– Transcript 103
R: …shanti, shanti, shanti, om, peace. No microphones Fred?
Fred (SF): No not tonight.
R: I’m usually hooked up with three microphones? So I guess you don’t love me anymore? (laughter)
Fred (SF): That’s right. (laughter)
R: Great. Good evening. (Students: Good evening) It’s good to be with you again. I welcome you with all my heart.
A question I’m usually asked a lot is this, if I become liberated - and of course you can’t become liberated you already are - when I awaken, I realize the mind has to be annihilated, destroyed wiped out when one is awakened. Will I be able to function without a mind?
I have explained this many times but most people cannot understand it so clearly because it is very difficult to understand it with your finite thinking. They also tell me, we watch the Jnani and the Jnani acts just like we do. If a Jnani doesn’t have a mind how can he think? How can he plan? How can he make decisions? We’ll go into this a little bit.
There are two answers: One is from the absolute sense and one is from the relative sense and it’s all nonsense. (students laugh) Who asked the question? The Jnani or the ajnani?
The Jnani knows that there is no mind and there is no action. No action is being taken. No thing is being done. There is absolutely no movement. Yet the appearance is that the Jnani moves and talks and eats and goes to the bathroom and watches TV and goes to a movie and does many so called human things. How can this be?
We appear to live in two universes. One is the universe of movement, of action and two is the universe of God, so-to-speak non-movement, non-duality. Yet they are both one, there are not really two there are one but they appear to be two. There appears to be other people sitting here, I appear to be talking but I realize nothing is going on.
This explains how Sages such as Rama Krishna, Ramana Maharshi and others, Nisargadatta were able to have such acute diseases, cancer and yet they were able to laugh until they dropped their body. In truth there is no cancer. Nobody died, there is no body to drop but in the relative world everything seems to happen. As long as you are working from your senses you will see, feel, hear, touch and smell the phenomenal universe. You will believe that you are the doer. Whereas when you awaken there is no doer. There is no one left to experience anything. This is quite a paradox but it is the absolute truth. Nothing is happening, no one is doing anything.
As you unfold you begin to become non-attached, non-reactive and you get a glimpse of what this is. You become happy, peaceful for no reason at all. For the sake of the relative world certain examples are given. Such as you shoot an arrow in the air. And even if you become enlightened after you shoot the arrow you cannot stop the arrow from going to it’s destination. The arrow represents the so-called body. You have become self-realized but the arrow will carry on as long as it is in the air until it reaches it’s mark.
So it is with the Sage. The Sage knows he is not the doer and there is nothing going on, yet the body appears to be working and doing things. The body is like the arrow moving through the air, when it reaches it’s destination that is when the body of the Jnani appears to drop and the Jnani no longer functions with a body.
Another example is the potters wheel. When the potter finishes turning the wheel and the object of his making has been completed. He takes his foot off the pedal or pulls out the electric cord or turns off the switch. Yet the wheel till moves before it stops, without any current, without any pressure.
And so it is with the body of the Jnani. The body goes through prarabdhic karma, completing it’s karma from past lives. Therefore the body appears to be doing things, moving, acting until the body drops. As far as the Jnani is concerned there is no difference between having a body and not having a body. It’s all the same to the Jnani no change has been made. The change is only in the eyes of others. People see the change. But in truth and in reality no change has been made.
When I came in this evening I recall seeing these examples in various books. In our library we have “Day by day with Bhagvan.” And I searched for the clue for what I was going to talk about and found it exactly like what I was saying. So let’s see what Bhagvan says about this.
Mary would you like to read this?
Mary (SM): Sure.
R: Start over here and read up to here. Listen attentively and you’ll hear it from another point of view.
(Mary reads)
“In the afternoon I showed Bhagvan the passage in today’s Sunday times where doctor T.M.P. Mahadhavan in his radio talk quotes Sri Shankara’s reference through his own experience as proof of the existence of the Jivan-Mukta and about the controversy concerning various kinds of Mukti. He read out passages from the Tamil book called “The truth of Advaita.” In which all doubt about the state of the Jivan-Mukta are raised and answered. Then he said, “Various illustrations are given in books to enable us to understand how the Jnani can live and act without the mind. Although living and acting require the use of the mind, the potters wheel goes on turning round even after the potter has ceased to turn it because the pot is finished. In the same way the electric fan goes on revolving for some minutes after we switch off the current.
