– Transcript 130
R: …shanti, shanti, om, peace. Good evening. It is good to be with you once again. Beautiful Thursday evening. Good to see you. Share with you.
During the week we had a few incidents happening. A fellow by the name of Ken came here a couple of times, left his body. Some people have a few diseases. Some of you are very healthy. So what we’ll do tonight is we’ll talk about health, sickness and death.
We have to remember that these things are for the relative world. A being who has transcended the world has absolutely nothing to do with death or health or sickness. Yet you hear so many stories about different Saints who seems to have died horribly. People like Christ, Milarepa, Rama Krishna and our beloved Ramana maharshi, they seem to have died horrible deaths. What’s going on? These people were healers apparently. Ramana Maharshi, Rama Krishna, Milarepa were not healers per se, but by people being in their presence, hundreds thousands of people appears to have been healed. Yet these people died these horrendous, horrible, dastardly deaths, what happened? What’s going on?
Well there is one school of thought that tells you that the Sage takes on the evil karma of the devotees. I do not agree with this. The Sage has absolutely nothing in him or her to take on anything. There has to be a taker. There has to be a part of the Sage that is still active in this world in order to take on the evil karma of somebody else. But since karma does not exist, evil does not exist therefore how is this possible for this to happen.
This is a story that is told. Perhaps some yogi’s have taken this on themselves. If they have transferred the disease to their own body perhaps they can do this. As a rule, Sages never do anything like this.
The actual reality of the fact of the Jnani is this: There is health and sickness, disillusion, regeneration, good and bad this has to be transcended. Instead of trying to bring health to a sick person the proper action to take I believe would be to transcend both, health and sickness. For one leads to the other. Who is healthy and who is sick? The ego. If the ego goes where can there be sickness or healthy…or health? There is only sickness and health because the mind or the ego seems to be active.
We have people in this world like Joel Goldsmith who most of you have heard of, who was a healer. He healed thousands of people in his day. There is a place for this. His method was to sit in the silence with his client, not say anything and the person would be healed. The way he worked is he had a strong consciousness of the fact that God expresses as the earth as the flowers as the trees as human beings as animals, there is only God and God is absolute perfection. Therefore if there is only God as absolute perfection where does sickness come from? This is the method he used. But he worked in the silence. He would never acknowledge a disease as having any validity. In other words he would not try to remove the disease, for to remove a disease simply means that you’ve got a disease.
The truth is there is no disease. There is only God.
Yet a real true Sage never works with things like this. Ramana Maharshi never taught his devotees to heal. When I asked him about his disease that he had in his body, he remarked the body itself is a disease. Which is true.
Think how ridiculous healing is to begin with. If a person is healed of a disease.
This doesn’t mean he is going to live forever anyway. Most of the people that these people healed reverted back to their disease after a while, some didn’t. So they lived five more years on this earth, they had to drop their body also. When you look at it this way isn’t healing a waste of time? When you can use that energy to become self-realized. You can use that energy that you use to heal people to work on yourself, to awaken to reality and then you wouldn’t care less whether it is, health or disease or death or birth. Those things wouldn’t matter at all if it were real and you were working to your true self.
A Sage does not belong to this world or to the universe. Therefore a Sage does not become interested in healing or this would put a Sage on a plane of relativity. We will not judge who is a Sage or who is not. But the fact remains in Advaita Vedanta we do not try to heal people. By your very presence healings may take place, just by being. This is why it’s so important to work on yourself, transcending your body and the world, going beyond health, sickness, wealth, poverty, good, bad, going beyond this duality. And coming to the place where there is ultimate oneness. Where you have become pure being.
Yet people still observe the horrendous conditions that Rama Krishna, Ramana Maharshi and the rest of these people went through. Evil is in the eyes of the observer. In other words you see this yourself. You’re seeing yourself. Where you are at this time in your point of evolution. When you look at a person dying and look at a person with problems, the Sage does not have this problem.
A Sage who appears to be dying from a disease is not doing this. There is nobody left to have this problem. And we can’t even say this is the Sages body going through this, this is not the Sage. For the Sage will explain to you and tell you he has no body. There is no body that suffers. There is no body that has a problem. There is no body who goes through any situation in this world. And again you say, “Well I see this thing.” Try to catch yourself and realize what you’re saying. “I” see this, it is the I-thought that sees this.
