– Transcript 104
R: Good afternoon. It is good to be with you again and I welcome you with all my heart. Welcome to the land of nothingness, where nothing is real and what is real is nothing.
We will continue to focus on the questions, as we did last week. If you did not write a question feel free to do so and put it in the pot. If you wish to write an answer you can do that also. (laughter) Then I’ll think of the question. Write whatever you like but write something so it can take up the time.
The ordinary mind can never know the Self. The Self can never be known by the ordinary mind. Therefore what is the solution? More sadhana? More intense meditation?
No. The solution is to have a cup of tea, to relax. The metaphor, “to have a cup of tea”
really means to let go. Stop thinking about it. Relax completely. The Self will make itself known to you in it’s own time. You really do not have to do anything.
When you practice intense sadhana it will lead you to a quiet mind, but it will never lead you to complete realization, for the ordinary mind can never be realized. There is absolutely nothing you can do with your mind to awaken. It can make you more peaceful. Therefore you have to learn to relax, let go, to become desireless. You need nothing, yet you need everything. You have no wants or needs, yet everything is taken care of. It makes no difference whether you’re sick or healthy, rich or poor, sad or happy. These things have nothing to do with realization. You want to forget about your body-mind phenomena. Just observe your body but never react to it. Observe the world but never react to it. Observe your thoughts but never react to them. Allow whatever happens to happen.
The reason you act this way, as if you’re crazy, is because everything in the world is transient, changeable. There is no thing in the world that is really meaningful as far as realization is concerned. The world pulls you deeper and deeper into Maya. It’s sort of a game. The more you become involved in the world, the greater the illusion becomes, and you become a very serious person.
Let the world alone. Trying to overcome the world is a mistake. Not trying to overcome the world is also a mistake. Trying to become realized is a mistake. Not trying to become realized is a mistake. You are to be your Self but do not try to comprehend what the Self is. You are to be free but do not comprehend what freedom is. You are to be happy but do not try to figure out what happiness is. You are to become peaceful but do not try to comprehend peace. You are to be. Not this and not that. Just be. There is nothing to become. There is no thing to achieve. There is no sadhana that is better than any other sadhana. There is absolutely nothing you have to do.
When you catch a hold of what I’m saying your mind becomes perfectly still, and ultimately disappears. But you are already that, so there’s nothing to become. There are no teachers, or books or words that can really help you. There is nothing at all in the world or the universe that can help you, because nothing exists. When you seek the help of a teacher, or a tree, or a mountain, or a river, or the sky, or a lake, or mantras, these things cannot possibly help you due to the fact that they do not exist.
So what are you looking for? There is nothing to look for. There is nothing to search for. There is no one who can give you the answer. Some of you are saying “except your Self,” but that’s erroneous also, because your Self doesn’t know the answer. The true Self has no question. Therefore there’s no answer.
Everything that’s happening to you is happening to you from the mind. As soon as you appreciate the mind does not exist all the happenings will stop and you will become free.
Now it is time for questions. So let’s see what our pot has today. Not too many today. I had a whole bunch last week.
Q: (Robert reads) Explain what svarupa is?
A: Swarrupa means your attitude. Your nature. The nature of yourself. Your attitudinal nature. Swarrupa is the Self, realization, harmony, love. Swarrupa contains all of that. It is your inner most nature, your real Self. Sanskrit words are so difficult some times to interpret. Due to the fact that there is no English word that really means what the Sanskrit word means. But I suppose it’s closer to your nature, your real nature. Your svarupa.
Done it.
Q: (Robert reads) What is the deepest fear a person has, Fred.(laughter) That’s the answer.
A: The answer is yourself, Fred. You are the deepest fear that you have. If you weren’t identified with yourself as Fred there would be no fear would there? The reason we fear anything is because we have no idea who we are. We do not understand that we are the joy, the bliss of ecstasy that we are choice-less wisdom. Absolute reality, Sat-Chit-Ananda. But we do identify with the body which is called Fred in this instance and whenever we think of Fred or the body we identify with the things that are attached to Fred. It maybe a sickness. It maybe some sort of poverty. It maybe some sort of resentment. It maybe many things. So if we get rid of Fred we would not have anymore problems.
