– Transcript 127
Compassion, Humility and Service
R: Greetings and salutations. It is good to be with you once again on this balmy winter’s day in February. I welcome you with all my heart. Let me remind most of you again, I do not give sermons, I am not a philosopher, I am not a public speaker, I do not even give talks, for there’s really nothing to say. Everything there is to say has already been said.
This is satsang. It is here that you meet yourself, the self that you really are, effortless pure awareness. You are infinite like the sky. There is nothing in this world or anywhere else that can effect you or cause harm to come to you unless you believe it. The relative the world is made up of mental beliefs. Everything that you behold is a projection of your mind, and because it keeps changing constantly, you cannot say this is reality. For instance, your body is not the same as it was ten years ago, or twenty years ago or when you were first conceived. How can you therefore say that your body is real?
The world isn’t the same as it was twenty years ago, thirty years ago. Everything has changed. Then how can you possibly say that the world is real? Most of us are afraid to get into that subject, for we begin to feel that nothing is permanent, and this brings on fear. If nothing is permanent who am I really? What am I? Where did I come from? What is the source of myself? These questions can only be answered by you.
There is something more beautiful, more grand, more wonderful than you could ever imagine, that exists within you, which is the substratum of all existence. Yet in order to feel this joy, this bliss, in order to find this total freedom from life’s so-called burdens, you have to dig for your self. You have to give up something. You cannot stay the way you are, with the same disposition, the same values, the same preconceived ideas, the same concepts, and be free. You cannot do this. You have to do an about face and totally give up all of your ideas about life, totally surrender your ego, your mind, your body, your preconceived ideas.
To whom do you surrender this? To your self. You thought I was going to say, “To God.” But who do you think God is? God doesn’t want your problems. Why should you give God your burden? Find out who this God is, where this God came from, and you will soon realize that you have created God in your image. There is no such God, but it is better than nothing. It’s good to know you have a big daddy somewhere. (students laugh) Who you can cry to. (laughter) Somebody you can scream at and blame for all your problems.Yet as we grow, as we unfold, as we let go of all this stuff we’ve been holding on, something does happen. We become lighter. The burden seems to disappear by itself. The only burden you’ve ever had is your mind. There is no other burden. See if you can stop your mind for a few seconds, and see how peaceful you are. Where there are no thoughts, there are no worries, there are no fears, there’re no anxieties, there are no desires, no wants, no greed, no hurt, no enemies. It is the mind, the thoughts, that causes these things to come to us. We actually create these conditions. We create our own reality.
Think of the kind of life you are living today, your possessions, your friends, your loved ones, your employment. Do these things come to you through luck or chance? Of course not. You have created all these things yourself, for you have believed in the false self. You have imagined that you are a human being who has to go through experiences.
You have been brainwashed since you were little to believe the things that you believe today. So, if you really want freedom, liberation, you do not go searching for this. It is no where to be found, for it already exists within yourself. You are already that, so where can you go searching for it? Who can give it to you?
If you want water, you turn on the tap. You do not look at the tap and scream and cry, “I want water.” You turn on the tap and you’ve got water. Yet when you were a little kid you didn’t know how to turn on the tap. Therefore, if you wanted a drink, you would cry and make a fuss, and your mom or your dad, whatever the case may be, would open the tap and give you a drink. So can you drink from the spring of eternal life, which is your reality. You have to turn on the tap. You have to turn on the tap. You turn on the tap by letting go of everything that you are, everything. When I say everything I mean everything! You have to turn yourself inside out. Can you imagine how you would look turned inside out? Wouldn’t be a pretty sight.
There are three main virtues that you have to acquire in order to become liberated.
Most of us believe and think, in Advaita Vedanta, that if you hear the right word, if you awaken through the grace of the Sage, you will be free. This is true in some cases. But these people that you have read about in the holy books, who were touched by the grace of the Sage, these people have done their homework, prior to this happening. You have to want it yourself, and when you want it bad enough something will happen to you.
When you desire liberation more than anything else in life, this means you have begun to give up the rest of your stuff that we talked about. That’s the only way to desire liberation. This is a legitimate desire, because you’re not really asking for something, you are giving up the stuff you don’t need anymore, your anger, your pettiness, your bad disposition, your temper, your greed, all of the things we were carrying around for so long.
