– Transcript 128
R: Good evening. I welcome you with all my heart.
Always remember, never forget, your true nature. You are truly choice-less, effortless, pure awareness and as I speak divine nonsense to you, remember this all the time. No matter what I say, no matter what goes on bear in mind always, that you are infinite like the sky. You are spaceless, absolute reality.
As we practice our path, as we practice sadhana, as we practice spiritual disciplines, in the beginning when we start we seem to make a lot of progress. But then the progress seems to slow down. We get stuck. We feel that nothing is happening any longer.
We think we’re doing something wrong. We believe we need a new teaching of some kind.
We feel we have to read a certain book. See a certain teacher to get back on the path.
But this is normal. You appear to burn out. Yet if we can only remember that you are effortless, choice-less pure awareness you would realize there is actually no one to burn out. You cannot burn out because you are immortal. There is nothing in you or outside of you that can burn out. You are spirit, Sat-Chit-Ananda.
As you feel yourself burning out so-to-speak. As you feel that the sadhana you’re practicing is not doing you any good any more. You have to remember who feels this.
Who feels distraught. Who feels as if they can’t make any further progress.
If you were human to begin with then you would have a battle on your hands. For if you were human there would have to be a metamorphosis of some kind to change you into something else. But the fact is you’re not human and nothing ever changes. The part you think has to change, never existed. Your mind, your body that you believe has to change into God, that person never existed. You are a God already. Your very existence is divine. You are not what you appear to be. When you feel as if you can’t study any longer or vichara, self-inquiry does not seem to be doing anything else for you, always stop and remember who you are.
Who is the person that is trying to become something? Who can’t make any more progress? Who is stuck? Who seems to have this problem?
Just remembering who you are lifts you up. Do not feel and believe that only if you’re practicing self-inquiry or observation, or becoming the witness is going to awaken you. Do not think like this at all for in truth you are already awake. There is no one to awaken anyone. Some of you believe that there is some God or some person or some being. Perhaps you’ve have changed the name of God to consciousness. So you feel that consciousness is going to awaken you, enlighten you. It will never happen. There is no such person. There is no such being.
What we call consciousness is a word that implies your real nature, your real Self.
Which is you right now. Right now you are the Self. Right now you are everything you want to be. Right this moment. You say to yourself, “No, I’m just a dumb human being,”
then you are. If that is what you want to call yourself. But no matter what you say to yourself. No matter what you do to yourself you can never change your real nature one iota.
You are Brahman, the absolute reality. No matter what you say, no matter what you do, no matter how you act. You’re still God.
But you are not God the way you feel yourself as a human being. You are God as all pervading, without your mind, without your thoughts. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your life. You are wonderful, wonderful, perfect! Just the way you are.
Yet, some of you feel as if you practice for a year or two and now you feel stunted you feel as if you cannot go any further. Then stop the practice! Do not force yourself to practice atma-vichara, self-inquiry. Do not force yourself to do anything. Stop, and be your self. Just be your self. Do not try to be anyone else, or anything else. Just be your self the way you are. When you can really be your self, then you will be the Self. For there is only one Self. There is not yourself and myself. There is the one Self. Perfect! Absolute! And you are that.
When you think about yourself what do you imagine you are? The first thing you have to do is get rid of your gender. And stop believing you are a man or a woman. And then you get rid of your genus, that you belong to the family of man. There is no family of man. There is no individual human being. How can this be?
Well, when you go look at a movie. When you go watch a moving picture you see all these people on the screen. You see all sorts of things happening on the screen. You see men, you see women, you see animals, you see trees, you see all kinds of things in the picture. Yet would you say those forms are real? Even though the pictures are causing you to feel emotional, to feel happy, to feel sad. Watching the movie causes you to achieve all the types of kinds of feelings, emotional feelings. Yet you are not those images, are you?
And the images themselves do not have any life. A movie projector causes the life on the screen.