SV: I hope nobody takes that literally. (laughter)
R: Fred is our whole problem. (laughter) Whether it’s a Fred or a Mary or a James or a John or a Shirley, it’s all the same. We think of ourselves as human. We think of ourselves as separate. We think of ourselves as alone. We watch television, we read newspapers. We identify with all the dastardly things going on in this world, is it any wonder we fear?
The solution therefore is not to get rid of the object that we fear of, but to remove the I-thought, that is really the culprit. We say, “I fear. I fear that there is a depression.
Times are bad. I fear!” The Self does not fear. Your true nature can never fear. It doesn’t know what the word means. Only you can fear as the I-thought. But if the I-thought doesn’t exist what is left to fear? Therefore ask yourself, “To whom does the I come? What is the source of the I?”
Once the I-thought is broken, annihilated how can you possibly fear then because fear and the I-thought are synonymous. Always remember that if you try to get rid of the object of your fear, say it’s your wife you fear or it’s your husband you fear or your job you fear or you fear that you’re going to go broke and be in poverty and become a homeless person - that’s not so bad. - But even if you remove these fears through effort, they will pop up some where else. Never believe that if you resolve a fear, by removing the fear you’ll be free. Something else will take it’s place.
As an example, say your husband is giving you a hard time and you fear your husband. He’s beating you. Therefore you leave him. You divorce him. You have done something externally but you have not changed the karmic pattern that has caused that.
You will be attracted to someone else who usually has the same qualities or you may be attracted to someone else who does not have that quality. But the same quality may come from your employment. It’ll come from something else.
There will always be something to fear due to the fact that you have not changed yourself. The solution is always within you. As you lift yourself higher in consciousness whatever befalls you in the physical world can never again make you fear. For you have realized that the physical world is also the I-thought. “I see the world as it appears. I see these dastardly things going on in the world. I want to change them,” the I wants to do all these things. It wants to exchange bad for good always.
So the secret of success in this path is the removal of the I-thought to which the whole universe is attached. When the I-thought goes not only does the thing you feared go with it but everything else goes along with it also. So you are free.
We only had two questions today. Last week we had fourteen or fifteen. I think last week the same person wrote all of them. (students laugh) Is there anything you’d like to ask?
SN: Umm in the heart of awareness if everything is the mind then what is awareness? Is there any difference between the mind and awareness. Can there be awareness without mind?
R: Of course. Pure awareness is another term for the Self. Pure awareness is absolute reality. The mind has nothing to do with pure awareness. (SN: That is unknown, unknowable.) Exactly it’s ineffable. Pure awareness just is. (SN: Well then in a relative sense I’m asking.) In a relative sense pure awareness is to be. Just to be. Not to be this or to be that.
When you just are you are awareness. (SN: Is that something within our experience though?) Not in a relative experience, no. (SN: So in a relative sense does anything exist and in an absolute sense does anything exist at all?) In a relative sense everything exists because you’re using the term relative. As long as you are using that word then everything does exist. In an absolute sense nothing exists because there is nothing absolute. (SN: What about awareness then?) In order to be absolute or be aware - when you use those terms - there has to be a difference between the relative and the absolute. There has to be a relative universe so that you can say that you are absolute reality that you are pure awareness. It is only because of the universe appearing real that we use the terms absolute awareness, reality.
It’s just like as a simple illustration the reason we use the word health is because we know what sickness is. If there was no such thing as sickness there would be no word as health. Because who would want to be healthy? Since health was, is and nobody has ever heard of sickness.
In the same way if there was no relative world we wouldn’t say that only awareness and the Self is real. We use the term awareness and the Self to differentiate between the relative world. So pure awareness is really ineffable, is being aware that you are the Self.
SN: That doesn’t exist, there is no awareness and there is no Self? (R: Exactly.) So in a relative sense, pure awareness is meaningless?
