– Transcript 93
R: Om, shanti, shanti, shanti, om, peace, peace. Good evening. (Students: Good evening.) I welcome you with all my heart. It’s good to be with you again.
You have absolutely nothing to worry about. No matter how things may appear, all is well. There never was anything wrong, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong now.
You can only feel this when you understand your true nature, when you feel that you’re not the body-mind phenomena, you are not the doer. You are the imperishable Brahman, absolute reality, consciousness. This is your true nature. You cannot be both. You have to come into your own and realize your divinity, that you are pure intelligence, nirvana, Sat-Chit-Ananda, ultimate oneness, or you believe you’re a human being.
If you investigate, you will see that you cannot possibly be a human being. Human being is just a name given to an entity, for we don’t know what else to call it. You’re always changing, changing, changing. You’re not the same person you were ten, twenty years ago. When you go to sleep and you’re in deep sleep, you forget about yourself.
When you dream you forget about yourself. When you’re awake, like you are now, you forget about your dreams and your deep sleep.
Therefore I ask you, what is your true state? Are you the person who dreams? Are you the person who is in deep sleep? Are you the person who exists right now? Who are you? What are you?
You can only find out by investigation. You begin to see that your personal self is only a thought, an idea, a bad dream. You are not the person who is born, goes through the vicissitudes of life, dies, and that’s it. When I tell you, “You were never born,’ it sounds ludicrous. When I tell you, “You can never die,’ it sounds even worse. Yet if you investigate and you trace it back, where did the first born come from? Who gave it birth?
You can go into the story of creation. That will appease some people, but the thinking person knows it’s a story.
In a dream there is no story of creation. You begin to dream just where you are. It just appears. The dream comes out of you, becomes externalized. There’s a sky, there are stars, there are people. All sorts of things are happening. You go through experiences in your dream. You are happy, you’re sad, you’re mad. But yet when you wake up, the dream is gone.
This life is called the mortal dream. You have to catch yourself when you take life too serious, and compare it with a dream. When you take your dream serious, and you become violently upset over something, and I try to explain to you, you’re dreaming, you will never believe me, because the dream world is very powerful at that time.
The doctor has diagnosed cancer, you’ve got two months to live. But I tell you, “You’re dreaming.” Do not put your energy on that. Rather turn within. See your reality.
Understand that this is a dream. Well you chase me away. You do not want to accept that, because no one else believes it. Yet you wake up in the morning, and it was just a dream.
Think about the problems, the wonderful experiences, everything you’ve been through since you were born. It appears so real, doesn’t it? And even now you are a product of all your samskaras, all of your preconceived ideas, your concepts, and how you were brought up and trained. This is your life. You do not know any other life but this. Yet every person seems to come from a different upbringing. Every person has their own beliefs, their own ideas, what’s right, what’s wrong, what is good, what is bad.
That’s how wars start. That’s how man’s inhumanity to man begins. When you believe I’m right and you’re wrong. When you begin to see things that are not right and you want to correct them. No one has ever told us, instead of doing that, dive within yourself and see perfection. See the atman. See unlimited bliss. Begin to dwell on the reality, and soon your world will become reality.
When you go to a movie, there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. What is left?
The screen. The movie was shown on the screen and all sorts of things transpired in the movie. People were killed, people got married, people had children, the world was bombed, yet the screen never changes. The screen remains the same. There’s a story on the screen about a person who was born, he’s sexually abused by his parents, he goes through all kinds of horrifying experiences, he becomes a man, becomes a serial killer. All this is going on, on the screen.
Then again you see a prince. A baby is born a prince. He grows up into beautiful circumstances, has everything in life, doesn’t seem to have a problem. This is too going on, on the screen. But there’s an end, and all the images are gone. The screen remains, untarnished, unblemished, the same as it was yesterday, and the week before, and the year before.
My friends, your true nature is like the screen. You are not the image that appears to go through different trials and tribulations, or appears to be enjoying life to the utmost.
