, just look.
SU: I watch it but terror like I’ve never known in my entire life, I’ve watched it, I watch it and it’s true what you say, but I say, “Who is feeling this terror?” and I say, “I.” There is a release.
There is a relief from it.
R: Sure because every time you say it that’s some more stuff is gone out and pretty soon you’ll be empty. It may not happen in this life but it doesn’t matter. (SU: (laughs) Oh?) What difference does it make? (SU: That is something to look forward too.) Of course because you’ll be way ahead of the game. Life doesn’t end with your death you continue the process. Which means in your case you will be born to parents who are already on this path and you will start very early. You’ll be ahead of the game. There are no losses only gains.
But don’t pay too much attention to yourself. (SU: Yeah but that’s what this stuff does, it makes you pay attention to yourself.) Of course, but catch yourself. Remember to remember not to pay attention.
SH: Can you go backward as well as forward?
R: You can’t really go backwards now. (SH: No?) You can take a short vacation that looks like going backward but once you’re on a path like this you stay there. You can say for want of other words that you can take three steps forward and one backward that is how it appears to some people. But then you take seven steps forward and two backward.
(SH: But those who aren’t on any set path, they can certainly go backwards?) They can go back.
(SH: With a vengeance?) Oh yes. (SH: In other words we’re all saved, huh?) We’re all hell bound for heaven. (laughter)
(more comments and laughter)
R: See again don’t let this make you cynical. (SU: Right.) When people first get into something like this they say, “Who cares about anybody? Who cares about anything?
Nothing exists.” If that were true you wouldn’t feel that way. You would feel a prevailing love, a compassion, a joy, but if you have an attitude of, “I don’t give a damn,” you’re on the wrong track.
SH: That just strengthens the illusory separate I? (R: Yes.) Makes it look real. (R: Of course.)
SE: Robert was joking a couple of weeks ago when we said we ought to have a flyer that says, “Tired of the good life, join the Jnana Marga society.” (students laugh) SU: Thank you Robert that makes me feel better or I shouldn’t feel better, huh? (laughter) R: Just be your Self.
SH: The worst is yet to come. (SL: Worse is better.) Yeah, worse is better.(laughs) SB: Robert is there a short cut if you don’t want to be reborn? Let’s say you’re getting older and you don’t want to be reborn is there something you can do that will cut through the whole mess?
R: Jump off the bridge. You can just wake up if you want, anytime you’re ready.
Actually all you really have to do is just wake up. (SB: Wake up to consciousness?) Wake up to your Self, to consciousness. (SB: So it means to practice every moment just to the point of…) You can become intense within yourself and just have a grand awakening. (SB: Release everything to the wind?) Whatever turns you on. (students roar with laughter) R: For those of you who like to meditate there is nothing more powerful than the “I am” meditation. And most of you should practice this. We’ll do it now, so make yourself comfortable. (Robert speaks to someone) You can lie there. You don’t have to get up.
Close your eyes to remove obstructions. The first thing you do is relax every muscle in your body. You can start with your toes and tell your toes to relax, your feet to relax, ankles relax, calves relax, knees relax, thighs relax, hips relax, abdominals relax, back relax,
Now you become the witness to your breathing, to your respiration. You practice a sort of Vipassana meditation. You observe your feelings, your breath. You do not react to it or try to change it. You simply observe. You witness and you feel yourself relaxing deeper and deeper. If your mind begins to wonder away bring it back peacefully when you catch yourself.
You ask yourself the question, “Who is the witness? Who is the observer to my breath, to my feelings?” and the answer comes, “I am,” this is the meditation part. With your respiration, you inhale to yourself, you say, “I,” you exhale you say, “am,” breath naturally and normally. Inhale say, “I,” exhale say, “am.” This is very powerful.
(long silence to tape ending)
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.