R: Pure awareness is not meaningless because the word meaningless we wouldn’t have anything to become or awaken from. When you awaken from the relative world…
(SN: The thing that is stumping me is - it sounds like you say there is something but in reality there’s nothing.) When you are in reality there will be nothing, so become real.
SN: Say for instance, when you read the “Heart of awareness,” it talks about pure awareness and then you try to relate your own experience to that you might even fabricate some - oh yes I had this experience this is pure awareness - but that isn’t pure awareness that is just the mind, right?
R: No it’s not. Exactly, as long as you can relate to it it’s not that. (SN: So everything is the mind in a relative sense?) Everything is the mind. (SN: And then in the absolute sense there is nothing at all?) In the absolute sense there is no awareness, there is no Self, there is no liberation, there is no striving, there is no world. (SN: So there is no awareness without the mind?) As long as you think that there is awareness, yes. For the mind comes up with these words. But in the other hand if we did not discuss them we wouldn’t understand anything at all and probably be better off. (laughter)
SE: The point of sadhana is just to know that there is something else beyond the relative and the teachings. Just to say, this isn’t all that there is, there is something else. (R: Yes.) And it keeps our mind preoccupied and pointing to that which we cannot know in a relative way.
R: Yes you can say that also. (SE: So we keep kicking ourselves to keep ourselves awake, so-to-speak.) So-to-speak.
SN: So the sadhana is to always to be aware of how you’re reacting. First to be aware of how you’re reacting to your conditions and try to not react. I mean just be empty, not even try but first be aware of it and then let go.
R: Yes. To observe, to be the witness, to watch and as you observe and you watch and you do not react you appear to go higher…
(break in tape)
…because in the absolute sense there is nothing to cause the fear. There is no thing that can cause the fear really. But because you seem to have it and it comes to you once in a while you have to inquire. To ask, “To whom does this fear come?” And you’ll go back to the I-thought. You therefore follow the I-thought to the heart center and the fear will automatically disappear.
One good thing about self-inquiry, it is the greatest psychotherapy that was ever invented. For you actually do get rid of fears and other problems very easily by inquiring, “To whom do they come?” You begin to see that you do not have the fear. “I” does. “I” becomes fearful not you. You are not the “I”, the I-thought I mean. And the more you can see this by practicing the more you’ll see the fear diminishes and dissolves. It never began in the first place. It is the I-thought who has this fear. And since the “I” is only a thought, then how can the fear be real because it came from the I. And the “I” doesn’t exist.
Therefore keep inquiring, “To whom does this fear come? It comes to me. I feel it.
What is the source of the I?” And allow the I to go into the source. The source is absolute awareness.
Fred (SF): The same might be true for positive emotions?
R: Positive emotions also. Most of us do nothing about positive emotions because we enjoy them. And yet positive emotions become habitual and they hold on to you just like negative emotions. In other words they make you feel as if the universe is real. And as if your body is real and your mind is real because you’re enjoying yourself. You’re having a grand time. You just won the lottery. You just met a new person in your life or something humanly wonderful is happening to you. But if you can only see what is going to happen to you ten years from now how long will this last. Everything has to change. Therefore I have to inquire, “To whom do these wonderful feelings come?” And again it’s the I that is enjoying itself. When you become the Self and you awaken to the Self there is neither enjoyment nor misery. You do not become a laughing idiot. You just are. You’re not this and you’re not that. You’re not positive and you’re not negative.
SD: But there is bliss isn’t there? That seems positive?
R: Bliss seems positive but it has absolutely nothing to do with the relative world.
it is something totally beyond. In bliss the happiness is not like the happiness in the human world. It is a total being, a “All Is Well” experience. That even someone - when you take a hacksaw and saw your fingers off and your toes and your nose and your ears -
that’ll be alright. (SD: So are you saying it’s peace of mind, so-to-speak?) It’s not peace of mind because the mind has been transcended. (SD: But it’s peace?) It’s not a peace as we know it.
It’s as Jesus described, the peace which passeth understanding. (SD: Umm.) SN: Because there is no subject, right? (R: There is no subject and no object.)SF: That peace is not of the mind. (R: It is not of the mind.) Beyond the mind. Yeah. The source itself.