The movie projector is like the mind. A picture is like the world and the screen is like the Self. If you try to grab any of the pictures you grab the screen. Yet all the time you’re sitting and watching the movie you never think of this. You look at the images as if they were real and they affect you. Isn’t this like most of us in life? You look at the world, we hear the news, somebody tells us something we do not like. We become angry, afraid, cynical. The world can make us become all kinds of things. So can the movie. The movie can make you cry and laugh. Yet the projector shows the movie on the screen. In the same instant your mind projects the world on the screen of life. Everything emanates from the mind. The forms in the world are like the forms on the screen. They do not exist. Yet you
believe they’re real. The point I’m trying to make is, as long as you react to the world and its problems you are going to suffer accordingly. That is the great mystical secret.
As long as you react to person, place or thing you will have all sorts of things going on in your life. You will have all sorts of problems, emotions, fears, frustrations. And you will have happiness too at times. Peace at times. Just as the figures on the screen seem to do certain things and you become very happy. You’re watching a soap opera. There is happiness for a while then someone falls in love with someone else and the things change into a nightmare. The soap opera becomes ridiculous, as you watch all these happenings taking place and all these things are happening on the screen. It’s the same thing with your life. As long as you believe the forms and images are real you have to go through all kinds of suffering. You have good times and bad times. Things keep changing, changing, changing.
But again the great mystical secret is as you see the forms in this world as images on the screen they can never harm you again. It’ll be virtually impossible for you to have any type of suffering in your mind. You will automatically be very blissful and feel great joy and great happiness and great peace. For you are no longer looking at the world for your satisfaction, for your peace or for your happiness. When you stop looking at the world for these things something happens within you. All of these vasanas, all of these images of the world begin to burn up. It happens by itself. All of the karmas begin to disintegrate. The past begins to dissolve. You begin to evolve at a fast rate of speed and you become the one and only Self. The one and only Brahman, pure awareness that you’ve always been.
Again all you have to do is to stop relying and reacting on this world. Leave the world alone. Do not look to person, place or thing for your happiness and for your peace.
Try to catch yourself. As you feel yourself burning out from practicing sadhana, as you feel nothing is happening, whenever you get a kind of negative feeling simply remember what I’m talking about now. Remember the analogy. That this is all happening as a movie and the projectionist is the mind. The mind is telling you nothing is happening you can’t make any further progress. This is the mind that is playing these tricks on you. The reason the mind is playing these tricks on you is because the mind does not want to be dissolved, extinguished. It wants to act distinguished. The mind wants to act as if it’s the force. As if it knows everything. Yet you must recognize what is going on.
There is no one to burn out. There is no one who has gone so far and can go no further. That being does not exist. You have to catch yourself. Feel that all of the images, your feelings included are like the images on the screen. Your mind is a projectioner. The screen is the self.
As you think of this you will start feeling different. You’ll feel power! You will feel joy. You will feel bliss. You’ll become free. Therefore never put yourself down. Do not believe there is something wrong with you. Do not believe something is wrong anywhere else in this world. Do not believe someone is trying to punish you or you’ve got bad karma. If you believe all these things it’ll become a reality for you.
Remember also that the mind is very creative. It will create what you think about for a while. Be careful what you allow your mind to think. Always catch yourself. Catch your mind thinking. Remind yourself who you are. Be aware. Be intelligent. Always look.
Always be ready to observe. And you catch your mind thinking about things. Catch your feelings. When you begin to feel depressed, when you begin to feel something is wrong.
Do not allow your mind to carry that thought through. No matter how bad you begin to feel. When you can, catch yourself. Remind yourself of this. Remind yourself that I am not the mind. I am not the body. I am not my affairs and think of the screen with its images or think of the dream state.
See all these things I’m sharing with you, you have to be able to grasp and do this, what I am saying to you. Work on yourself this way. Do not let your mind go on and on rambling. Making you feel this way. Making you feel that way. But try to catch yourself as often as you can. Use the examples I’ve shared with you.