The pro-lobbed which created the body will make it go through whatever activities it was meant for. But the Jnani goes through all these activities without the notion that he is the doer of them.
It is hard to understand how this is possible. The illustration generally given is that the Jnani performs actions in some such way as a child that is roused from sleep to eat, eat but does not remember next morning that it ate. It has to be remembered that all these explanations are not for the Jnani. He knows and has no doubt. He knows that he is not the body and is not doing anything.
Even though his body may be engaged in some activity. These explanations are for the onlookers who think of the Jnani as one with the body and cannot help identifying him with his body.
There are various controversies or schools of thought as to whether a Jnani can continue to live in his physical body after realization. Some hold that one who dies cannot be a Jnani because his body must vanish into air or some such thing. They put forward all sort of funny notions. If a man must at once leave his body when he realizes the Self I wonder how any knowledge of the Self or the state of realization can come down to other men. And that would mean that all those who have given us the fruits of their self-realization in books cannot be considered Jnanis because they went on living after realization.
And if it is held that a man cannot be considered a Jnani so long as he performs actions in the world, and action is impossible without the mind then not only the great Sages who carried on various kinds of work after attaining Jnana must be considered Jnanis but the God’s also and Ishvara himself since he continues looking after the world.
The fact is that any amount of action can be performed and performed quite well by the Jnani without his identifying himself with it in any way or ever imagining that he is the doer. Some power acts through his body and uses his body to get the work done.”
R: Thank you Mary. This should clear up that point because so many of you have been worried, “When I become self-realized I’ll be worthless. I’ll be nothing. I will not be able to function. I’ll not be able to perform.” So you can see that the performance will not stop. Yet you will realize that it is not you that is performing. You will be totally free and liberated. Happy, peaceful, joyous, blissful and yet the work will go on.
A further question is asked, “Why doesn’t a Jnani, if he is the Sage and the most powerful of all do healing work and heal the world?” Now that should be self explanatory after hearing the first part. To do healing work there has to be someone left to say, “I am a healer.” If the I has been destroyed who is left to do healing work? And who is there to heal? In the eyes of the Sage there is no sickness and no wellness. There is absolutely nothing to be done. No one to be healed, no one to be saved. For there has to be a doer to be able to do these things. And for the Sage the doership has been transcended. Remember this.Many people after they get into this teaching they become fearful after a while.
They believe they will lose all their reason. They will lose their mind. That’s exactly what is supposed to happen. They’re supposed to lose your mind. They’ve been brought up to believe if you lose your mind you become insane. That’s usually associated with losing your mind. Let me be insane.
The mind is what keeps you glued to the world. The mind is what makes you emotional. What causes the stress, the anxiety, the uncertainty, the anger, the reaction all that comes from the mind. Consequently wouldn’t it be wonderful if you lost your mind.
All of those traits would be totally transcended. You would be one pointed, you would be at peace. All the various thoughts about the world, your body anything external to yourself would totally disappear. There will no longer be a God who punishes you. There will no longer be karma who wants to get even with you. There will no longer be a past. There would be absolute nothingness.
When I use the term nothingness again it frightens some people. For they believe if I’m nothingness I will not function. I will be a vegetable. Again you are talking about your body not about your Self. Let me reiterate. Your body is doing the thing it came to this earth to do. It has absolutely nothing to do with you.
If your body is supposed to have cancer and even die from the cancer what has that to do with you? What have you got to do with this? You are not that one. You are not that person. Just thinking about these things makes you free. What difference does it make what experiences the body is going through when you begin to realize, that is not you.
You therefore stop worrying, stop fretting.
Yet some of you are still saying, “Well I don’t want the body to suffer. To go through fatal diseases or bankruptcies or divorces or whatever. “Don’t you see what you’re doing when you think this way? You are still believing you are the body, don’t you see?
Whenever you think this way that you want to save your body and you want good things to happen to your body, you believe you are the body. If you only knew you are not the body you could never be hurt. There will be no one who suffers. The so-called suffering is only an appearance. It is not real. It is only real to the one who identifies with the body and believes that they are the doer. This should be very clear to you. The body goes through it’s karma. But for you there is no karma. And there is nothing you have to go through.
You are totally free, you are the absolute reality. You are the pure awareness. You are Parabrahman. You are totally emancipated. That is your real nature. And your real nature is what you are now. Some of you believe that your real nature will come when you become enlightened. There is no such thing as becoming enlightened. Your real nature, absolute awareness is now. You are that!
