– Transcript 114
R: Good afternoon. It’s good being with you again. Welcome to the second bhandara of the Jnana Marga Society. What does bhandara mean? It means to feed. It’s actually associated with feeding the homeless and the poor. So here’s what we’ll do. Make up your mind that from now until Christmas you’ll find a homeless person somewhere.
Either bring them to your home for a meal or give them $10 and say God bless you. Will you do that?
Students: Yes.
R: The first homeless person you see. Do not choose or pick.
Everyone on this planet, every human being, does what he does, or what she does, for one reason, in order to attain happiness. Think about that. Everything you do, everything, is to become happy. People get married to be happy. Then they get divorced to be happy. Then they get married again to be happy. Then they get divorced again to be happy. Everything you do is to become happy.
That’s subjective. We have different purposes consciously. We think “I’m doing this because I want this.” But if you go deep within you you’ll see the real reason is to be happy. Everything, it makes no difference what it is, is to attain happiness. The murderer murders because he or she thinks, in their warped mind, that this will make them happy, to get rid of this person. A hit man kills because he dreams of the money he’s going to get, so that he can spend and purchase the things that will make him happy.
Everything you do is to be happy. True. Everything. There is no other reason. You may think you have other reasons but it’s to be happy. You’re going into spiritual life to find happiness. Whatever you do, it’s to be happy, and you can think of thousands of things that you’ve done in your life. You believe it’s for another purpose but if you really are honest with yourself, you’re doing everything for your own happiness. Even when you help the poor somehow it makes you happy to do this. You go to school to learn to be a doctor, a nurse, an accountant, a bum, whatever you’re learning is for your happiness.
You feel that in the long run this will make you happy.
But what if somehow you began to realize that the happiness you’re searching for externally is really you, the thrills you get in the external world from doing certain things is none other than yourself, that happiness that you’ve been looking for all these years, believing that when you graduate school, when you get married, find a good profession, this will be your total joy, total happiness, and it has not. If you begin to realize, if you begin to ponder, that this happiness that you’re searching for, you have always had. Not only have you always had it, it is you. You are happiness. You are extreme happiness. Total bliss.
There is nothing in the external world that can make you as happy as you already are. You begin to ponder these things and you understand that this world is a world of constant change. No thing ever remains the same. Therefore how can the world make you happy? It may make you happy for a short time, for a while, but all things must change, as you all know by now. And all the things you’ve been through in this life, to make you happy, have changed. It’s not the same any more. Everything has changed. Yet you will not admit or realize that the only true happiness is yourself.
You may say to yourself “But I’m not happy. I feel out of sorts. I feel depressed. I have a job I don’t like. Something is wrong with my life. I need more money. I need more love,” and you think if you acquire these things it would make you happy. It is true you’ll be happy for a while, but when the novelty wears off you will return to the old depressed self. And you will continue searching for happiness in the world until the time comes when you feel that you are this happiness.
Now why aren’t you experiencing this if you know it? Well, it’s like an onion. You have to peel off layer, after layer after layer to get to the core of the onion. The core has been covered by layers of skin. So it appears that our happiness, the light that we are, has been covered by ignorance, by Maya, the grand illusion, and we react to the world and to situations instead of turning within, finding the truth that we are happiness, and no matter what is going on in this world, it will not faze us, for nothing can interfere with our happiness.
We try to change conditions. We run all over the world. We search for this, we search for that, always believing, always thinking, that there is some happiness somewhere that we have not discovered yet, and if we only discover this happiness we will be forever free. Yet you are beginning to understand that there is nothing in this world that can make you free or make you happy. It’s only for a while. It’s only for a short time that the world will make you happy.
Think about when you got married. When you got married you were so happy.
And as the weeks went by, as the years went by, you became miserable. And even if you don’t admit it, it’s not the same. The same with your job. You loved your job when you first got it. You were only thinking of the highest good. This is the best job I ever had. I love it. I’ll keep it forever. After six months, a year, you get bored. Things do not turn out the way you thought they would and you start to search for a new job, new happiness, always searching for new happiness. You move, change cities, change states, attain new friends to be happy. You’re always looking for this happiness.
You have probably read by now that happiness is within you, but nevertheless you forget. You continue to search. You continue to struggle. You continue to fight, looking for that happiness, searching for that happiness, always looking to the outside world, always believing and thinking that the world is going to bring you happiness somehow.
And we never learn. We still believe that if we won the lottery we would be the happiest people on earth, after it has been proven to you that it is not true. When you follow the lives of the people who have won the lottery, many horrible things have happened to them. Some have become alcoholics. Some have left their families. Some have gone to jail.
All kinds of strange things have happened to these people.
Money, person, place or thing, health, sickness, poverty, lack and limitation, these things have absolutely nothing to do with your happiness. Your real nature is happiness.
You are the happiness you’ve been looking for. But, as I said before, it’s been covered up with layers, and layers of layers, like an onion, and you have to remove these layers of ignorance, or Maya, to discover who you are.
Once you discover your true Self, that you are happiness, you will never again look to this external world for anything. Remember what we’re trying to do. We’re not trying to change situations. We’re not trying to change bad for good. We’re not trying to bring to us a good human existence. There is no such thing. All human existence changes.
Everything will change in your life. When you attain the true happiness, when you awaken to it and you realize that’s what you really are, there will be nothing in this world that will ever be able to frighten you again, upset you again, cause any problems for you at all. There will be nothing that can do anything to you. You will be totally free. And you will understand that this true happiness, this bliss that you are, is all pervading, omnipresent. Therefore you will see it is not you that is totally happy, it is the Self. And everywhere you look you will see the Self, for the Self is not limited to your body.