As we evolve on this path we have to learn to catch ourselves when we talk. Not just babble and keep talking and talking. Talk less and try to remember the words that you use. You say, “I saw this so it must be true.” The I you’re referring to is the ego, the I-thought, the mind. It is the mind that sees sickness and death. And comes to the conclusion this is horrible, this is terrible. When you begin to realize the mind does not exist.
When you begin to see the ego does not exist. Then there is no one who sees anything or
feels anything and has any problems. You have to work that out with your self. Always catch the I in action.
Even if you’re feeling pretty bad. Even if you feel terrible about yourself or about somebody else or about the world. Try to realize who it is who feels this way. It is not you.
Your real nature is pure awareness. It is something that feels like you, it’s something that appears like you, something that appears so real that you will not deny it. For when you’re suffering, you’ve got this pain, this sickness and this disease or somebody else has it. You see it, you hear it, you talk about it, you feel it, turn the other way. Turn the other way.
Begin to feel your Buddha nature. Realize that you are no mind. In other words there is no mind that has the power to cause any problems in your life. It is you who gave birth to the ego, to the mind and your thoughts. What you is this? Who are you? Always be aware of this. Let your body do what it will. Do not interfere with it. Just be yourself. The self that is pure bright and shiny.
Yet do not fool yourself. If you feel that you can’t handle it then you have to go to a doctor. Know the truth and do what you have to do to take care of yourself. There are many Christian Scientists who drop dead everyday because they will not go to a doctor. It is true that if you understand Christian Science you’ll be able to heal yourself and others yet there are very few people who have that high consciousness.
Do not worry about yourself or fret about yourself. Do not feel guilty if you have to see a doctor. Do not feel as if you’re doing something wrong, you’re committing a spiritual sin if you go to a doctor or a chiropractor or anything else. You’re playing the game.
You’re living the mortal dream and you’re doing whatever has to happen, whatever you have to go through, do it happily. Do not judge it or think about it or analyze it. Just do it.
Just like eating. When you eat you do not analyze your food, do not judge your food, you simply eat. And so it is with your health. If you feel something is wrong and you cannot handle it spiritually go to a doctor. This is all on the relative plane.
I’m talking to you about these things because many of you have called me and tell me about a problem you may have. And they really refuse to get medical attention for this problem. They want to be healed spiritually, naturally. You have to remember everything is spiritual. That is the thing that many of you forget. You separate things. You separate things into categories.
If you act spontaneously and you live in the here and now then you will know what to do. You do not plan anything. You break your finger you go to a doctor, you don’t think about it. The doctor sets your finger in a cast and everything is okay. There is nothing to think about, there is nothing to worry about, there is nothing to concern yourself about. You just do it.
This is true of everything in your life. If you wake every morning and you realize the truth about yourself. That you are absolute reality, pure awareness, nirvana, ultimate oneness, this will begin your day. And you take it from there doing whatever has to be done.The problem is with some of you is you think too much about these things. You analyze the things that are going on in your life, you think about them, you worry about them, you fret about them. Whereas in truth you just let go and do what you have to do. In the reality there is absolutely nothing wrong. Everything is perfect and good. And the reality is here and now. This is the reality. This is where some of you become confused.
When I say this is the reality and you’re feeling your humanhood, you’re feeling your pain, you’re feeling your stress, you’re feeling whatever you’re feeling. I tell you this is the reality, how can this be the reality? I feel lousy, I feel this, I feel that. You only feel bad when you think about it. Follow this closely. If you begin to live in the split second that I talk to you about, in the moment! You will not feel bad.
If you begin to feel in the absolute moment that you are absolute reality, pure awareness, in that moment you feel wonderful. And that moment turns into another moment, into another moment, into another moment. This is what I mean when I say, “Everything is in it’s right place. Everything is unfolding as it should. You are perfect now, you are perfect now!” Not in your thoughts when you begin to think about this. You are perfect right now! Right now! There is absolutely nothing wrong with you right now! Everything is in it’s right place right now!
When you begin to talk about it, when you begin to think about it, when you begin to analyze it, something else comes in. Like a mirage. The water in the mirage appears to be real. As soon as you try to grab it, it becomes sand. Your disease, your sickness, your depression, your stress, even your happiness and all the things that are going on in your life, in the world that make you happy are like the mirage, like the water in the mirage. If you really try to grab it, it doesn’t exist.
When I say, “When you try to grab it,” I mean when you try to live in that moment in that split second. In that split second there is only God. There are no room for thoughts and no room for anything else. But the moment you begin to think you spoil it and you become human once again.