It can never be tomorrow. Since time does not exist since you are the Self of all.
Time only exists for the human being, for the body, for the mind. But for yourself there is no time there is no space. For you are that. If you are self-contained reality, all pervading
omnipresent, there is no space, there is no room for time or anything else. For you take up all space, absolutely.
Identify with your real Self. Stop identifying with the things of the body. A good practice to remember is whenever you feel any emotion or whenever you feel anything that has to do with the body immediately remember, “I am not the body! I am not the mind! I am not this ego that appears to want something or desire anything or needs to be a certain way or has to remove something or has to go to a doctor, has to go to a priest, or has certain problems they have to remove and has to go to a psychotherapist.” You are not that person.
Try to feel that the person who feels these things is someone else not you. You are total freedom, absolute happiness. nirvana. ultimate oneness. When you think about yourself, think about yourself in those terms. Do not question yourself. Do not analyze yourself. Do not wonder about this. Do not say to yourself, “I hope it becomes so.” Live in the moment of eternity. Live only as your Self with a capital “S.”
Stop your mind from thinking, catch yourself! If you want to justify something, if you want to analyze something, catch yourself before you get into that. That is a trap that never ends. Once you start thinking about it, once you start analyzing it, it goes on and on and on. (Like that commercial and the battery, it goes on and on and on it never stops. See I watch TV too.)
Glen (SG): Yeah, the good parts. (laughter)
R: Remember to remember that’s all you really have to do. Of course if practice atma-vichara, self-inquiry that is perfect. That keeps you remembering. The whole secret is in remembering. Remembering that you are not the body-mind phenomena. Whatever your body is going through it’s okay. Do not react to it.
Whether you have a cold or whether you have a cancer, whether you are unhappy or happy. Whether you are lonely or whether you are with other people that you don’t like. Wherever you are it’s okay. Everything is all right. But when you begin to think, that’s where the trouble starts.
So the day comes when you begin to realize all of my problems are because I think, my mind. My mind is a conglomeration of thoughts. That’s all it is. Thoughts about the past and worries about the future. That is what your mind is. Your mind is not your friend. Your mind is never your friend. And I want to remind you even when you think about the good things of life you forget all these things, that’s the power of Maya, that’s the grand illusion.
Your ego allows the good things that come to you to make you believe that you are the body enjoying the good things. But the enjoyer is the body. Anything external to you is the body-mind. Do not believe I’m speaking only about all of these so called evil things of the world. There is no difference between good and bad.
I know you say, “I would rather experience the good than that bad.” There you go you spoil it again. You believe you are the experiencer. Don’t you see what you’re doing every time you think like this? Whenever you think I’ve got to experience anything I would rather experience good things than bad things. You spoil the whole thing when you think this way.
You are not the experiencer. There is no experiencer, that’s an illusion. And if you keep saying to yourself, “That doesn’t matter I still want to experience good rather than bad,” you have to remember when you believe you are the experiencer you also live in a world of duality. Don’t you see?
For every good there is a bad. For every bad there is a good. For every up there is a down. For every forward there is a backward and so forth and so on. Which means you will experience your good, so-called for a period of time and then the pendulum has to swing the other way. Just like this world. This world seems to head for the golden age but most new ages can’t wait to achieve. They believe there is going to be total harmony and total love and peace on this planet forever.
It will never happen. This is not the way the universe works. There will be a time when there is total peace but that will be for a while. Then the pendulum will start swinging back the other way and will go back into the dark ages. This has happened over and over and over again on this planet, millions of times.
That’s why there are only a few people in every generation, in every eon of time that become free and liberated. The rest go on with karma, they play the karma game.
They keep going and returning, going and returning just like the world, good and bad, bad and good, good and bad, bad and good. Therefore when you become deluded and you think you want to experience good only, that is an illusion. For you are saying to yourself, “Am I not the experiencer? I wish to experience good.”
You have to go beyond those things. You do not wish to experience good and you do not wish to experience bad. You just do not wish to experience. There is no one to experience. And yet your body continues as long as it has too. Of course when you get to that stage the feeling of birth and death has left you. You never think of, “Well I guess when I drop my body I’ll be free.” You never think that, “Well my body is holding me back.” or “That my body is going through these things but I’ll drop it soon and I’ll be free.”