They’re both impostors. You are like the screen. There never really was an image. The image appeared for a time. It appeared. It appeared due to the fact that if you try to grab the image on the screen, what would you grab? The screen. That’s why it is an appearance.
It is hard to believe that your life, what appears right now, is unreal, simply because you have identified with it strongly. This is what is called Maya, the grand illusion.
You have strongly identified with your appearance of life, and you are reacting accordingly. Every time you react you are accruing karma. Accruing karma simply means the image is continuing again and again, the ego becoming stronger and stronger. And even when you leave this body, it continues into another body. There’s no end.
You go through many cycles, some good, some bad. You have all kinds of experiences. But until you realize that you are not the experiencer and there’s no experience, you will go through the cycles of karma again, again, again, ad infinitum, no end. It is only when you get tired of playing the game called Maya, playing a part called Leela, that you decide to find the answer to your existence. You have to go through the game over and over again, and finally begin to search.
You become a seeker. You begin to read spiritual philosophy. You may find a teacher and you’re on the path. Depending on what you do, this determines where you go from there. When you come to a meeting like this, when you attend a satsang like this, you can rest assured that you have done spiritual work in a previous life. You deserve to be here to understand the reality, to understand how to transcend the mind, the ego, the personal self.
As you begin to practice self-inquiry, witnessing, the I am meditation, things begin to happen. You’re searching for self-realization, whereas all this time, self-realization has been exactly where you are. You have always been that, yet you believe you’ve got to search, you’ve got to read books, deep philosophies, when all you had to do was to wake up. All you had to do was awaken, just as when you awaken in the morning from your dream, you awaken. It’s the same thing now. You simply have to awaken.
Yet what is keeping you from awakening? Your attitudes. You are attached to your emotions and you are seeing things in your life that either appear wrong or appear either appear right. As long as you have a concept of right or wrong, you can never transcend your body and become free.
Some people ask, “But things are right and wrong in this world. I have to take a stand.” My question to those people are always the same. “To whom is there right and wrong? Who feels right and who feels wrong?” Only the ego. In reality there’s no right and there’s no wrong. There are just experiences of a dream unfolding. Yet the dream doesn’t exist. It never did. The world, as it appears right now, does not exist. It never did. The way you believe you are, does not exist. It never did.
There is only one and you are that. There never were others. There’s only the one.
Yet most of you cannot feel this. You’re so identified with Maya that the world of appearances cause you to feel emotional. You therefore have to work on yourself. You have to do something to yourself, to help you become free. If you leave yourself alone, and you do nothing, you’ll go through life, after life, after life, on various planets. You’ll have various bodies, female, male, maybe other bodies. It will never end for you.
Therefore you begin to question your existence. That is the first step. You question your existence. You question your existence by inquiring, “Who am I? Where did I come from? What is my real nature?”
You start this early in the morning, as soon as you open your eyes. Instead of being cognizant of the world, you leave the world alone for a few minutes. You question yourself, you ask yourself, “Who is awake?” and the answer comes, “I am. I am awake.“Then you realize, “I also slept, I slept well, I had a good dream,” and you start to wonder about this. This same I that is now awake, is the same I that had a good dream, and the same I that slept well. “Who is this I? What is it’s source?”
There is a spiritual center on the right side of your chest. You may call this the God center or consciousness. It is on the right side of your chest. You begin to trace the I-thought back to that center from whence it came. Once the I goes back into the center, you become liberated.
Therefore the whole idea of spiritual practice, in Advaita Vedanta, is to follow the I-thought back to the source and become free. When the I appears to leave the spiritual center it goes into the brain, and you become cognizant of I am, I am the body, I think.
Then you create a world and a universe out of your mind, and the world appears to you as reality. This all happens in a split second. That’s why you’re not aware of it.
In other words, while you were sleeping the I rested in the spiritual center. As soon as you awaken, in a split second, the I goes into the brain, you become cognizant of a body, and then a world, and then a universe, and the mortal dream begins. So, you have to vehemently make up your mind that you really want to awaken. That’s the first prerequisite.