This is the reason you were given self-inquiry. For self-inquiry is beautiful for things like this. You begin to see that I is sick, that I has the problem. I is the one that is giving you the problems. Who is I? You have to catch yourself. Always catch yourself.
When you say there is no sickness, there is no disease this is a truth. But for whom is there no disease? For the one who knows the truth and lives in the truth and is the truth.
This is why people like Christ, Krishna, Rama Krishna, Ramana Maharshi, Milarepa, many others appeared to have been suffering. Yet in truth no one ever suffered. No one ever died for no one ever lived. Try to understand this, your true nature is spirit. Yet for some strange reason, you’ve taken on this form, what you call a body that is born. While you were being born you are still the self. The self doesn’t come into the birth.
People ask the silly question, “When does the soul come into the birth, in the body? The third month, the fourth month, the sixth month?” Try to understand this teaching, there is no soul that comes into anybody. You have always existed. The Self is the Self.
When you take on the body you are still the Self. As the body grows through experiences you are still the Self. As the body appears to go through diseases, illnesses, situations in this world you are still the Self. When the body gets old and seems to die you are the same Self that existed before you were born.
It’s like a chalkboard. The chalkboard exists and you draw your baby being born on the chalkboard. Then you draw a picture of a baby growing up on the chalkboard.
Then you draw a picture of the baby having cancer when he becomes a man or a woman.
Then you draw a picture of the person dying on the chalkboard. From the very beginning the chalkboard was there. The chalkboard was always there. The pictures were different but the chalkboard was always there. In reality you are like the chalkboard. You are the self, pure intelligence. The self can never die and was never born. There is no disease that can affect it. It is all pervading. And you are that.
You have to begin to feel this. You have to let go of the clinging to the body. By letting go I mean, do not feel that you are being persecuted, that you are being laughed at, that something is wrong with you. That you have any sickness or diseases. Always try to understand when this happens to you. Who has these things? The image on the chalkboard. It is the image that has these problems not you. You are totally free. You have always been free and you will always be free. There never was a time when you were not free. So it’s wrong identification. Identify with the reality.
Let’s say for instance you have a hernia. You go to the doctor. There is nothing wrong with going to the doctor. There is nothing wrong with this at all. The doctor tells you what you have to do to correct the hernia. All the time you realize you know that you are not the body, you are not the image on the chalkboard. You are the pure self. But yet you go through the hernia operation. You don’t think about it. You don’t argue about it.
You’ve done whatever has to be done. And the body appears to be in good shape again.
When all the time you realize that nothing happened there was no one who went through this experience. This is how you should look at your everyday affairs, at your business.
Look at your home life. Look at the world, look at what is happening in the world the same way.
Images, everything is images. The light of the self appears to cause these images to take form and to do whatever it has to do. But there is only the self, this is the reality and the images do not even exist. We don’t even say, “They appear to exist.” For when you think they appear to exist you’re giving them value, you’re giving them power. You’re believing in them as if they were reality.
So you have to ask the question. “To whom do they exist? To whom do these images exist? They exist to me. I feel them.” As soon as you say this to yourself immediately the answer should come to you. It is the I, the I-thought that feels the images not you. You are free and clear, you have absolutely nothing to do with the I-thought. Now when you have done this you have separated the disease the problems where they may seem to be from yourself haven’t you? Because the I-thought is out here some place. It has nothing to do with you. The I-thought feels sickness, it feels a headache. The I-thought feels that when something good happens you’re happy in this world. That is all the I-thought that feels this. So you just watch. You observe.
As you keep doing something like this as you understand what I’m talking about you will notice that the pain disappears. For after all who has the pain? The I-thought, not you. Therefore look at yourself as two separate entities, this will help. You look at yourself as the I-thought which goes through the world and has all kinds of experiences in the world, good and bad, rich and poor, sick and healthy. And the self which is absolute reality and is free and clear of everything.
This simply means that what you call sickness or disease or a problem is outside of your jurisdiction. It appears to exist by itself, it is not you. You have absolutely nothing to do with these things. Do not judge by appearances. Do not try to analyze or figure it out. For you get deeply involved when you do this. Even discussing this is not right. This is between you and yourself. There is absolutely nothing to discuss. Nothing to talk about.
You remember the chalkboard analogy. And you realize that you’ve always been, you always will be. There never was a time when you were not and these other things were simply images that seemed to be superimposed on the self. So do not identify with the disease itself. Do not identify with the problem or whatever. Rather identify with the self. The one that has always been. I am that!