If you think this way remember this, you will never be free when that happens because you are believing that you are the experiencer again. That you’re going to experience freedom when you drop your body. In other words if you’re not experiencing freedom now, you will never experience freedom when you drop your body.
You have to awaken now, not tomorrow, not when you drop your body, not in your next life forget about those things. You want to awaken now! You want to be free now! You want to be liberated now! As you keep thinking about these lines and keep pondering these things always coming to the ultimate truth, “I-am. I am not this and I am not that, I-am. I-am.” Do not allow your mind to think further than that. Use whatever methods and means you have to use to stop your mind from analyzing.
Even when you think, “What is the right method for me to use to become free?”
That keeps you back that spoils it. Keep your mind empty. The method will come to you by itself. When you believe you’ve got to practice atma-vichara, self-inquiry and then some of you always tell me, “I force myself to practice this. I always think unless I practice this I’ll never get anywhere.” And I always laugh. Can’t you see what you’re doing? You’re using your mind to want to practice something that you already are. Your mind is in control of you and you don’t know it. Be natural, be spontaneous.
When you get up in the morning something will tell you what to do. If you’re truly into this path something will tell you what to do. You don’t have to force yourself to meditate or to practice self-inquiry. There are some of you that are doing this already. You tell me, “When I get up before I can even think, something comes to me and tells me I am not the body. I don’t even think about it,” and that’s the way to do it. Do not force yourself.
Do not make yourself do things. So that you can become enlightened. What you are really doing is you are pushing yourself away from it.
Be natural. And as far as all of these discussions about truths go it’s all a waste of time. It’s a waste of time for us to sit down together and have a debate on reality, on truth, on who’s right and who’s wrong and what method is good and what method is bad. Can’t you see now when you do this you are using your mind? And you’re making your mind stronger instead of weaker?
The way you annihilate the mind is by not using it. Can’t you see that? Not by using it and becoming the captain of the debating team. Not by becoming an eloquent speaker. Not by memorizing passages of scripture or Vedanta or anything else and being able to remember these things. It is only by becoming weaker in the mind and that comes from silence.
This doesn’t mean that you’ll never speak again. Remember your body is going to do whatever it has to do. Therefore if your work requires you to speak you will say the right words but you will always be spontaneous. You will have the feeling that you are not you are not the speaker, you are not the body, nor the mind but the speaking will go on and the action will go on. You will do whatever you have to do.
Do not try to make yourself popular or believe you know something that somebody else doesn’t know. And sometimes even going out of your way to help others is an ego trip. Be yourself and then see what you really do. By being yourself others who come into close proximity to you will be helped tremendously by you’re doing absolutely nothing!
I remember there were so many people that came to Ramana Maharshi who fell at his feet and said, “Master you saved my daughters life, she was dying of cancer and I thought of you and she was well the next day.” And Ramana used to whisper to his attendant, “What is she talking about? I didn’t do anything.” But he never told this to the devotee or the person who claimed he healed them. Due to the fact that he didn’t want to disappoint them.But he never claimed he did anything. He sat in one place. He hardly ever walked anywhere except to go around the mountain when he was younger. And people from all over the world are writing him letters saying they thought of him in his picture they have of him and they became wealthy or they became healed or something good happened to them, and he would just smile.
Reality does nothing or go out of it’s way to do things. Now if you’re thinking from your finite mind…
(break in tape)
…time when there is not a war or man’s inhumanity to man going on some place.
Think of most of the things you do all day. Aren’t they egotistical? Aren’t they to preserve your body? To make your body better? To make your mind sharper? To stand out among men? To want to be recognized? To want name and fame? Think about that.
Your ego is at work, your mind is tricking you. You’re becoming more human than ever and more mental than ever. And people who are like that the first thing that goes wrong with their lives makes them very irritable. They’ve got a chip on their shoulder and they become angry at people who do not agree with them. Or people that they think are looking at them the wrong way. That’s what they think.
They’re working from the mind standpoint. Their ego loves this. It loves you to become angry and mad and want to fight. This is the way of the world. But where are you coming from? Do you want to be free or do you want to be bound? The choice is yours.
Your free to make that choice. That is the total freedom you have. The choice is to turn within and to see the truth and become totally free or to turn without towards the world and allow the world to grab hold of you and you keep reacting to the world. The choice is yours.