How do you know if you really want to awaken? You are sick and tired of the world. You’re a person who is no longer trying to change bad for good, for you realize they’re both impostors. You understand that the good lasts for so long, then there is bad.
The bad lasts for so long, then there is good. You get old, you leave your body, and the game continues. You have to be disgusted with this first, I kid you not. As long as you believe you’re enjoying the world and enjoying your life as a human being, you cannot awaken.
It’s like being in a dream and you’re having a wonderful dream. You just don’t want to wake up. But all things in the dream must come to an end and change. If you realize that the only thing permanent in life is change, then you will treat the good things in your life the same way as the bad things in your life. You will not become emotional over them, and you will not be attached to them. That’s the only time you can go further.
As long as you still want to play the game of Maya, and act out your part, there’s no sense in practicing self-inquiry, for your attachment will keep you back from reality. But for the person who has gone through many lives and is ready to give it all up, that person can practice self-inquiry.
A question arises. “When I become self-realized, do I have to go live in a cave, or in the forest, or become a hermit?” On the contrary, there are Jnanis in every field of endeavor. Yet who asked that question? The ajnani. This is one of the things you should not concern yourself over. Everything will always work itself out.
Many of you call me on the telephone and tell me you’re afraid of awakening. You think you’ll be different, your family will leave you or you’ll leave your family, you’ll lose your job. This is all ignorance. None of that will happen. The only thing that will happen
is you’ll be awake, and you’ll see the world as a superimposition on the Self. That’s all. You will have exceedingly happy moments in your life when you’re in delusion, but the happy moments go. When you’re awake, you stay in unlimited bliss. You become unlimited bliss.
There are no longer any mood swings. You’re always the same. Joy, bliss, happiness, they’re all rolled into one, and they are you.
So the sincere student does not worry about the results, or what might happen.
They’re ready to go for it. When something in their heart opens and they’re ready to go for it 100%, they are led to the right teacher, who can show them the way, and they follow the instructions of the teacher. That comes first in their life. Those are the beings who awaken into bliss.
You begin to practice when you get up in the morning. You realize it takes a split second for the I-thought to go back into the brain, so you keep inquiring, “What is the source of the I?” and you keep silent. You can imagine in your mind, if you want to, the I-thought going back from the brain into your heart. You begin to cogitate. You begin to focus on your spiritual heart. How do you do that? Through silence. You ask, “Who am I?”
and you keep still. You see how still you can become before thoughts begin to annoy you.
When the thoughts come, you inquire, “To whom do they come? They come to me. I think them.” There’s I again. It’s always the same I. You therefore follow the I back to the spiritual center which is silence.
As you keep on practicing day after day, as you keep on doing your homework, the day will come when something happens. Many people give up too easy. Never look for results. This is why, even before you get to self-inquiry, another thing you have to develop is humility. Total humility. You forget about what people say, what people do. You observe the world, but do you not react to it, and you begin to practice every day. You begin to understand that the I-thought doesn’t exist. It never did.
This is why you do not concentrate on the I-thought. You concentrate on the source, which is the Self, God, consciousness. If this becomes difficult for you, you practice surrender. That’s where the humility comes in. You surrender your body, your mind, your ego, your affairs to God, or to the Self, or to your heart. You no longer need or want anything. You give it all up to God.
I know some of you are wondering, “How will I function? What will happen to me?” I can assure you, if you truly surrender, you will always be taken care of. You will always be guided and directed to where you have to be, to do those things that are necessary for you to do at this time. You become spontaneous. You learn to live in the eternal now. You always bring your mind back, your thoughts back, to the present. You remember to catch your thoughts when you start thinking.
Your thoughts will always think about the past, and worry about the future. This is the nature of your mind. Yet you keep remembering to bring it all back to the now. You stay centered in the now. You surrender everything, and you keep inquiring, “Who am I?
How did this body arise?” The body, the I-thought, the mind, the ego, are all the same. Soon you will awaken and you will understand that there is only the Self. There never was anything else.