This is how you desire liberation, by speaking to the Lord within you, in total surrender.
“Lord take my anger, take my greed, take my bad disposition, take my temper,” and you give it up totally. Once you do this, automatically you are liberated.
So you see, it’s not the other way around. It’s not trying to find freedom, liberation, self-realization, to add to what we already are. Hear this. You cannot add one iota to what
And even as I talk to you about these things, some of you here are so filled with yourself, small “s,” with your ego, that you’ll never, never, never let go completely and give up all your stuff, for your ego has been telling you all of these years, if you do this you’ll be nowhere. But isn’t this exactly where you want to be? Nowhere. When you are nowhere you’re not somewhere, and in the nowhere there is nothing. This nothing is everything. This no thing, this nothing, is what we call effortless pure awareness, absolute reality, Sat-Chit-Ananda, nirvana. It is what is left over after you have given up all your stuff.
Yet there are three virtues that are most important, most important for you to achieve, before enlightenment. Every enlightened person on this earth, everyone who has been liberated, has had these virtues, and you cannot be realized without them. The first one is compassion, the second one is humility, and the third one is service. We will start with compassion.
What is compassion? Actually compassion is when you are reconciled with this entire universe. You’re totally reconciled with the entire universe. There’s no thing in this whole universe that you are against. Think about that. Compassion means reverence for all of life. Everything is alive. There’s no such thing as dead matter. Everything has its own life. When you have reverence for life you respect everything. You have no animosity towards anyone or anything.
I’m not only talking about human beings. I’m speaking of the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, the human kingdom. Have you ever heard of a Sage or a liberated person who was at odds with anything in this world? You have to come to terms with yourself. Too many Advaita Vedantists, non-duality people, always go around shouting, “I am one with this. I am one with that. Everything is absolute reality.”
And yet they have so many bad habits.
It’s sort of paradoxical. So many times I tell you everything is karmic, everything is preordained, everything that’s happened to you is preordained. You do not lift one finger that has not been preordained for you to do so. Yet, at the same time, I’m telling you that you have to give up certain things and develop higher qualities. Which is right?
For you would say to yourself, “If everything is preordained, why should I care about what I do, how I act and how I live? Everything is supposed to happen anyway.” This is true on one level, but then again you have the total freedom to turn within, and not to react to life’s situations. You have that freedom. So everything’s preordained, at the same time you have the freedom to turn within and find out to whom preordination comes to, by lifting yourself up into a higher state of consciousness and becoming free.
Therefore compassion is very important. I use myself as an example. I go to lunch with many of you. I enjoy going to lunch with you, but I do it out of a great compassion, a great compassion for you, because this gives you pleasure. When I’m at lunch with some of you, you always see me taking a handful of vitamin pills. I bring a little bottle filled with vitamins. Before I came to Los Angeles I never took a vitamin in my life. But some of you have heard about a so-called disease I may have, so you bring me vitamins and minerals, and pills and everything else. So I take these things for your sake, not for my sake, because of great compassion.
Approximately two years ago someone came to my home at about 4:00 o’clock one Friday evening. He rang the bell, I opened the door. There was this guy standing there with a big smile on his face, as if he’d known me all my life. He explained he met me once in 1958 in Bangalore, in India, at Papa Ram Dass ashram. I didn’t remember him. He also told me he came to my classes in Denver in 1975. But he felt so good about this I told him that I recognized him, I remembered him.
He was passing through. He came to see me. He wanted me to initiate him in Advaita Vedanta. I explained to him I do not do initiations. I’m not a guru or a yogi or anything like that, and besides you cannot get initiated into Advaita Vedanta, for it is non-duality. There has to be the initiator and somebody to be initiated. There has to be a subject and an object. And since there is no subject and there is no object how can I initiate anybody?
But he didn’t take no for an answer. He started beseeching me. He came a long way to see me and I must initiate him. I explained to him again that I do not do this. I do not believe in this. It has nothing to do with Advaita Vedanta. Why doesn’t he go find a yogi or somebody like this who does initiations?
The next thing he did, he took out $200.00 and put it down, and said, “Here, please initiate me.” I took the $200.00 and shoved it back in his pocket, and explained to him I do not take money from somebody I do not know, to be initiated.