Feel free to ask questions.
Fred (SF): You use the phrase to become liberated it’s really a matter of that we’re under the idea that we’re not liberated?
R: Of course, who is there, wants to be liberated? The ego tells you, you have to become liberated. So keep searching for liberation. The ego tells you this because it realizes that the more you search for it the less you’ll find it. So it tells you keep searching. (SF: It’s not been lost?) Of course. But when the ego tells you this you look at the ego and you laugh and you say to your ego, “Who are you kidding?” And stop thinking right there. Then you’re already liberated. But if you have an argument with your ego and you want to punch it in the nose and you get angry and mad at your ego, then your ego wins all the time. Not you but your ego. It becomes greater. It has more power.
The way to destroy the ego is by not becoming involved with it, by not answering it, by not fighting it, by not really trying to destroy it. When you keep still that destroys it by itself. But when you think about it and you say to yourself, “I’m going to destroy the ego.” The ego will start giving you ways in which to destroy it. Which will make you work
for centuries, trying to destroy the ego. But when you realize that there is no ego to destroy because it never existed to begin with you’re already free.
SY: Robert I have a question. If I had an assignment to write a script I would just be very still and it would just flow through me? I wouldn’t be using my mind?
R: If you had an assignment to write a script and you’ve been practicing this for a time. That is exactly what would happen. You would begin writing and you would write your script. But if you think about it, it won’t work. Everything has to come spontaneously. And the way you become spontaneous is to make the mind still. Cause the mind to become quiescent. Then automatically you are no longer the doer and your body will function twice as good by itself. Without your help.
SK: Robert all these psychological ideas of self esteem and self worth and self righteousness are they all a part of ego?
R: It’s all ego that’s for the human being. That’s to expand the mind. To turn bad into good. To make you normal like other human beings. (SK: There are already more than that anyway?) Of course. Who wants to be normal? (laughter) (SK: Not me.) SJ: I’d give anything to be normal. (laughter)
R: People spend billions of dollars for psychiatrists, for psychologists, counselors and the world is worse off than it’s ever been.
SK: You know it seems - I’ve spent the money on therapy and I feel that I through experiencing the certain ideas and fears that I’ve had and going through them and looking at them, and talking about them, whatever I do about it - like the terror of that ego sort of disappears. Maybe I just saw that it was false to begin with, that sounds more like it. It wasn’t real in the beginning, anyway I thought it was. And then I saw that it wasn’t real and then I felt okay which is what you’re saying basically?
R: This is true. But you have to be careful because your mind will play games with you. Many times you can practice some kind of psychological jargon. And your ego will go into abeyance. It will become like a dormant seed. You have not destroyed it. You have not annihilated it. It’s just taking a rest. And it will pop up some other time when you least expect it.
Unless the mind is totally annihilated you can never be free. Some psychological, psychiatric methods like drugs they give you can cause the mind to become still for a while, it’s just an illusion. Again it’s like a dormant seed waiting to sprout. Only through waking up by yourself. By realizing what we’re talking about tonight and having an immediate awakening or practicing atma-vichara, self-inquiry. These things will permanently destroy the ego or the mind and you will be forever free.
You can tell if it’s a real feeling or not. If you’re using psychiatric, psychological methods and you feel good but you’re still normal. You’re seeing the world as you did before when you feel a little better. You still believe you are the body and the mind. Then you know you’re not free. You’re just feeling good mentally. That will not last, it will expire and then you will revert to your old feelings of depression and whatever. Again the only way to be totally free is to totally annihilate the mind.
SH: And who is to do that?
R: No one! But it appears as though you use your mind to destroy the mind. (SH: That’s not possible.) It doesn’t work that way, but that’s how it appears.
Jay (SJ): Just do it. (SH: Yeah?) Yeah. It’s something. (SH: It will, lead the way brother.(laughs)) SF: No one does it, it just is done.
R: There is no one ever to do anything in reality terms. No one is doing anything.
No one has ever done anything, no one will ever do anything. But when you’re in the relative plain you have to begin somewhere. Therefore you have to awaken from being at satsang and just awaken. Or you practice atma-vichara, or you become the witness, you do it spontaneously. Without thought.
SH: The trouble is, this is always implying that there is a you to do this.