Your real nature is like a universal screen. On that universal screen planets are being born, universes come and go. The earth is only a small dot on the screen. You are that screen. You are nothing else. You are Parabrahman, all pervading. You are self-contained consciousness, absolute reality, emptiness, nirvana, Sat-Chit-Ananda, I am that I am. That is your real nature.
Therefore make up your mind. Whom shall I follow? Shall I follow my ego, my emotions and what appears to be real, or shall I begin to ignore those things and dive into my Self, becoming free? The choice is yours.
Jay (SJ): Robert, is there some little room at some point, can one dive into and embrace of what’s so-called out there and then begin to realize? (R: Embracing what?) Embracing…you said there was either one or the other, right? (R: Umm.) Embracing your emotions or diving into yourself?
At some point isn’t there some kind of - where there are some paths involved which transcend an emotion by using it or diving into it, that is poignant to us or spiritual.
R: Well all of the paths, and really of the practices are a hindrance. They appear to be working for you sometimes. But all they are doing is keeping you on the path. The secret is to wake up and stop thinking you’re on a path. In the beginning stages you can say, “I’m on the path.” But as you advance, “What path?” There is no path, there is only the Self. (SJ: In that vein you are embracing the Self really, when you embrace anything so called outside of yourself?) Well you’re not really embracing the Self, you become the Self. That’s your nature. That’s what you really are. Everything else is false.
Jay (SJ): What I’m getting at is - if it is appropriate for me at any given time to embrace the Self outside. You know it’s like diving into yourself inward but you’re diving outward into the Self? (R: How do you do that?) I don’t know, I don’t know, maybe it was just a feeling from me about that.
R: If you’re diving outward you’re diving into illusion because anything outside of yourself is a projection of the mind. Therefore anything that you entertain outside of yourself is a total illusion. It doesn’t bring you nearer. The only way to do it is to realize that you are an emanation of your mind as a body. Your body, the universe, everything in it emanates out of your own mind. So you want to get rid of your mind and the illusion will become transmuted. So you investigate what the mind is. You dive deep into the heart and you become free.
Jay (SJ): Yeah, I guess I’m talking about something that wasn’t used as a practice or anything but that was just have been practiced? (SK: But Jay guru worship is like, you know, if you worship a guru and he’s outside of you, so in what you’re saying about, if you dive into love or becoming one with your guru and that’s an outer practice.) Yeah that is what I’m trying to…
R: Well worshiping your guru is a waste of time. Worshiping the Self as the guru is where it’s at. The true sat-guru is really your Self, you’re not separate. If you’re seeing a guru separate from your Self that’s further delusion and you could be sucked back into bondage very fast.
Jay (SJ): But you also can transcend that situation you’re going through? (R: By what?) There seems to be an element that you can transcend whatever one is believing about it and realize the truth just through that. Though it doesn’t occur as much…I mean just as much as it can suck you in it can also lead you to realization.
R: There is only one way to become realized and that is to understand that the world is a movie, the universe is Maya, only the Self exists and awaken to the Self by diving deep within. (pause) I understand what you mean, but those paths and those ways are difficult. It takes you years and years when all you have to do is to dive within yourself.
Jay (SJ): Yeah I’m sorry I mentioned something that wasn’t in and of itself, and I agree with you totally, one should always go within, but once in a while also there seems to be some things that occur in one and some other things along with it that lead one to self-realization.
R: The changes appear to be there, but you and I both know that there are people who are on spiritual paths and have been on spiritual paths for 50 million incarnations and they never get off it because they are worshiping something external to themselves.
Jorge (SR): What I hear you saying Robert and Jay, and my understanding and I may not be understanding it correctly is, I hear Jay suggesting that another way less direct is to allow oneself to become absorbed in something external, maybe an activity, maybe a person but in an egoless fashion. And that egoless fashion I was interpreting as the key to slipping back to the state where you were wanting or suggesting that we go and then I hear you saying that, yes that could work but it’s a very long route and chances are that it’d take a lot longer than the more direct route that you’re suggesting. Am I understanding or…?