R: It is the source itself. The absolute reality. Therefore when we speak all of these words absolute reality, bliss, pure awareness, Sat-Chit-Ananda, I am that I am, they’re all synonymous. They’re all one thing which is ineffable, not of this world and the only way you can really understand this is by becoming. But not becoming this or that.
SN: So if every moment is sadhana then observation and inquiry go together?
R: Yes. They do.
SD: Could you elaborate on that?
R: You observe that you are fearful and then you inquire, “To whom does this fear come?” So you observe and you inquire.
If you could only see yourself for what you really are, you wouldn’t even believe it. You are not this body. This limited entity. You are not the mind that keeps talking to you and telling you things all the time. Confusing you, confounding you. Leading you astray doing all these crazy things in your life. Just to be aware that you are not those things will suffice. Just to awaken and immediately realize that I am not the body-mind. I am not the doer. Just doing that alone will result in joy and peace.
SE: Isn’t the understanding that everyday life, ordinary life is sadhana. A very high and rare understanding to be so relaxed and you take what comes to you as what is needed. Most of us need a kind of a special practice either reading or meditation or something to make us feel as if we’re doing something. But to except ordinary life as sadhana is very hard. To have that faith.
R: Sadhana is a word that has been misused. Sadhana really means in Sanskrit, giving up, letting go. In the twentieth century it has a different meaning, to do spiritual practice. But the true translation is, to let go. To let go of everything. Even your spiritual practice. And you let go of spiritual practice by doing spiritual practice. When you do spiritual practice correctly then it’s a process of letting go. For you are denying the world.
Not verbally, not mentally but through your practice of sadhana. You are beginning to see and realize the reason the trees, the mountains, the fog and the sky and the grass and the reservoir, everything appears is because “I” appear. As long as “I” appear, the whole universe will appear to me.
So the sadhana is not to add on any new practices but simply to remove the I-thought. To remove the vision that you see. You see others. The others appear because you appear. Where do they go when you are asleep? When you are in deep sleep you exist.
And yet there are no others, there is no world, there is no universe. Where did you go?
Where were you? And yet when you appear to awaken the whole universe appears. When you have a dream the whole universe also appears. This is actually a proof to you to make you realize that you created the universe like you created the dream. You can have a dream that we’re in class like this and we are discussing these things. And I keep telling you this is all a dream. And you’re throwing questions back at me, “How can this be a dream Robert? I am real. You are real. The trees are real. Everything appears. So how can
you tell me it’s a dream?” And I keep telling you, “It appears real. It is only an appearance.
And then you come over to me and pinch me and you say, “Is that real?” And I say, “Ow.”
Of course it’s real in the dream. It’s a dream pinch. The whole thing is a dream and then you awaken and you’re in your bed.
And so it is with this world and everything that is going on in this world. It appears so real. You have identified with it you are going through all the experiences. And even when I talk to you like this, when you get up and walk out this door, you’ll start thinking about your problems and what you’re going to wear tomorrow, what you’re going to eat for dinner and what is going on in your life. Not remembering that this is all a dream. When you begin to understand that this is a dream and you inquire, “To whom does this dream come?” You will then awaken.
Fred (SF): That would be true of an experience with the psychedelic drugs, would that not be so?
R: What do you mean? (SF: Like LSD or silosagin, pyridine and those things?) So what happens? (SF: It makes you create things that you don’t see ordinarily.) Oh right. Yes.
Fred (SF): So all kinds of things that aren’t ordinarily available to the mind. Apparently we can create things without drugs in the same impression we create things with drugs, with psychedelic drugs.
R: We can have hallucinations. (SF: Yeah. Same thing.) The insane asylum is full of people who have all kinds of hallucinations and who create things.
SN: Since life is subjective itself it’s all our own personal hallucination. Like you know one event can happen and different people see it you know, like the blind men and the elephant, we all see something different. So who needs psychedelic drugs.