People who look in the world and see different situations, they look at the world and see what they are. But you look at the world and you see your Self. You see the happiness that you have attained. It has absolutely nothing to do with your body, with your mind, with the world, with the universe, with God, or with anything else. You are not separate from the total joy, bliss and happiness, which pervades this universe. You are that.
But remember what you have to do? You have to remove the layers of ignorance, those things that make you upset, the anger, the unfulfillments, the anxieties, the things that upset you, the things that you believe are causing you anguish. You do not change the condition. You change yourself. You begin to see and understand that everything happens within yourself. There’s nobody that can really help you. There is no real person you can run to in order to change yourself.
You have to, number 1, come to the conclusion that this world and this universe can never make me happy. Number 2, you have to realize and see that happiness is already within you, you are that. Number 3, you have to say to yourself “Now what do I have to do to bring this happiness out, to become the embodiment of happiness, so I will raise myself above the world, the world will no longer be able to hinder me, annoy me, bother me, or show me anything.“You begin to work on yourself. This is called sadhana. You begin a spiritual practice. You no longer compare yourself with anyone else. You no longer run about looking for other teachers. You’re no longer looking for solutions to your problems. You learn to become still. When you begin to know the whole universe, everything, is only here because of you, when you begin to understand that if you weren’t around, there would be no universe… You have created the entire universe. And every person, and everything that exists, as you know by now, is an emanation of your own mind. Everything comes out of your mind.
Therefore what you begin to do in your sadhana, your spiritual practice, is to pull everything back in and destroy it. From searching you find that one of the greatest sadhanas, one of the greatest techniques, is self-inquiry. You begin to realize that atma-vichara is the fastest way to awaken, to awaken to the fact that you are eternal happiness and bliss.
First you read some books, before you stop reading, you see some teachers, before you stop going to teachers, and you realize that there are Sages, Jnanis, in this world who have achieved this, so you know that it’s not a hoax. You do not want to begin a practice, some spiritual practice, that really does nothing for you and causes no change. Therefore you want to meet people who have become this, who have actually experienced this total happiness, this total joy. They no longer look at the world, or in the job market, or anywhere else for their happiness or their security. These people really have it. Therefore you want to be like them. You want to become free also. You want to become liberated also.
And you discover that self-inquiry, again, is the fastest way to get there. So you begin.
How do you do it? You forget about the world. You no longer compare yourself to anyone. You do not care what anybody is doing. You leave people alone, but you begin to question the thoughts that come to your mind, your belief system. Everything that you are, your concepts, you question everything, for you begin to understand it is all of these things that you have become that have made you what you are today.
And how do you do this? You sit down when you can, where it’s quiet, where you will not be disturbed. After a while you can do this while you’re working, or while you’re driving your car, or while you’re doing anything else in this world, but to begin with you want to get the practice down strong first, before you start doing it in the conscious world.
You begin to watch your thoughts, whatever thoughts come into your mind, makes no difference what they are. You question them by inquiring “To whom do these thoughts come?” You try to be still. You’re not looking for anything. You have simply posed the question in a calm peaceful way. “To whom do these thoughts come?” And the answer always comes by itself. “These thoughts come to me. I think all of these thoughts.”
You then realize that I is the one who thinks the thoughts. So you inquire “What is the source of the I? What is the source of the I?” You do not look for an answer. You keep your mind still as much as possible. Then more thoughts will come to you and you do the same thing again. “To whom do these thoughts come? These thoughts come to me. I think these thoughts.”
When you are depressed, when you feel slighted, no matter what feelings come to you, even if you are feeling worldly happiness, for you realize the worldly happiness will change eventually, you therefore inquire “To whom do these things come? Who is thinking these thoughts about worldly happiness, about depression, about anything? Where do these thoughts come from? They come from me. Where else would they come from? They come from somewhere within myself. I think them. Then who am I?” which is the same as “What is the source of the I?” You become still. More thoughts come. You do the same thing over, and over and over again. When you feel as if you’ve got enough you get up and go about your business. You will find that during the day you’re feeling more peaceful, you’re feeling more relaxed, you’re feeling more at ease, the world is no longer bothering you too much.
Then you continue this practice continuously, night and day, as you wake up, as you go to sleep. You never stop. You keep your life simple. Just by doing this practice your life will become simple. You’ll no longer relate to all the things you see in the news. You’ll not be troubled by catastrophes or man’s inhumanity to man, not because you do not care, but because you have become an embodiment of peace, happiness. And you sort of understand that the world is a dream, like a dream. Everything that is happening in this world is a dream and it has absolutely nothing to do with you. You are part of reality. You are reality. Everything becomes as images on the screen and you are the screen.
Your body will still do the work it came here to do. You will find that you are doing whatever you have to do in this world, but you will be happy. As you practice self-inquiry you will become happier, and happier and happier. Whenever something befalls you, whether good or bad, you will begin to see it’s the I, the personal I, that is reacting.
Therefore you will work on removing the personal I by inquiring “To whom does it come?
What is it’s source?” and you become still. You become quiet.
You may be in the most dire circumstances. You may be involved in all kinds of things. Your body may be going through all kind of experiences, but you’ll be happy. You will realize you are not the body that goes though these experiences. You are not the mind that thinks all these thoughts. You are total freedom, pure awareness. You are absolute reality. You are Brahman, Sat-Chit-Ananda. You are the universe, and all is well.
(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.