R: Yes. If you are egoless you are the Self and there is no path, there are no others, there is no God, there is no universe, there is no realization, there is no liberation, there is no bondage. Therefore if you are the Self, you are the Self and that’s it. But if you are trying to find the Self outside of yourself that’s a bad dream. For there is no Self outside of your Self. (SH: That’s an impossible undertaking.) Of course. Only the Self is the Self, there is nothing outside. No thing exists outside the Self. Therefore when you start fooling around with yoga’s and mysticism and occult sciences you are perpetuating illusion and you get stuck. You have to give it all up, surrender everything and become free.
Most people still feel they have to change bad for good. Remember they’re all human attributes. We’re not trying to change bad for good. We just want to awaken out of good and out of bad and become the imperishable Self which we already are. Therefore there is nothing in the external world that can do it for you. I know some of you are thinking, “Well how about you Robert? You’re doing this for us, you’re helping us?” What is really happening is I-am your Self. The one Self is operating and it appears to be going all through us. There is only the one, there are no others.
SQ: Could you tell us about…I heard that you said that you had an enlightening experience when you were fourteen? Did you feel your mind going into your heart? What was your experience? How did you get along with your parents? Your friends? What was their reaction? How did you…?R: Well we’ve been over that before. It’s all in the lessons. I’d rather not get into that right now. (SQ: Alright.) By listening to my experiences you do not become free, you become excited. (students laugh) Rather do the work and make something happen to yourself.
Fred (SF): Last week Robert I asked you if it were not so that everything in duality is short of the goal and you also said that nothing in duality is of any importance. (R: Correct.) Thank you.
SP: Robert I’ve often had a concept of the nature of objects and the disillusion of objects including my own ego or idea. I think of the stars and how in their own time the stars will break up and dissolve and that there is nothing in this universe that will hasten or slow down that process that there is some kind of mechanism, and I understand that this is a concept and that I have but it seems to me that in terms of my desire to be free and watching impediments, you might like the forgetfulness or whatever, it could be the attachment to the world or the illusion that I identify with my body, with my mind. I have this sense that in a way that I have nothing to do to speed up that process of letting go, is that correct?
R: That’s a very high state. When you realize that there is really nothing you have to do. That everything unfolds by itself. Everything takes care of itself. It’s a paradox. First you have to believe you have to practice spiritual disciplines and after practicing spiritual disciplines you come to the conclusion there is really nothing you have to do. When your time is ready, you will become who you are supposed to be. But to get to that point you have to practice spiritual disciplines first, so it appears. (laughter) To find out that you don’t have to practice anything. If you center yourself and you live in the eternal now, acting spontaneously, everything comes faster. Therefore the main thing you have to do is to keep yourself from thinking. Stop your thoughts at all costs. Slow down your mind.
SP: I’m not clear though, the slowing down the mind, again this is kind of a general impression that I have of many people who practice different spiritual practices is to slow down their minds, even that though does not necessarily bring you to freedom. There are many people who seem to have, again it’s impossible to for me to know, but who have quiet minds who aren’t free and maybe the process is a longer one or one that is out of…
R: They appear as if they’re not free. Yet if you really slow down your mind you have to become free because it is your thoughts that keep you bound. A person may appear to slow down their mind externally but internally all kinds of things are going on.
That’s why you can never judge another person. Work on yourself, become free and then you’ll see.
SH: Who slows the mind down. Who is to slow it down?
R: Your mind slows down when you stop thinking. It slows itself down. (SH: Who is this you, you continue to refer to?) You is no one. No one exists as you. (SH: If you as ego is going to slow the mind down, this won’t work.) It will not work as long as you believe you are ego slowing the mind down. (SH: But who slows it?) Nobody. (SH: Nobody?) But it appears as if it slows down. (SH: What brings that about?) Illusion. (SH: I mean to slow it?) It’s illusion, it’s all illusion. It appears as if your mind slows down. (SH: Then in rapidity of the mind
is equally an illusion?) Of course. (SH: Yeah.) You also appear to awaken, when you’ve been awake all the time. (SH: (laughs) Okay.)