R: Psychedelic drugs were used in the ancient days by many yogi’s. To give them a higher experience so they can tell everybody. There is a higher experience than this present life. But a Sage has never used any drugs at all. There is no reason to.
Fred (SF): It wouldn’t be necessarily a higher experience but it could be said to be a different experience.
R: It’s a different experience and it shows you that there is something else and then you have to come down.
SN: You get the same effect from fasting through loss of sleep which is also… (R: Yes.) Psychedelic drugs are synthesis of the brain and the chemicals that you begin to hallucinate when you fast and you don’t have enough sleep. Same experience.
R: The mind has many facets. The mind is very powerful. Even though it doesn’t exist. The more you get involved in mind stuff the more you go into illusion and you get lost. The object is to simply annihilate the mind.
SN: So when Ed asked the question about sadhana the real question is, “Who needs to do sadhana?” I, right? So we get back to observation and the inquiry. (R: Umm.) But if you can’t do that - but you said the reason why we meditate is to learn we don’t have to meditate - until then meditate. But the true question is, “Who is the meditator?“R: Umm. Find out, who needs to meditate. (SE: Fred.) Fred. (students laugh) SH: Meditation in a way just keeps the illusory “I” going. (R: Yes.) It feeds it actually.
R: It does. But it also makes you one-pointed. And we have to do these things sometimes to get out of the rut of the relative world. It’s better to meditate than think about problems. So when you meditate it takes you away for a while from the everyday world.
SN: How is that different from self-inquiry then?
R: Self-inquiry, you immediately investigate the I. Where the I came from, what the I is. And you follow the I-thread to the source of all existence. (SN: But in meditation…?) In meditation there is an object. (SN: It is “I?”) No people do not meditate on the I they meditate on an object. All meditation needs an object to meditate on, like God. We’re meditating on God. Where you’re at you can use “I am.” You’re meditating on “I am” with the breathing. That’s a form of meditation.
SN: Well when you do self-inquiry doesn’t that also lead to one pointedness the same way that mediation does?
R: It dissolves the I faster, because it makes you go directly to the I. To the ego.
(SN: But that also is the one pointedness?) That is one pointedness but it does it faster. It’s the fastest method. (SN: But they both lead to the same place, one pointedness?) They both lead to the same place, yes. (SN: That one pointedness is what?) That one pointedness there is one object, which is the Self. Where there is nothing else. Except the one. It leads you to that point but it doesn’t pull you into it. It’s a high state of mind to be one pointed. Because there is no longer this and there is no longer that.
SN: Is one pointedness the same thing as emptiness?
R: You can say that, yes. Because emptiness is the last state before you become realized. You become totally empty of other things. And one pointedness is also when you become totally one without the other. There is nothing else but the one which is emptiness.
So they both lead to the same thing.
SE: I think sadhu om makes the distinction, he says, most people meditate on what he calls second and third person objects, like you or it but self-inquiry is to become one pointed on the subject, the first person. In that way it’s the most direct although not necessarily the fastest because some people find it the most difficult way.
R: It’s different for all people.
SD: Robert what I don’t understand is, when you talk about tracing the source of the I-thought and we know it leads to intellectually whether we’ve experienced it or not that… (R: No, no we’re not tracing the source of the I-thought. We’re tracing the I-thought to the source.) Okay better put. I don’t understand how something like the spiritual heart could be the origin of something that is mischievous and deceitful as the I-thought?
R: It’s not! That’s just the point. Once you trace the I-thought to the source you realize that only the source has always existed. And there never has… (SD: There is no I-thought whatsoever.) There is no I-thought, it never existed. (SD: I see.) If the I-thought really existed we’d have a lot of work to do. We’d never get rid of it. But the I-thought doesn’t really exist, you’re tracing something illusory.
Fred (SF): Everything is illusory?
R: Even you. Sure everything is illusory. The whole relative universe is illusory.
This is the reason we should not react to person, place or thing. For when we react it tells us where we’re coming from. We still believe we’re human and we’re the doer.
