– Transcript 113
R: Good evening. It’s wonderful to be with you again. I welcome you with all my heart. It’s good to see you. Good to hear you. It’s good to smell you. We’ll open up the tonight session with a reading from the Ashtravakra Gita, translated by Thomas Byrom, and read by Glen.
(reading)
There’s only one way to bring peace to the world. There’s only one way to bring peace to yourself. There’s only one way to overcome problems. There’s only one way to find yourself. And that way is to realize that everything is consciousness.
What do I mean by that? Take everything in this room, the glass, the lamps, the chairs, the couch, the rug, the light, and your body. They are not real. They are consciousness. I am not saying that consciousness has produced these things. I am not saying that first there is consciousness, and these things came out of consciousness. On the contrary, I am saying that everything that appears to arise, that you hear with your ears, that you taste with your mouth, that you feel with your hands, is consciousness. It is not what it appears to be. It is not duality. Remember what I’m trying to convey. There is not consciousness and the world. There is only consciousness and you are that. A paradox, contradiction. You are the paradox. You are the contradiction. You are not what you appear to be. You are not what you see. No thing in this world, in this universe, is as it appears to be.
But how can this be? We look at each other. We see the things of this world. We feel the pain. We feel sorrow. We feel happiness. We feel joy. And yet I’m saying to you that these things do not exist. There is only consciousness. You can only know this when you experience it, so you’re saying “This is good for you, Robert, but what about me? I feel the world. I get hurt easily. I’m sensitive. Things bother me. I see man’s inhumanity in the world and I cry. I perceive all these dastardly things going on in the world. They make me sad. How can you say these things don’t exist? How can you say there is only consciousness when all these things face me every day?”
That’s just it. You have to be ready to turn away from the worldly things. You have to be prepared to jump within yourself, to dive deep within yourself and to sort of ignore the world for a while. This doesn’t mean that you have to give up anything. It means that while you’re going through your daily chores, while you are doing your work in this world, you simply have to become aware every once in a while that everything is consciousness. Just by being aware of these things that I’m talking about, you awaken. You become free. Just by being, aware, by thinking to yourself when you get up in the morning “Everything may appear real to me but all is consciousness. Everything is consciousness.
Consciousness is space, pure choice-less awareness.”
How can you prove this scientifically? If you got a hold of a giant electronic microscope and you put your body under the microscope, you would see tremendous amount of space. You would see atoms separated by a vast amount of space. And if you obtain an ultra-electronic microscope, which hasn’t been invented yet, you would see your body as pure space. There would be no atoms. For the ultra-electronic microscope would see through the atom and you would see space, total space. That space is consciousness.
This is not only true of your body. It is true of the chair, the building, a tree, a flower, an animal. Everything is space.
That’s why I say so often “We are all nothing.” All of us are nothing. So we are no thing. We are no thing conceivable. We are no thing that you can ever imagine. Your imagination only goes down to atoms. You know about molecules. You go down to atoms, pure energy, but go beyond that. Go beyond the pure energy. There’s absolute nothing.
That nothing is you. That nothing is consciousness.
There was once a class being conducted like this. And a particular student said “Master, I don’t know what you’re talking about. How can everything be consciousness?
How can everything come from nothing? This doesn’t make sense.” And the Master pointed to a fig tree, said to his student “Go bring me a fig.” The student went and pulled a fig from the fig tree and brought it to the Master. The Master said “Break open the fig.”
He did. “What do you see?” “Seeds.” “Bring me one of those seeds.” He obeyed. He gave him a razor blade and he said “Cut open the seed.” It was a pretty hard job because the seed is so small, and he cut his finger a couple of times, blood all over the place. He finally managed to cut open the seed. And the Master said “What do you see now?” “Nothing.” In the seed there’s a hollow, absolute nothingness. And the Master said “From this nothing the entire universe is produced.”
And this is true of everything on this earth, and this world, and this universe.
Everything is nothing. There is absolutely nothing that exists. Remember I am saying that things do not come from consciousness. I am saying that everything is consciousness.
Things do not exist.
Human beings appear to be made so that they see things, hear things, smell things, touch things, and feel things. Therefore they think they are living in a material world, in a relative world. Yet the ultimate truth is, everything is an optical illusion, like the snake in the rope, like the sky is blue, like the water in the mirage. These things do not exist. You, as you appear, do not exist.