Glen (SG): So the idea to hasten or slowing down the process that’s just a concept of time. So if the minds not working there is no time to worry about whether things are slowing down or speeding up?
R: Nothing slows down, nothing speeds up. (SG: It’s just a concept of time so time is the mind.) When talking to you sometimes we use those contradictory terms. But there is absolutely nothing to slow down or nothing to speed up. You are already free.
Glen (SG): What is all this stuff about the right side, the right side of the chest, that seems…?
R: Again that doesn’t exist but you have to do something. (SG: Why?) (students laugh) Wake up! You have to wake up, but because you won’t wake up then we have to talk and you hear me babbling all day. Simply because you will not wake up. When you wake up none of this exists. It has never existed and it will never will exist. But by talking to each other something may give inside of you, sometimes, and it may be an awakening process. So when I’m sharing this information I’m sharing nothing.
SH: When you say that none of this exists or never existed that is totally intrusive. That everything perceptible, thinkable or cognizable. (R: Correct.) That would have to be otherwise you’d be a liar. (laughter) Who would be? No body of course. (laughs) That famous character.
SL: Robert is the process of the awakening happen in lieu of glimpses in ones life or does it have to be in one fell swoop?
R: The true awakening comes at once. Prior to that you appear to have glimpses.
But the glimpses are not the true awakening. (SL: Because I didn’t stay awake? I had a couple of glimpses in my life but I didn’t stay there, I wish I could of.) They were not total glimpses.
(SL: Right.) The total glimpse is now and forever and there is no going back.
Glen (SG): So glimpses are another part of the dream? (R: Yes.) The dream that you’re enlightened? (R: Yes.) SH: They’re clearer part of the dream, they’re less dense but they’re nonetheless dreams.
R: Umm, it’s all a dream.
Fred (SF): It could be a glimpse of the type that it’s not a dream? (R: Say that again?) A glimpse of the reality would indicate reality is not a dream?
R: A glimpse of reality makes you want to go further, but it’s all part of the Maya.
When one is awakened there is no past, there is no future, there is nothing. (SF: There is no going back to Maya?) There is no going back at all.
SH: There is no going? In any direction.
R: There is no coming, there is no going. There never was a coming or a going.
There is no one to go anywhere.
Glen (SG): What sort of Self is… you can’t conceptualize it, but it seems like you used to learn a God is and always was and this is sort of like the Self never was and never will be. (R: You can say that yes.) The Self is the absence of everything? (R: Yes.) It’s sort of a void?R: That’s a good way to put it. Yet it’s not a void, it’s beyond description. (SG: So it’s the absence of everything including any description of it.) Exactly.
Jay (SJ): The absence of anything that you can conceive of? (R: It’s absence of the void too.) SH: That’s just another concept? (R: Yes. That is why words are so inadequate.) SV: Robert I saw a program last week it was on the mind and it had to do with this man who was this brilliant conductor. And developed a virus which affected the memory part of his brain, the attention part. And they said this man, the term they used was he lived in the eternal presence. Because he had maybe two minutes worth of memory. So every two minutes it was as if he was constantly or continually awakening. And from his level of perception it was a nightmare because he couldn’t carry on a normal life. But he was in a constant state of awakening and in fact he committed himself to as if he was coming out of a coma. And he put down in his diary, “I am now awake. I am now alive.” And he would put down the time but it was like every two minutes.
And this was his life. And from that standpoint the eternal value was a nightmare.
R: This is a flaw of the mind. It has to do with a mental concept. It’s part of the mind it’s not a real awakening. A real awakening would be bliss and joy. It would be entirely different. It’s obviously blunted his brain, that was not functioning right.
SV: Right but it was interesting because part of the practice is to live in the now. (R: Umm.) And that means to forgive the past and not to focus on future. But carried to it’s ultimate state at this level this is what this man actually was doing. He had no memory of the past and he could not even think about the future. And all he could do was focus in this time in the moment. It was just interesting to be shown this but as you said from a mental level, at this level of life it becomes a nightmare because he still used the mind as an avenue of awareness and the body as a means of communication.