Fred (SF): A week ago Thursday, you said that this life was a huge cosmic joke. And it seems to me… (R: Don’t take it so seriously.) If anybody wants to prove that, all they got to do is to read the newspaper or watch the television. (R: True.) All that stuff.
SH: Or watch your own mind. (SD: That’s right.) Yeah.
R: If you watch the newspaper and you pick up a newspaper forty years ago you’ll see the same news. (laughter) Just different people. (SF: Not quite as bad as today.) All the difference it is today is because communication is so here and now. We see everything that is going on on TV that is happening everywhere in this world. It’s all condensed. So it appears worse. But all these things have been going on for centuries.
SN: That’s probably why I think it’s better because everyone knows, everyone is watching.
Whereas I think further back in time it was worse.
R: You’re right, sure. Because people were able to get away with all kinds of things. (students laugh) But now we see it.
SE: Right we see them getting away with all these things. (more laughter) SH: Doesn’t seem to dampen it at all. (laughs) It doesn’t deter it. It’s still going high wide and handsome.
R: I always make fun of the things I see on the news, when I watch it. I think of jokes. For instance we were watching the Karma series I said to myself, “Why don’t they bring peewee Herman as a witness?” (students laugh)
SE: He’s busy testifying for Kennedy. (laughter)
Glen (SG): As far as I designed self-inquiry to use conversation sort of creates questions in me. So do you recommend meditation or not? Do you see it as a way of…
R: Well let me ask you, “What do you mean by meditation?”
Glen (SG): Okay the form of meditation I use has been a sort of a contemplative meditation. A statement of truth and it is taken into consciousness and ruminate about it for a while until you sort of achieve a sort of inner peace. And then you sit in the silence. That would be for me the kind of meditation that I would refer to. And there is the other kind of meditation which also includes I guess the kind of meditation that you recommend the “I am” meditation which is simply, “I am.”
So I mean…
R: Those are both good as far as it goes. But the day has to come when you have to ask, “Who is meditating? Who needs to meditate? For what reason?” But until you get to that point it’s good to do what you’re doing. It makes you peaceful and it takes you higher.But you will get to the point where you will ask yourself, “Who is meditating? I am? Who is the I that needs to meditate?” And you will begin to realize that meditation is of the mind.
Glen (SG): So let me ask you this, so when you sit in silence, you’re just in silence would you term that meditation without any other conscious thought you’re just in silence?
R: When I sit in silence I sit where I am right now. There is nothing going on.
There is no form of meditation going on. There is absolutely nothing going on. There is nothing being achieved. Because what has to be achieved has already been achieved.
Therefore, “Who has to sit in silence? Who has to meditate? Who has to do all these things?” (SG: You are that. You already are that. I am that.) Umm-hmm. When I speak of the fact you’re probably referring to my telling everybody that I sit in the silence in the morning hours from six to nine and also in the morning from twelve to three. I usually sit down in a chair and all the forms dissolve. Now in that state I’m totally useless to the world because there is nothing there. But when I’m conscious like I am now there is also nothing there except I see the forms as superimpositions on the Self. So really they’re both the same.
Fred (SF): Where do your words come from? (R: Where does what come from?) Your words?
(R: Where do my words come from? Who knows? There’s no telling.) SG: The Dictionary. (R: The Dictionary.)
Fred (SF): They come from the source?
R: No I can’t say my words come from any source because the source just is. The source is absolute reality, the source is consciousness, the source is God. Does God have to speak words? Does consciousness have to explain things or do anything? The source just is. But then again you can say that everything is the source. So the words are really the source. Just like this glass is the source. The room is the source. It depends on your perspective of looking. How you see things. What you see. There is only the source and nothing else. But for some people they see the radio as an object by itself. Some people hate the shape of the radio. They don’t like the color. They have problems with the tone of the radio. But the radio just exists. It’s the way you see it.
Fred (SF): It varies from one person to another.
R: Of course. If we went out to buy this radio many of us would not like the way it looks. We do not like the color. We do not like the shape. That’s how we see the world. The mind sees the world. And the mind has been trained for many incarnations. Everything you do is from the training you have given your mind. Through many incarnations. So by inquiring you begin to see that there is no mind and there is no training and there is no incarnations and you become one and you become free.