Just by thinking about this, will free you. You really do not have to do anything else, for some of you. Just to consider this, to ponder this, to try to realize everything is really space, everything is consciousness, to think about this and rest, something begins to happen to your mind. You begin to lose your mind. I know many people have told you you lost your mind already. That’s a compliment. You begin to lose your mind.
What I usually mean by losing your mind is they change one appearance to another appearance. That’s when they call somebody insane. They just change appearances.
They see things that do not exist. But when I talk about losing your mind I am referring to emptying the mind, actually destroying the mind, annihilating the mind, totally, totally transmuting the mind. Not to change it to something else.
Even in religion they try to focus on the God of their religion in meditation, focus on an item. These do not awaken you. It may improve your concentration, make you a little more one pointed, yet it will not awaken you. The only time you will awaken is when your mind is destroyed. There has to be no mind left. When the mind is destroyed consciousness appears by itself, for in truth you are already that. You have always been that.
But as long as you go on crying over spilled milk, when you look at your life, and you see the things that upset you, you see the things that make you angry, the things that make you worried, the things that make you fret and become excited, what a waste of energy, what a waste of time.
There is no thing in this world that is that important. As long as you believe it is important you will never awaken. You can’t, for you’re caught up in Maya. You are playing the game. You’re still involved in the Leela. You’re feeling things. You’re reacting to things. You’re arguing about things. You’re debating things. You’re still not sure. As long as you keep acting this way you can not awaken. Just think of the things you thought about today, just for today, since you woke up, the things that went through your mind, the actions you took, the emotions you had, the worries you had, the feelings of sadness, or joy, or any kind of feelings. All this is a waste of your precious energy. This is what keeps you back. This is what makes you a human being. This is what makes you worldly.
It’s up to you to understand what I’m saying and to begin to get a program of non-action in your mind by not reacting. When something takes place in your mind or in your world, you become the observer. You become the witness. You do not react. You try to keep your mind centered in the now, in the moment. You do not think about ten minutes ago, nor about yesterday, or about last week, or last month, or last year, or five years ago. You do not consider what somebody did to you ten years ago, or how you were wronged. Those are the things that keep you back. Do not consider where you are going to go next week, or what you have to do to become enlightened next month, or the teacher you have to go to see next year, or the book you have to read next week. You do not think about these things. All of these things are part of Maya. They are part of the grand illusion.
They pull you back into materiality.
Some of you wonder why you don’t make too much progress on your spiritual journey. That’s not hard to see. Just take a look at your belief system. Look at the way you’re living. Some of you are afraid to make changes. You want your life to be the same now and forever. You know this is impossible. If you’re afraid to make a change life will come along and pull the rug from under you one day. And you’ll have to make a change.All the things that hold you back, your security blanket, think about this. What is your security blanket? Food? The opposite sex, or the same sex, whatever you prefer, or no sex? All these things keep you back. Just being involved in a movement, trying to make this world a better world in which to live, keeps you back.
Now some of you new people will feel sort of strange, when I say something like this, for you’re saying “Aren’t we supposed to help the world?” You’re supposed to find out who you are. Your first and main job is to awaken, and then you will see if you want to help the world. What world? But first awaken. The more you become involved in peace movements, or anti-peace movements, or this or that, the more you get pulled into materiality. These are all commendable things. It’s better than being a bank robber, I guess. So if you have to do something, help other people. There’s no question about this. But remember the truth. “I’ve got to find myself,” you should say.
You do not have to find yourself at the expense of others. This is wrong. But be by yourself all you can. Realize that this is your life. It is not your husband’s life. It is not your wife’s life. It is not your children’s life. It is not your relative’s life. It’s your life. You exist here and now. What are you doing with it? How can you allow people to make you angry?
How can you allow people to tell you what to do, to make decisions for you? All the answers are within yourself. But you have to turn within yourself. You have to sincerely turn within, with a great passion, and find yourself.
The world appears very strong. People appear very real. Some of us always seem to get involved in all kinds of situations. Yet take a look at your life and see why you get involved. Honestly look at yourself. Do not be afraid to see yourself. See the things you do, the words you say, the thoughts you think, and you’ll see why you’re not making too much progress.
Now if you really want to make progress you will drop everything, mentally.