Finally he got down on his knees. He grabbed my legs and started crying. So what could I do? I was in a dilemma. So I told him, “Okay.” I put my left hand on his head and my right hand on his chest, and I said, “In the name of Advaita Vedanta you are now initiated into pure awareness.”
Now something happened to him. It’s the first time I had seen anybody’s hair stand up. It’s as if a surge of electricity went through his body, his head. He stood up and he smiled, and I was actually able to see myself as him. He really had been totally transformed. And he said goodbye and he left. I never saw him again.
Now what is the purpose of this story? It has no purpose. It’s just a story I add into this teaching, so time can pass faster. (students laugh)
SD: I thought it was going to have to do with compassion. (R: No.) Sort of?
R: No compassion at all, it had nothing to do with anything. It doesn’t belong here at all.) (laughter) (SH: You’re a card!)
SE: It’s like one of Muktananda’s stories. It starts nowhere and ends nowhere.
But to get back to compassion, you have to have compassion! I actually did have a great compassion for this person, but I never use that word. It’s a word to make you sort of understand what it is, that we explain all these things. Compassion is very important.
Think of the times in your life that you could have had compassion and you didn’t, for your thoughts interfered, and you came to a conclusion, based on the thoughts that came to your head.
For instance, you see a homeless person who asks you for a couple of dollars or whatever. It makes no difference why he wants the couple of dollars, whether he wants to buy some whiskey, or he wants to buy bread, or what he wants to do. It is your duty to help anyone who comes into your atmosphere. Anyone who comes into your life must be helped. It is no accident that this homeless person came to you. Do not turn him away, for by turning him away you’re turning yourself away.
This is compassion, reconciling yourself with the whole universe, all of the kingdoms. Animals, we should have a great compassion for every animal on this earth, whether they are ants, or cockroaches, or goats, or sheep or cows. If we had a compassion like this would we eat meat? We have to have a great compassion for all the flowers, vegetation, everything that exists. We have to have a great compassion for all of the minerals on this earth. Everything! This is reconciling ourselves with the entire universe. This is important.
Some of us wonder why we have been on this path for a long time and we do not seem to make too much progress. It is because your compassion is not big enough.
Next we go to humility. Humility is very, very important. Everybody wants to win a point, win an argument, win a fight, and yet if you have humility, it never comes into your mind to win or get even. Humility is karmic. Karma is like stepping on a rake and the handle hits you in the head. Cause and effect. The cause is you stepped on the rake and the handle came up and hits you on the head. This is how karma is. Everything that goes around comes around. You stepping on the rake, but the handle doesn’t hit you on the head immediately. It may hit you on the head years later or in another incarnation, but you will get hit on the head. So there’s immediate karma, and there’s future karma. The only way to get rid of it is through having a tremendous humility.
Say somebody slaps you. The first things our ego will tell us is to beat them up, slap them back, shoot them, kill them, get even with them. But if we’re wise we’ll understand that the reason we were slapped on the face is, of course, somewhere, somehow, this is the karma returning to us, and if we retaliate we’re setting new karma in motion, which will return to us sooner or later.
Therefore, anything that has ever happened to you, in any area of your life, no matter how it looks, you are in your right place. No one is picking on you. No one is trying to do anything to you. No one is trying to hurt you. If you cooperate, and do not react,and do not retaliate, but send out a message of love and peace, then you transcend that karma and it will never come back again. But if you retaliate, and you want to get even, and you think you’re winning the battle, you may appear to be winning in this instance, you may appear to be getting somewhere, but the fruits of your actions must return sooner or later.
Therefore you’re playing games with yourself and you’ll never get anywhere.
You’ll keep repeating the situation again, and again, and again, with different people. You may move to a different state, be involved in different situations, but you will find the same problems. Therefore, whatever seems wrong in your life, whatever seems terrible, do not look at the problem in itself as a problem. Rise above it. Realize no one is to blame for it. You have no enemies. No one is trying to hurt you. This is humility. You’re not a coward, you’re not a wimp. You have risen above that kind of thinking. That kind of thinking does not exist.
That’s why the story of Ramana Maharshi, when he went for a walk in the jungle one day, and he inadvertently stepped into a wasp’s nest, and the wasps started to sting him, he didn’t even pull his leg out, but he spoke to the wasps and he said, “I deserve this.