R: A real awakening is you’re cognizant of the world. You can make decisions, you live a normal life but you realize what the world is. You always realize you’re like the screen. And everything in this world, this universe is a superimposition on yourself. So you’re able to function and you’re able to do things and go through life. That’s the true awakening. But what you’re referring to is a mental flaw.
SV: My mistake, I didn’t mean it was a true awakening, (R: Yes.) I was just using it as an example of the eternal mind. (SG: It sounded like he was anticipating at the end of two minutes he went back into the state of mental oblivion…?) He wasn’t anticipating anything he was constant awakening two minutes before he felt he was in a coma. He couldn’t remember feeling anything, he couldn’t remember hearing anything. He couldn’t remember carrying out a conversation so in effect every two minutes was an awakening for him, joyous and being awakened and he would have joy at seeing somebody that was in front of him and he would think this was the first time he was seeing this person and he was happy to be out of the coma. But he wasn’t able to carry out a normal life of course.
SU: Robert when a person becomes fully awakened they’re totally not attached to anything in this world, right? They’re just not attached to anything or they don’t have any attachment.
Would that pose problems for those around one, family. How does one deal with that?
R: There is really no problem. For a true awakening is an embodiment of love and compassion and you’re able to function as I mentioned before but you’re only aware of the reality that everything is Maya. Everything is an illusion, it doesn’t really exist and you can see it. So you’re able to function with your family with a greater love and a greater understanding and a greater peace.
Glen (SG): Robert what is the point of all of this? (R: All of what?) (students laugh) (long silence)
R: Yes Toku. (As Robert addresses dog.)
SH: (Henry the dogs owner says) He snuck up behind you. (laughs) SZ: When one is dreaming things happen of their own accord. One cannot rearrange the dream, one cannot do anything? Things happen also in the usual awakened state. Things happen of their own accord. In the dreaming no matter what you try to rearrange or do things will happen on their own? Same thing in the awakened state. In our state we try to do whatever for instance like doing self-inquiry is doing something inside of the dream. (R: Umm.) To what effect, nothing is going to be arranged to that, the awakening will happen on it’s own?
R: Umm. The awakening will happen on it’s own is true but part of the dream is practicing self-inquiry to hasten the process. That’s also part of the dream.
SZ: Because that is not considered in the usual dream. There is no way, is there some impulse that makes you awake when you’re dreaming?
R: There are many people who have a dream that they’re practicing spiritual practices in their dream and they awaken and they also wake up and they’re here.
SZ: No what I mean is in the usual regular dreaming state of the ajnani, for instance the awakening will happen when it’s time for the awakening to happen, (R: Umm.) …because they could be in whatever circumstances in the dream and try as they may they will still follow the illusion. (R: Umm.) I think the same happens in this awakened state… (R: Yes.) …you want to wake up, no matter how much you want to awaken from the illusion even trying self-inquiry, trying meditation, trying spiritual practices. You won’t take to nothing because this is just part of the dream even the effort? (R: Of course, it’s all part of the dream.) What I mean to say is that awakening is part of karma? It will happen whenever it has to happen. Regardless of the efforts one does in the awakened state in the ajnani position.
R: The only freedom we’ve got from karma is not react to conditions. To dive deep within and wake up. That’s the freedom we’ve got.
SZ: But if we do that with the hope of waking up it still means that you’re doing something of purpose and so you are more entrenched into the dream of the awakened state.