Whatever problem you may have, whatever is going on in your life try to realize again that when you are in deep sleep none of these things are happening. If you ever notice you have a cold or a cancer or if you have a lack or limitation in your life and you worry about it, when you’re in deep sleep you do not worry. The disease does not bother you. It’s only when you awaken that you begin to feel all of these things. But in deep sleep you are at peace.
This is why when you awaken from deep sleep you always feel good. Think about this. Watch yourself in the morning deep and long. When you first wake up you feel wonderful. You’re not thinking about your sickness or your financial condition, or your enemies or the world situation. You’re not thinking about anything when you first wake up and you feel good. But then you allow the I-thought to go from the heart into your brain and you say, “Uh-oh I’ve got problems.” You begin to think about your problem. This is the I-thought thinking about this. It is the I-thought that makes you feel that you are awake in this world and you’ve got all kinds of situations happening. Just by realizing what I’m saying lifts you up. Frees you.
Then you can also reflect on your dreams. In this dream you’re a king and there is a war with a different country and you get killed. But you laugh and you say, “This was a dream, it never happened.” But now you’re dreaming the mortal dream. You’ve gone from that dream into this dream. And you’re taking this dream very seriously as if it were real.
This is the reason you’re suffering and you’re going through various problems and various situations. If you only did not take this world seriously and remembered who you are, you would never have a problem. The problem comes to the ego. It is the ego that goes through various problems and various situations. You have to catch yourself. Do not let a moment go by when you are not practicing this.
So you see there is no such thing as saying, “I’m burnt out. I can’t go any further in my spiritual practice.” You have all these things that you can do to yourself also. All these things that I’m sharing with you that you can work on yourself and recognize that you’re not the problem, you’re not the body, you’re not the mind, you’re not the world, you’re not the situation, you’re not your karma, yet you have to do this for yourself. You have to stop identifying with the body. This is the main problem. Again the body does not really exist.
You have to therefore see that it is the I-thought that has caused you to believe that you’ve got a body.
All is well. There never was a problem. There never was anything wrong. You have a lot of things to think about. Therefore I don’t want somebody to call me on the phone and say, “Robert I’m stuck. I can’t go any further.” See all the things you can do. All the things we’ve shared. Just to think of the statement, “I’m stuck. I can’t go any further.”
Who is stuck? You’re saying the I is stuck. Who is the I that is stuck? Where did it come from? Follow the I to the heart center, where it will disappear in absolute reality.
(long silence)
Shanti, shanti, shanti, om.
Feel free to ask any questions.
Fred (SF): (Students asks question about mind being effective in satsang.) R: As long as the mind is quiet it’ll be effective. When the mind is quiet the thoughts subside. When there are no thoughts there is the self. So all these practices are really to quieten the mind, not for any other purpose. No matter what form of sadhana you’re practicing. Whether you’re a Jnana or bhakta or karmic yoga or anything else they’re really the same. All of these practices are simply to quieten the mind. To make the mind one pointed. When the mind becomes one pointed self-inquiry becomes very easy.
Then the mind will disappear completely and you’ll be free.
SD: I think he’s asking if satsang itself has a direct effect on the mind. Once the mind runs rampant during satsang. What if during your moments of silence when we’re sitting here thinking a mile a minute. Is there still just a power in just being here that might transcend this?
R: When you’re at satsang you’re safe. For in satsang there is a spiritual practice going on continuously. Something is always happening to help you. More than you can ever imagine.
Fred (SF): Something else I was wondering about. “As ye sow so shall you reap.’ If a person is in that state, if I do something wrong I’ll be punished and if I do something good or valuable I’ll be rewarded. If something bad happens to me tomorrow, something really bad, who is being punished?
There is no one being punished. There is punishment but no individual is being punished.