R: That’s because we’re talking. There is no you to do anything. (SH: Yeah but you always preference everything with a you do this, you do that.) Because we’re having a talk. (SH: You’re just making it worse.) Of course we’re having a talk. (SH: Are you trying to bamboozle us?) Yes. (laughter) It’s all bamboozle. (SH: I know.) Of course there is no you to do anything. For the sake of talking I say, “you.”
Jay (SJ): And for the sake of coming down to relative reality I guess it gives something for those people to work with. Shouldn’t be confusing them?
R: Otherwise I would just sit here in the silence. Which some people like and some people don’t. (SK: Would it be better to say “it, Let “it” do it?”) Well most people won’t catch on to that. When you talk about these things you have to use sort of normal words that people use in everyday conversation.
Glen (SG): Say it without any pronouns Robert. (R: Who, you, I, it.) None of that stuff.
R: So all is well. There is no you, there is no I, there’s no it. (laughter) SV: Yeah, I’m just glad to be here. (R: Say that again?) I’m just glad to be here.
R: Oh good. I’m glad you’re here too.
Fred (SF): I’ve been aware that there is an I that has remained constant throughout my life. I was a relatively unhappy little boy and had all kinds of things happen to me. I became addicted to alcohol. I’ve been married twice, divorced twice. Three years in the army. All kinds of things have happened but there is one constant. It was I who experienced these things. And it occurred to me that that I that has had all of these things happen is not different in reality from the universal I or the universal consciousness.
R: There is only one I, and you are that. (SF: It’s been the same for seventy-five years.) But if you were aware that there is only the I and nothing else exists then you’d be awakened. But you obviously believe that the I is the small I. (SF: That’s the one that I’m aware of.) Yeah you’re aware of the small I. I am this and I am that. Think of the one I as being the I-am, as being absolute reality. You’re all perfect. Excuse me. (Robert leaves the room)
(As Robert leaves room students talk between themselves)
R: Or you thought I turned into a dog? (laughter)
SH: Yeah, he maintained a noble silence. (laughter) Final word. (laughs) SF: I remember Bhagvan telling somebody, “You thank God for the things that seem to be good but you don’t thank him for the things that you consider bad, that is where you go wrong.”
R: Umm. That’s true.
Jay (SJ): Except for the crazy people huh? It would be the opposite?
SV: Robert excuse me, Fred was saying, there was a constant I, in childhood his actual age, isn’t that referring to the sense of being? Which is sort of in the background of everyone. (R: Yes.) He has the sense of I of being. (R: The I is always there.) However there is of course a doer who does all these things which is not exactly that sense of being. (R: Umm.) Isn’t that a failed relation of the real I or the I am?
R: Yes, you’re right. The real I-am is always in the background. Waiting for you to recognize it. Awaiting your recognition so you can become free. But because we believe that we are the doer, we push the real I back and make it go in the background more and more and more. Until the day comes when we understand that we are not the doer. Then the I comes forth and you become the I and you wake up.
But when we were little children we were told to believe in all the things external from us. Little children are always pure. But when we are told to believe in all the worldly things the purity which is the real I takes a back seat and goes in the background. And we keep forgetting it more and more and more. We cover it up. Just like we cover a light bulb with a shade then we put another shade on top of this shade and then another shade on this shade until we can’t see the light any longer.
But when we remember who we are we start taking of the shades until we are the light. We are the true light of the world.
SV: Because this sense of I persists. It’s like when we wake up and we know we were when we were sleeping. We also know we were all these years passed through in time. (R: Yes.) We know we were. (R: Yes.) And that’s the sense of I-am actually?
R: That’s the sense of I-am. But because we identify with the world and the doer we don’t experience it.
SV: So it’s good to sort of entertain this view?
R: Entertain this idea but do not think too much about it. Remember the only way to become free is to stop thinking. If we begin to analyze and we think about too many I’s.
The little I and the big I and the I when I’m asleep that is the game of the mind. It makes the mind more powerful. But if we become totally silent in the mind and we keep our mind away from external objects then the real I comes into play and we wake up.
SV: What’s needed is other relaxation, sort of Robert?
R: Well of course it helps to be relaxed and peaceful… (SV: No, relaxation of the mind, has some relaxation, of all the…) Yes, oh I see what you mean. A letting go of the mind.Letting go of thoughts. (SV: Just relaxing.) Relaxing the mind by not thinking. When you do not think the mind is relaxed. The less you think the more the mind is relaxed. Until the mind destroys itself. In other words the mind is like a friend that you no longer talk to.