R: But you were meant to do that. That’s a part of it. (SZ: Oh.) You were meant to do that and awaken. This is what you were meant to do. Do you follow? (SZ: Yes, I understand.) SL: So we do have to go through part of the process which is part of our karma, which would lead us to the awakening in this life?R: Not necessarily. Everyone is different. We can just awaken by doing no thing at all but it seems that when we turn within and we practice self-inquiry we’ve come a long way and we’re ready to awaken. That’s why we learn to practice self-inquiry. There are millions of people on this earth who try to practice self-inquiry and couldn’t do it even if they tried. They’re not there yet. They’re not ready to awaken. It seems that when you’re ready to awaken you’re led to a teacher who tells you what to do which is all part of the dream. But it’s a hastening part and you awaken. (SL: Is that what is meant by the hastening process because you’re drawn by karma to a teacher?) Yes. That’s how it appears. (SL: Um-hm.) SG: So there is no freewill?
R: The only free will we’ve got is not to react to any condition and to turn within.
SZ: That’s what I was thinking Robert is that actually it’s karmic that you find the interest in self-inquiry or the interest in a practice like that which would guide you or lead you to be awake. (R: Yes. That’s karmic.)
Jay (SJ): And what makes the karma is there effort from a previous time… (R: Yes.) …towards the goal. So if you make an effort and you’re on that level then that is the way you can do it?
R: That’s why I mentioned before people who are in a class like this, a satsang like this have earned it. If you pull the average person from the street into satsang they will go completely mad. They couldn’t stand to hear this. It would be like a fire eating them up.
Jay (SJ): You know there is something I was thinking tonight - if you’re dreaming a regular dream you have no control over it, you don’t know what next is going to happen to you, but if you study with someone and you learn how to awaken in the dream, what they call lucid dreaming then you can wake up within the dream and change the dream. So you’re awake within the dream and so you can wake up to this world. Sort of like self-inquiry is like that situation where you use it when you’re trained in it to awaken from this dream and then you’re free and you can do anything you want or whatever it is.
R: You’re partially right. But in a dream you cannot awaken. (SJ: But you have that freedom, when you attain that goal or whatever you have freedom to do anything that you want to do?) When you’re dreaming… (SJ: It’s a sort of awakening from that little dream there. It’s just a simile they can’t talk for each other.) They’re separate states. (SJ: Oh yeah.) The dream world has nothing to do with this world.
Glen (SG): But it seems like the process is scaled I mean it seems to be very similar, some similar forms like when children learn about dreams that is the first step for they don’t know what dreams are when you ask them. And then the next step they begin to think that you see their dreams. And so when you walk in the room they’re amazed that you can’t see their dreams. And then as they develop they start to realize that they’re just mental events. (R: Umm.) It seems like the self similar forms of this state of consciousness. So that’s why the metaphor seems to work so well.
R: You can say that. We should stop… (SJ: Metaphorizing huh?) …thinking about dreams because dreams hold us back. A lot of value is out on dreams these days. Dreams are really totally meaningless. Just like this world is meaningless. There is no substance to this world. The world is an illusion, it’s a lie. So is the dream.
By paying attention to your dream you’re giving substance to nothing. Something that does not exist and it pulls you deeper into Maya. What you should do is to realize that your dream state is a lie and what you call the waking state is a lie. Transcend them both and become free. Make it simple for yourself. Do not become entangled in words or in dreams or in concepts. Simply realize you have to wake up and you have to do whatever you have to do to wake up.
(silence)
We’ve got some prashad to share - figs.
Jay (SJ): There is a little stem that you can just take off, like this.
(tape break)
R: You are not the body nor the mind nor the ego but that you are consciousness itself, all pervading, absolute reality, Sat-Chit-Ananda, Parabrahman. That is your true nature. God bless you, I love you, peace.
Until we meet again…
I was going to say, till we meet again may you drop dead soon. (Students roar with laughter) But some of you may take it the wrong way. (More laughter) SH: Just wish us liberation the nicest thing you can think.
Jay (SJ): Oh I have one announcement to make, because of the situation with parking it seems appropriate to try to car pool a little bit more especially that there might be some complaints that might be from the neighbors. So whenever people can to car pool then we’ll have less cars.
Mary (SM): I also have an announcement too please. We have more of the transcriptions. They’re coming a little bit faster now. I have two different transcriptions, one is “I am consciousness” and I have three…
(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.