In other words would it not be more accurate because granted there is something that can be called cause and effect and it doesn’t happen to an individual, it just happens. The bible says, the rain falls on the just and the unjust and then something good or bad happens. If something bad happens to me tomorrow it won’t be Fred getting it back for something I did two hundred years ago.
Is that not true? It just happens.R: You are speaking in the relative plane. (SF: Yeah I realize that.) There is no punishment and there is no punisher. There is no one to punish. So how can you be punished?
There is no punishment at all in reality. Punishment doesn’t even exist. This is all part of your mind that makes these things happen. It is the mind that makes itself be punished.
The law of cause and effect is a mental act. It comes out of your mind.
Therefore again if the mind subsides where is there cause and effect. Cause and effect is of the mind. So no matter what you did in a previous life so-to-speak, that was part of the illusion. If you awaken today and you realize that you don’t even exist! So it’s impossible for you to experience any effect of anything that happened two hundred years ago, yesterday or today. It’s only when you believe that. It’s only when you allow yourself to live in that state of mind when those things appear to be present. That it happens like that.
Otherwise, who is to punish? For you have to believe that there is a God that punishes. And you said even if you believe that you are not the person that is being punished, you are saying that punishment exists, where would it come from? There has to be a cause for it. And the only cause is absolute reality, pure awareness, God, Brahman. In all God’s truth there is nothing about punishment. Consequently there is no punishment at all. It never existed. Only when you believe that it exists then it will happen.
SU: Robert what you started out to say is exactly what I’ve been going through and I did start inquiry but that doesn’t work for me any more. N one of these practices work for me anymore.
But when you said a little later, “Who is feeling stuck,” you say, “I is feeling stuck.” And then you say, “Follow the I to the heart center,” but that doesn’t really work for me either so I am just really stuck.
R: When you say, you’re really stuck? Who are you that is stuck? (SU: Yeah well that’s what I can’t get beyond it.) Do not try to get beyond it. Just realize that you exist. You exist, you’re alive. You don’t have to get beyond anything. Don’t try to get beyond anything. (SU: But it’s very uncomfortable being there.) Where are you? You’re nowhere. You’re feeling that you’re some place, that you’re stuck or wherever you are. That’s the mind that feels that. It is the mind that goes through these experiences. But become aware that you are not the mind. By looking at yourself, as I gave you examples before by looking at yourself as images on the screen.
Imagine you’re watching television. And all these things seem real, they effect you by the story that is going on. It affects you adversely or it affects you happily or whatever.
But they’re all images. When you’re tired of watching you turn off the television there is only the screen. So be aware that’s what’s happening to you.
The one that feels stuck is the image like on the television. But if there is no image there is no one to be stuck. Just by knowing this you become unstuck. Just by understanding what is happening. Simply understand what is going on. As was just explained and there will be nobody to be stuck.
Fred (SF): On Sunday you said how important, how valuable it was to be kind to others including the homeless. We should be practicing humility to all who we can and give service to all of the world. It’s to me as though we’re getting right back into the fate versus free will.
R: As long as you believe that you are human. That you are the body and the world is real, you have to be of service to humanity. You have to do the best you can in this world and have a great compassion, a great love, a great peace and do all these things we’ve talked about. But as you graduate and as you rise higher there will be no one left to do these things. The one who does all these things will be totally dissolved. And you will become the whole universe. And you will be able to exclaim, “All this is the self and I am that!” As long as you believe you’re Fred you have to have compassion. You have to help the homeless. You have to be kind and the rest. But when Fred disappears everything else will disappear also.
SD: Robert going back to your talk about there not being punishment. I understand intellectually that on the highest level there is neither cause nor effect but as you said the question was on a relative level. Can’t it be seen not so much as punishment but something balanced. You’re right, there is no punitive God, there is no one to be punished but on the earth plane karmic level there is definitely divine balance that would constitute what we call bad karma rather than the consciousness of punishment?