I invaded your house where you live and I deserve what you are doing to my leg, and if you want you can attack the other leg.” When he got back to the ashram from his walk he was bitten all through the leg and had to put ointment on it. But he wasn’t phased one bit.
He had a perpetual smile on his face, with the realization, “All is well.”
Now look at your lives. Think of the things that bother you every day, the things that annoy you every day, the things that make you angry, that make you upset, that make you want to retaliate. Get rid of this.
The third virtue is service. Our mission on this earth is to be of service to humanity. As we’re trying to unfold, as we’re trying to raise ourselves to a higher state to be liberated, to become totally free, be of service all you can, without looking for anything in return. Serve everyone you meet. Ask people what you can do for them to make their life happier and brighter. Be of total service to everyone.
It is written, “That the first shall be last and the last shall be first.” If you try to put your ego up front, and you want fame, and name and recognition, you will be beaten down all the time, and you will have all kinds of problems that come with achieving fame and name. Be of service.
In truth you are absolute reality. In truth you are that I am. I am that I am. In truth you are not the doer, you are not the body, you are not the mind. You are total freedom.
You are already liberated. But this is intellectual with some of us. Therefore practice those three virtues and you will be amazed how fast you become free.
We have a basket full of questions and we’ll see what we can do with them.
It’s time to play stump the guru. (students laugh)
Q: (Robert reads) When you say consciousness explain? I take it personally.
So when we speak of consciousness I am speaking of your reality, what you really are, your real self, your conscious self. When I speak of nothingness I am speaking of the things of this universe that appear to be something. They really do not exist. Nothingness exists. Nothingness is consciousness, the substratum of all existence, conscious of itself as pure reality. This is you. This is your true nature. You are that.
Q: (Robert reads) If you’re in a relationship and committed to self-realization do you detach yourself from the physical pleasures of the relationship? Is celibacy the idea?
A: (Robert answers) For whom is celibacy? For whom is the relationship? For the ego, the ego enjoys the relationship and the ego also believes it has to be celibate but none of these things are true. There is no reason to be celibate and there is no reason not to be celibate. Rise above both of them. When you rise above both of them, you will continue in your relationship. You will have a beautiful relationship because you will not be pinned down, you will not be attached in a material way to the relationship. The relationship will be full of freedom and love which is above the average way of thinking. Celibacy is for the ego.
The body does what it came here to do. The body wants to go and not be celibate, it will not be celibate. This has all been preordained for the body. Celibacy is not a requirement in Advaita Vedanta. When a question like that is usually asked the answer given are always sort of vague. It’s very unopen. And that is, find out who you are and then see if celibacy is necessary or not necessary. But first find yourself. Who has to be celibate? Who doesn’t have to be celibate? It’s always the ego. Go beyond that. Find your self. Know who you are and then see what to do. But in the meantime do not worry about it, enjoy yourself.
Q: (Robert reads) How do we keep the I-am meditation from strengthening the I-thought?
A: (Robert answers) The “I am,” meditation that we use here makes your mind one pointed. It keeps away other thoughts and focuses on the “I-am.” Which is your true self.
The I-thought does not come into play at all. The I-thought comes into play when you are interrupted from the “I-am” meditation.
For instance, you’re doing the “I-am” meditation and all of a sudden you start thinking about a problem you’ve got. This is the I-thought for I am thinking about the problem. I am thinking of a situation. This is called the I-thought. But as you continue with the “I am” meditation, the “I-am” is the self. It is the first name of God. You are invoking absolute reality, pure awareness when you practice the “I-am” meditation. It has nothing to with the I-thought.Again the I-thought only comes into play when you start to think again. When you interrupt the “I-am” meditation and start to think it’s getting late, I’m getting tired, I this and I that. This is the I-thought. But as you keep catching yourself and going back to “I-am” the I-thought becomes weaker and weaker until it disappears and stops bothering you. Then only the “I-am” is left. Your true self is left and you’re free.
Q: (Robert reads) If life is a dream, what is our relationship with animals and how do they relate to this dream?