Remember when I speak of dropping everything I’m not referring to your quitting your job, moving to India, stop reading books, stop watching TV. I’m not referring to this really, if that’s what you want to do. I’m referring to mentally letting go of your reactions to whatever is going on in your body and the world. Leave the world alone. Leave people alone. Do not try to change people or to make them see your point of view. There is no point of view. Every point of view is wrong. We want to get rid of points of view.
You have to sincerely want to awaken, and I kid you not, to awaken is simple.
You just have to give up everything mentally. That’s all. And consider the fact that everything is consciousness. Everything. No thing is as it appears. This includes yourself.
There are many people who stay the way they are and they are always talking about something outside themselves. They try to change the world. They try to see the world as consciousness. They shrug people off. They become indifferent. This is not right.
You start with yourself. You take an honest look at your habits and see the things that you’re doing. Don’t worry about other people. Remember you are creating others with your mind. Everyone who is in your life, you have created yourself. Otherwise where do
they come from? You are the creator and all the things in your life are your creations. You have done this unconsciously.
Karmically you have attracted everybody in your life that’s in your life right now.
You think certain thoughts a certain way and you’ll attract those people in your life. If your mind is full of larceny, bad thoughts, you will attract people like that into your life, and then you will say “It’s a bad world. You can’t trust anybody.” But it begins with you.
You have to look honestly at things holding you back from your own realization. And you have to start working on yourself diligently, until the time comes when you no longer have to do that.
It’s fine for me to sit here and say the world doesn’t exist, nothing exists, but when you walk out of this door the world hits you right in the face. Some of you become depressed because you have to go home by yourself, perhaps. You wish you had a relationship. Some of you feel depressed because you have a relationship and you wish you were alone. Nobody is happy. Everybody thinks something is wrong with their life. Some of you are depressed because you can’t get enlightened.
Think about what you’re doing. Think about what you’re feeling. So we begin a program. And from my own personal experience I found that self-inquiry is the fastest way to awaken, for some people. Therefore you passionately get yourself involved in self-inquiry. As I said before, it is true that listening to these words and realizing that everything is consciousness can awaken you. But this is only if you are prepared. By prepared I mean you’ve already transcended all the things we were talking about, all of the emotions and all of the fears, all of the hurts and all of the frustrations. If you have already transcended these things then that’s all you’ve got to do. All you have to do is hear the word, and you’re awake. But for most people it doesn’t work this way. Therefore you have to practice some form of sadhana.
Self-inquiry becomes very useful. You simply allow thoughts to come to you and you inquire in a gentle way “To whom do these thoughts come? Who is thinking these thoughts? I am.” You wait and you inquire sincerely “Who am I? What is the source of this I?” When I say you have to dive within yourself, that’s how you dive within yourself. People often ask me “How do you dive within yourself?” That’s how you do it. You inquire “Where does the I come from?” The I is deep, deep within yourself. “What is the source of the I?” Then thoughts will come to you again and you repeat the same thing over again.
“To whom do these thoughts come? They come to me. Who is this me? What is the source of me?” Me and I are synonymous. “Where does the me come from?” You do it over, and over, and over again.
You do not look for a time. Forget about time. Do not worry about anything.
Spend time by yourself. Most people cannot spend time by themselves. Many people tell me they stay by themselves a lot but if you’re going to their house the TV is on, the radio is on. That is just like having people in your house. When I say spend time by yourself I mean in the silence. Take the time. Sit down in a chair and watch your thoughts and begin to inquire “To whom do these thoughts come? They come to me. I am thinking these thoughts? Who is this I? What is the source of the I? Where did it come from?”
Let’s practice this together, because many of you have told me, you’re having much success when we do this together. So make yourself comfortable. It’s better if you close your eyes. It removes obstructions. It makes no difference how many times you’ve practiced this before. Whenever you do it, it’s like the first time. This may be the time for you to awaken. That’s why you should never give up.
You simply sit still. Do not try not to think, for if you try not to think you will have thoughts that you can’t get rid of. You will be full of thoughts if you try not to think.
You do nothing, absolutely nothing. You’re watching the thoughts come. As soon as the thoughts come, in a gentle way you inquire “To whom do these thoughts come? They come to me. I think them. Who is this I? Where did it come from? How did it arise? From where did it arise? Who is the I? Who am I?” You remain still. The thoughts come again.
You do the same thing again, and again, and again, in a gentle peaceful way. So let’s do it.
(meditation)
(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.