SN: So if during inquiry if you become one pointed or empty all you do is remain there.
Because you said that meditation can’t pull you in. Really nothing can.
R: You remain in that state. (SN: That’s it.) And then what will happen eventually, if you are truly in that state the inner guru will pull you all the way in. The Self will pull you in. Then you will disappear and become a good for nothing.
SD: In “No mind I am The Self” they seem to stress the importance of a living guru to do that pulling.
R: Those things are important at a certain stage of your development. It is true that most of the Sages since the universe has seem to begun have had teachers, guru’s who have actually pulled them into the Self. It is very rare for a being to unfold by themselves and become totally free. But that’s possible too. (SD: Because the inner guru is the guru right, it’s all the same.) The guru, the Self are one. There is no difference. A better way to understand this is, the Sage is all pervading, omnipresent. So in truth there is nothing but the Sage. The Jnani pervades the whole universe. That is how the Jnani or the Sage can pull you in. Because he or she is already within you. They’re everywhere, they’re everything. In other words there is no personal Sage who does anything. There is only the universal Self that is called the Sage, that is everything. (SD: But we see the Sage personified?) You see what you see.)
SN: You said the Self was everything but the Self is no thing?
R: It is no thing but it appears like everything in the universe. As long as you’re looking at the relative point of view. (SN: Right, so I was making the distinction between the absolute and the relative.) That is why when somebody asks me, “Robert does the world really exist?” And I have to answer that question to the understanding of the individual.
That’s why there is always a different answer. The world exists only because you exist.
And as long as you believe that you are the body then there are other bodies and there is the universe and there is the world. So the world does exist. It’s folly to tell somebody outside on the street that the world does not exist. (SN: Would it also be folly for us to admit to ourselves that the world doesn’t exist?) If you’ re being hurt by the world it is folly. If the world still affects you and you’re feeling the world and you’re feel things of the world then if you say the world does not exist then you’re contradicting yourself. Because you really feel it does exist by your actions, by your feelings, by what you’re doing in the world and the way you’re living. So you’re fooling yourself if you say the world does not exist.
SN: And that ‘s why we go back to inquiry… (R: Right.) …because when you’re hurt you ask yourself… (R: Exactly, that’s the point.) First you observe that and then you know the world exists and then you ask, “Who is hurt?” And that’s why every moment is like sadhana?
R: Yes. Or you can inquire, “To whom does the world exist?” Same thing.
SN: That’s like begging the question. (R: Begging the question?) Like you said once before you said, “As long as I can exist I can work on myself because I can find out who exists. (R: Yes.) So as long as we feel that we exist we can work on ourselves. Through finding out who exists through inquiry? (R: Of course. That’s very true.) So every reaction is like an opportunity, whether it’s taken or not? (R: Yes. It’s an opportunity for awakening.)SN: And when you take that opportunity and you investigate it you may or may not find out the emptiness of that? If you react it’s not empty and if you don’t react it’s empty? (R: True.) So that’s why I think that Ramana and a lot of teachers didn’t encourage setting a specific time to meditate or anything because they’re missing the point all together. Like saying, “but now I’m meditating, but now I’m in the world.” That’s not it at all. It’s whenever you react that’s it. (R: True.) (SG: It makes sense.) (R: True.) (SJ: Or whenever you observe.) (silence)
R: Would you like to read the Jnani Ed?
(Ed reads the confessions of a Jnani. Refer to the beginning of this book for text) R: Do we have any announcements?
Mary (SM): I have transcript number 36 to hand out. 10 copies or more to be made. If there’s anyone who would like one please let me know. Don’t all speak at one time. (laughs) R: We’ve got some prashad feel free to enjoy a fig.
Remember your real nature that you are absolute intelligence. You are not…
(tape break)
…that you are pure consciousness, absolute reality. That is your real nature. It’s been fun being with you. I love you, peace. Until we meet again.
(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.