A: (Robert answers) The relationship to animals is like the relationship to human beings. Like your relationship to the trees, to the flowers, to the sky, to the birds. It’s all a dream, the animals are in your dream. You cannot say that you’re dreaming the mortal dream and the animals are different. They’re part of the dream. The whole business is the dream. Everything is a dream. Every insect, every animal, every human being, every flower, every plant, everything is a dream.
When you awaken from the dream you become pure being. You become the self, all pervading. All the animals are coming out of your mind. Like human beings, like problems, like situations. They’re all emanations of your mind. Therefore you relate to animals like you would in a dream the same as like doing this thing. Some people are kind to animals and some people are not kind to animals in this so-called waking state. And the dream is the same thing. You have people who are kind to animals and you have people who are not kind to animals. That is all a dream and so is this.
Q: (Robert reads) I’m unhappy on the inside and also on the outside.
A: (Robert answers) Why are you unhappy on the inside? Why are you unhappy on the outside? Who is unhappy? Ask yourself. Who is this person who is unhappy inside and outside? You have been told you are not the person who is unhappy or happy. You are not that being at all. That belongs to the I-thought. It belongs to the ego. It is the ego that has been brainwashed from birth and from other births to be where you are now. Therefore all the samskaras are being carried around in your mind from past lives, from this life when you were a kid, situations you’ve been through and you’re feeling this great unhappiness inside and outside.
The only way to get out of this is either to practice self inquiry and find out who is unhappy and come to the conclusion that the I-thought is unhappy. It has nothing to do with you. Or surrender everything to God. Surrender the unhappiness to God. In other words, this is God’s business to take care of this for you. You have absolutely nothing to do with it. Make it be known to God that you wish to give all this unhappiness to God, to handle it for you. Totally surrender to God and do not worry or concern yourself with this world again. Give yourself away.
Just think all these years you have been carrying the burden of being unhappy.
Now you can give it all up. Say, “Take it God you deal with it,” and become free. Again, either inquire within yourself, “To whom does this unhappiness come? Who is feeling this unhappiness?” And realize it’s the I-thought and ask, “Who am I? What is the source of
Q: (Robert reads) Would you explain awareness?
A: (Robert answers) We’re always speaking of pure awareness. Awareness is like space. Space is everywhere present. Our planet the earth appears to be hanging in space.
Everything has space. The body, between the atoms of the body there is tremendous space.
It is the space that holds the body together. It is the space that holds the universe together.
It is the space that holds the earth together. Space is like the glue that holds everything in its orbit, planets, galaxies. That space is your true nature.
The space is not your body, it appears to be your body but the space between the atoms. This is you, your true self. This is why I tell you that the atoms of your body are like images on the screen. The screen is the space. Your body is the image. If it weren’t for the screen you would have no image. If it weren’t for the space you would not exist as a body. So pure awareness is the space like the space around you. Yet it is much more than that. It is ineffable, something that cannot be explained. It is the self, it is pure consciousness, it pure awareness. You are that.
Q: (Robert reads) Dear Robert, you said you begin to see that God is not within myself.
Actually I am in God. I am bewildered, befuddled and be-bothered about it. Or in pigeon English, I don’t understand. So could you please un-bewilder, un-befuddle and un-bother me about it. Your ever loving blue eyed daughter Fred. (laughter)
A: (Robert answers) When I say, “God is not within yourself,” I’m speaking of the self as a human being. As a human being God does not appear to be present at all. But you are in God as the self. What appears to be you is really God or the self. So when I say, “You are in God,” I’m referring to your own consciousness. You are in awareness, you are the universe, you are that I am, as the self.
In truth the physical body does not even exist so it’s not a question of being in God or God being in you, there is really only one. That one is absolute reality. That one is yourself. The one self that exists and nothing else exists. You are that one self. When I speak sometimes of being in God or God being in you, it’s just a bunch of rhetoric talking at a level which some people can understand it. God is always in you and you are always in God. At that level some people can understand this. But in truth there is no you and there is no God. There is only the pure self. And even that’s questionable. (students laugh) So you are something Fred that is beyond everything. You are Fred the one and only.
SV: Now there’s two of us. (laughter) (R: Two Freds.) R: This Fred is in God and this Fred God is in him. (laughter) So you are both the same. Full of God, enjoy.
This takes care of the questions. Takes care of everything…
(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.