When you stop talking to your friend he goes away. (laughter) SH: What a friend. (laughter)
R: Well if you don’t talk to your friend he thinks your crazy and he goes away. So when you stop talking to your mind and you stop playing mind games the mind will go away.
Jorge (SR): Robert, today I had a young man about 17 years old come to me. He had the most beautiful open eyes I’d seen for a long time. I had him draw a picture for me. I said, “What is this?”
He said, “This was a killer.” And he showed me all his weapons and then later on he says, “That’s me.” And he started complaining. He said, “I’m not free.” That is why he’s so angry because he was not free. And I said, “Why aren’t you free?” And he said, “Because of my color.” Should I have told that young man that you’re not the body? (R: I don’t think he was ready for that.) How could I have moved in that direction?
(dog gets up and runs out of the room barking)
R: That is what you should have done. (laughter) I mean run out of your office.
(laughter) Or what you can do in a case like that is basically explain how the mind works and what it really is. You can explain to him that your mind is really a thought and idea. It is not a real entity. And all the things that go on in your mind are therefore false. You are more than the mind. You can tell him.
Jorge (SR): What if he says, “Wherever I go this color goes with me?”
R: Tell him that’s how it appears, that’s a human appearance. That is how things appear. Everybody thinks they’re different. Some people believe their white, some people believe their black, some people believe their medium, green or yellow or whatever. That is an idea that is a thought. But in reality there is only oneness there is no color limit because there is only one. Therefore if he starts thinking along those lines he will feel more peaceful. And you go as far as you can go with him along those lines.
SV: I think the question comes Robert to about talking like a Jnani when one is not a Jnani and trying to explain in Advaitic terms… (R: Yes.) …to people who… (R: That’s difficult to do.
You can’t do that.) And is that right to do? It doesn’t have any sense I think.
R: If you make it where they can understand it, where you use very, very simple language and make them understand in a very simple way that they are not what appears to be.
SV: Is it okay to talk in our own understanding without really experiencing or being a Jnani? In that sense on those terms?
R: You can talk from your own understanding. It depends who you are talking to.
When you realize that you are not the doer then whatever you have to say will be said. It’s only when you believe that you are the doer that you have to think to yourself, “How can I
explain this, what should I do?” You’re saying, “What should “I” do? How can “I” understand this?” Believing that you are the doer. But as soon as you believe that you are not the doer then something will come by itself and do the talking. And the right things will be said. Therefore you do not have to worry about these things. Do not concern yourself how you should talk to someone else. Understand the truth about yourself and then everything will take care of itself.
Glen (SG): Robert even if you are unconsciously be removed allowing for the words to come out, still doesn’t everything mean all is well, you said exactly the experience, exactly what was supposed to have happened. (R: Yes, of course.) Well I guess just not to worry about it but simply be?
R: Whatever you’re doing at the time is right. That’s where you’re coming from.
There are no mistakes. So whatever you say at the time you just say it. That was the right thing to say as far as you’re concerned. And if you don’t like what you said and you think something is wrong or you’re hurting people with your words then you have to turn within and go deep within yourself and see the truth about yourself. Then the words will change. And then you will be able to speak in a different way to people. It always begins and ends with you.
Fred (SF): Is the idea, “Are there others?”
R: There are others only to the extent that you believe you are a body. If you believe that you are a body then there are others. (SF: Then there are others.) (silence)
R: Well we’ve got prashad some place. (SH: In that bag.) This looks good. If there are no others I will save it for myself.(students laugh) (SH: Take it all Robert. It’s all yours.
Except for Toku. (The dog.) Here Mary pass it over. Here Fred, Fred. And we have some delicious figs, open it up and pass it over.
Mary would you like to read the Jnani?
Mary (SM): Yes, Robert. Okay this is the Jnani.
(Mary reads the confessions of a Jnani, refer to beginning of book.) R: Thank you Mary. Do we have any announcements of any kind?
Mary (SM): A lot of transcripts are there.
R: We have transcripts for you on the table.
Remember the truth about yourself that you are not the body mind phenomena but that you are absolute reality, all pervading, Sat-Chit-Ananda, you are the I am that I am.
Remember this and be free. I love you, peace. Thank you for coming it’s been fun.
(students say thank you)
Enjoy life, go home, go to sleep.
(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.