R: That is just a change in words. If you want to believe it’s balanced believe that.
Don’t get… (SD: But it takes away the idea of a punitive God which is…?) It may but you’re still worrying about balance. Worrying if you’re balanced or not, if you’re off balance. The whole idea is not to allow yourself to identify with those things. Do not think of those things too much. Rather think of who you really are and the truth about you, your reality.
Always focus on reality. The I-am. Do not think of balance too long. Do not put yourself on that level. Lift yourself upward.
SI: Robert, the things if there is punishment or any of the things say all is well?
R: Exactly, all is well goes beyond punishment and balance. Everything is right.
Drop all the thinking. Do not worry about these things. If you’re identifying with the source by saying, “All is well,” that will suffice. In other words do not try to be too analytical. And do not try to figure it out to an extent, trying to understand where punishment comes from, where free will comes from. And you just simply say to yourself, “All is well,”
and let it go, forget everything else.
When you say, “All is well,” you are believing in a supreme power. Something beyond your thinking, something beyond your mind, something beyond your body. And you are trusting it by saying, “All is well.” Then everything will take care of itself.
Fred (SF): The mind creates problems and then turns around and creates the drama? (R: Exactly.) In a way.
R: Exactly, it can, or even if you solve your problems, new ones will pop up. New ones will always pop up. You solve one set of problems new ones will come in. That is the nature of the mind, there is no end to it. Discover what the mind is and become free.SF: I mentioned to Frank the other day, I was trying sitting in silence. And I set my timing to 30 minutes and after about 15 the telephone rang and it didn’t bother me, that the telephone rang I said that is all there is to it. So I went and answered it and then went back and tried to sit in the silence again. Did the best I could but the fact that it didn’t disturb me…
R: That’s good. Everything is part of the sadhana. Everything is part of the spiritual practice. If the phone rings or there is noise or something appears to be wrong. There is never anything wrong. That’s your practice to see if you will react. It’s all part of the practice. (SF: In other words there is no way for something to be different than it already is.) Exactly. Now when you forget, there is nothing in this universe that wants to hurt you. There is nothing to try to interfere with you. You are totally free.
SH: You say there is nothing wrong at all that’s occurred, that means carte blanche, completely. (R: Exactly.) There are no exceptions? (R: No exceptions.) It’s only the mind that misconstrues things. (R: Yes.) There is certainly an appearance as though they are. (students laugh) R: They certainly can, but to whom do they appear? (SH: From yours truly.) Exactly.
(SH: All you have to do is to look at the morning paper.) Of course. It’s really interesting. There is floods and rain. We have three days of chaos and today the sun comes up like nothing happened. (laughter) The sun doesn’t care. Does the sun say, “I won’t come out today because of all the chaos in the world? The rain, the deaths, whatever is going on. The sun always shines. So in the same way the sun is your self. It always shines. Your heart, your true nature. Is always shining. Whatever happens is an appearance. (SH: This is never real.) Never real. (SH: That’s a beautiful analogy. The best.) I’m glad you like it. (students laugh) If the entire earth blew up the sun will still shine tomorrow. It doesn’t mean anything. (students laugh) (SH: It wouldn’t bat an eye. Wow.) Your real self, your real nature that you really are can never be affected by anything. You are never born, you can never die. You have always been and you will always be.
R: Mary do you want to read the Jnani? We haven’t read it for a while.
Mary (SM): I don’t know where it is. (R: That’s okay.) Here it is.
(Mary reads the Jnani refer to beginning of this book)
R: Thank you Mary.
Do we have any more questions or if somebody would like to say something?
S: Robert this word, svarupa? The Jnani rests in…?
R: His real nature. His real self, his real nature, who he really is.
(new transcripts announced by Robert on table for students to take ) (general student talk)
R: Remember to love your Self, to pray to your Self, to bow to your Self for you are immortal, you are the Self and all is well, 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.