– Transcript 111
R: Good evening. It’s good to be with you again. I welcome you with all my heart.
Always remember that this is satsang. It is not a lecture, or a sermon or a speech.
It is not Robert speaking to a group of disciples, or students, or whatever you want to call yourself. It is consciousness speaking to consciousness. And since there is only one consciousness you are actually speaking what I am speaking. You are feeling what I am feeling. There is only oneness, absolute reality, and you are that.
Try to remember this. There is consciousness. What you think you are, male or female, whatever your name may be, forget about that for a while. Think of yourself as omnipresence, all pervading. Do not question it. Do not analyze it. Just allow it to take over, the presence, the power. It starts within your heart and begins to spread all through your body, encompassing your body. Your body merges with it and it continues to spread until all of us in this room have become it. We’re no longer human. We have become it. It keeps on expanding and expanding until the entire world is it. It keeps on expanding, expanding, until all the galaxies, planets, stars and solar systems are it. It keeps on expanding, expanding until the entire universe is it. There is no longer anything that is separate from it. Everything is it. We may call it consciousness, the Self, absolute reality. This is it. This is your real nature.
What are you feeling? Try to let go of all your emotions, your preconceived ideas, all of your dogmatic beliefs, all about your body or about others. Allow your mind to remain empty. Feel that I am it, pure awareness. I have always been it. There never was a time when I was not it. The appearance of the body cannot fool me any longer. The world and all it’s manifestations cannot fool me any longer. The universe with it’s planets, and galaxies, and solar systems cannot fool me any longer. I can see through these things to the source. I can feel the source because I am the source. I have always been the source. There never was a time when I was not.
As far as thoughts are concerned, they do not exist. They can no longer bother me or make my life miserable. As far as other are concerned, there are no others. There is only the source. I can no longer be deceived. There is no thing that has ever transpired in my life that can hurt me. I forgive everyone and everything, and especially myself. I am the power, and the presence, and the glory. If I am that so is everybody else, so is everything else. All is well. When you take a true picture of yourself, when you look at yourself, when you get up in the morning and you sort of become the witness to all of your actions, you will notice that you revolve around three words, I, me and mine. There is usually never a moment in your material life when you do not use these words. If every time you said I you were aware of what I really means, that would be a different story. But unfortunately we do not use I that way. When we refer to I we’re talking about the body. We say “I feel wonderful, I feel sick, I feel happy, I feel sad, I feel this, I feel that.” We also say “This is mine, this belongs to me, no one else can have it. It’s mine alone.” Me, me, mine, mine, I, I.
We’re always involved with those three words, aren’t we? And this is what keeps us human. This is what keeps us back from realization. Those three words.
It would be difficult to speak without those words, for instead of saying “I feel good,” you’d have to say “Feel good.” Instead of saying “I feel sick,” you’d have to say “Feel sick.” Instead of saying “I feel depressed,” you’d have to say “Feel depressed.’ Instead of saying “This is mine,” you would say “This is.” Instead of saying “I am angry,”
you would say “Angry.” It would make you sound ridiculous but at the same time it would make you understand that you are not that I. You are not the mind.
You will immediately catch yourself and realize, when you say I you have to be very careful what you say after that. For I can never be sick. I can never know anything unhappy or happy, good or bad, rich or poor. I is beyond all those things. I is consciousness. I is God. I is pure awareness. Imagine, if you will, that whenever you said I you realized truly what this I means to you. You’re no longer speaking of the small I, the body I, the I that does not exist. You’re speaking of God. Whenever you say I you’re speaking of God.
Therefore if you said “I am sick,” that’s blasphemy. How can God be sick? If you say “I am unhappy,” same thing. How can this thing called God be unhappy? Even if you say “I am happy,” how can God be happy according to human standards? As you begin to realize what this I really means you’ll automatically be lifted up to a higher state of consciousness. Just by realizing continuously what I really means.
Yet you have to do this every day. You have to catch yourself every moment.
Think how many times today you used the term I, and what you said after that. Think how many times today you said the word me and “mine,” as if you were an individual, as if anything can belong to you personally, as if you really own anything, and you have to protect it and take care of it, as if it is yours.
Everything belongs to God. Everything is God. It is true that you appear to be using it, but never for a second believe that it belongs to you. This is why, when people realize this truth, it’s so easy for them to share, but when one believes they are the body then they have to hoard, and hold onto something, and fight for their existence and stick up for their rights.
Is it any wonder that you don’t wake up? How can you wake up when you’re fighting for your rights as a human body, when you’re trying to protect the things that you
think you own? This is Maya, total Maya, the belief that you own something, that you are something. It’s all an illusion. There is only God. There is only consciousness. Everything else is an appearance.
Enjoy the world if you can, but do not allow the world to be your Master. Do not allow the world to tell you how things are. Do not allow the news, or the newspaper, or the way of the world to confound you and confuse you, and to make you sad, or angry, or upset you. After all, it’s the same as seeing a movie. You look at the movie and you see all kinds of dastardly things going on. But then you catch yourself and you say “It’s only a movie. It’s not the truth.” And so it is with life. You observe everything that’s going on in life. You watch, you look, you see, yet you never react. You’re never for or against. You understand and this makes you free.
What we call Maya is very powerful and so it appears. It grabs you in it’s clutches and makes you believe that things are happening in this world, and makes you believe that things are moving, changing. That’s the picture it shows you. There are very few people who can go through a day without being affected by Maya. Think about yourself. Just today. How have you been affected by Maya, believing something about your body, or about somebody else, or about a situation in your life, or about the world, or about the universe, and feeling it? That’s Maya. Here’s an example. I’ve told this story before.
One day Buddha and his chief disciple, Nerada, were walking along a country road. Buddha was discussing Maya. He explained that the trees, the river, the mountains, the beauty, all of the bugs and the mosquitoes, animals, it’s all Maya. And Nerada said “But Master, how can this be? It sounds virtually impossible. I can grab the tree. I can grab your arm. I’m stung by a mosquito. I feel this thing. There’s a bump on my arm. How can this all be illusion? I don’t understand.” And Buddha said “I’m thirsty. Go get me a glass of water.” There was a town nearby so Nerada went to the town and knocked at the door of the first house he saw.
An old lady opened the door. She said “What do you want?” Nerada said “My Master would like a glass of water.” She looked him over and saw that he was handsome, well built, healthy, and she said “Come on in.’ He went into her house and there was a beautiful lady sitting on a chair. The woman said “This is my daughter. Isn’t she beautiful?” Nerada was astounded at her beauty. He said “She is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.” The old lady said “How would you like to marry her?” and Nerada said “Why not?”
So he married the girl. They had a big wedding and all the people in the village came. The next day he got a job. He was a potter by trade and he made beautiful pots out of clay. He did this for a living. After the first year they had a child and he was able to afford a beautiful house. He had a mortgage payment, had to pay taxes, so he had to work harder and hire people to help him. He had employees. He had to pay them salaries, take out taxes, workers compensation, everything else. Then, after two years passed, another child. He was completely enmeshed in family life. Some days were good. Some days were bad. A couple more years went by, three years, four years, five years. One day there was a big hurricane, a very powerful hurricane, that came into the town. The place was getting flooded. Nerada said “What are we going to do?” All his furniture was being ruined. Everything he believed he owned was getting wet, totally ruined.
He took his family up onto the roof. There was a clothes line on the roof. They all hung onto the clothes line. The hurricane became stronger, and stronger and stronger. His mother-in-law was washed away by the flood. Nerada said “I guess we didn’t need her anyway. She was old.”
But the hurricane was still very strong and his wife and two children were holding on. One of the children was washed away, and Nerada became very distraught, but he was holding on with his wife. Then the other child was washed away. He became very upset, but he said to himself “At least I have my wife. We can have more children.” Then his wife was washed away and he said “What happened to my family? They’re all gone.
Everything I worked for is all gone. Everything I strived for is all gone. I’m going to end it all, commit suicide.” So he let go of the rope. The next moment he found himself sitting next to Buddha with a glass of water. He looked at Buddha and Buddha said “It’s about time you brought me my water.” So Nerada looked at him and said “Now I understand what Maya is.”
This is just like us. We become so enmeshed in the world. We think things are real.
Everything bothers us. We become angry. We become upset. But the truth is you are not Maya. You are absolute reality. You are total awareness. You are the Self. Know who you are and wake up.
Awaken and be free.
(end)
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.