It’s not really hard. As you go through everyday experiences always catch yourself. Always catch yourself thinking. Catch yourself worrying, being afraid. And immediately understand that you are the chalkboard. You are the absolute reality that has never changed. It has always been and will always be. You are perfect.
(silence) (Tape starts abruptly after silence Robert continues) R: …peace.
Fred (SF): The other day you were talking about compassion. And my understanding is that Maharshi, he said he felt that this came to him out of compassion for his disciples, devotees. (R: Yes.) Sir? (R: Yes, that’s true.) Thank you. One thing that I mentioned a few months ago was the fact that addiction to alcohol was lifted from me overnight and I wanted to see if I got the right intellectual understanding of what transpired. It could be said to be my karma. But there is no such thing as my karma, there is karma. And this particular thing happens to this psychosomatic apparatus. Also I had another similar thing but I didn’t have anything to do with it and I wasn’t being punished when I had this bad experiences, when I had two heart attacks and two open heart surgeries being a victim of so-called alcoholism. I didn’t have anything to do with it, it wasn’t real in the first place, anyway. Is that an accurate description on what happened?
R: In a way it is but remember there is no karma to begin with. There is not only not your karma, there is no other karma. Karma doesn’t even exist. Do not give it any power by believing in it. This is something we use. We use that word to explain situations to people who don’t understand. So we say, “It’s karma.” But in reality there is no karma.
(SF: Karma is in duality.) Karma’s in duality. And you have absolutely nothing to do with
this. Therefore by realizing the truth about this a healing can take place. As soon as you mention it, it will happen by itself.
SD: Robert this is less a question than just sharing a comment and it’s definitely on the relative level but for some reason it’s so polite maybe when you spoke of healings or when I had the healings long before I knew you, I never assumed that they were to prolong life but rather to alleviate the pain and suffering from your sojourn and surely on the relative level this is good because just like when Yogananda from the viewpoint of a yogi rather than a Sage said it was much easier to prolong spiritual matters in a healthy body.
R: Yes, this is true. What I’m saying if you dwell on the understanding of your real nature, then what you call pain will diminish. The more you understand the truth about your self. The less you will be involved in pain or sickness or death. Even though your body may appear to be going through it. This is paradoxical. But it’s true all the same. If you understand the truth about yourself that you are absolute reality, that you are pure awareness, that you are pure being, that understanding removes the so-called pain from your so-called body. For in the absolute reality there is no pain, no pain exists.
As you keep seeing yourself apart from the pain, as you keep seeing yourself as a different being totally apart from the pain angle, where the pain comes from and separate yourself from that by knowing the truth about yourself then there will be no pain. But the paradox is you will appear to be in pain to others. Just like the people we were talking about Ramana maharshi, Rama Krishna and so forth.
Christ was nailed to the cross but in reality he was not in pain. There was no one to be in pain. He appeared to others to be in pain. This is the way we perceive him. But we’re perceiving ourselves as a mortal, as human. As long as you think of yourself as a human being you have to go through pain, through trials and tribulations. But as you lift yourself up and you transcend the pain and the sickness and health and everything else you may appear again to go through all kinds of experiences. But you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re not going through anything. In other words you’re free from it. Even though other people may see you suffer and in pain.
How can this be? It’s very difficult to understand, to explain. But nevertheless this is the truth. Rama Krishna was wasting away, totally wasting away. He was becoming nothing but a bag of bones. The cancer ravaged him and ate him up completely and he was not in pain, he was totally free. Who dies, who is in pain? We are because we see this.
We observe this.
How can the pure self be in pain? How can the absolute reality be in pain? When you know that you are the absolute reality then the body of this world and the human bodies, that appear to be human bodies, do not even exist any longer for you. You are finished with all that. Even though you appear to have the body. And you appear to be having experiences in the body. But again the experiences are not for you. They are for others to observe. And you are completely free of the whole thing.
Glen (SG): (student asks question not audible: Something on focusing attention)R: You are to focus your attention on the reality. On the I-am. When you focus your attention on the reality and become the reality everything else has been transcended.
Glen (SG): On the other hand I have to admit I read a lot on the idea of karma. I consider the murderers, the atrocities, the torturers, the people that are committing that they really do need to be punished.
R: You are seeing this from the place where you are coming from a state of a human being, a mind. When you are no longer a mind, when you are no longer a human being then you have become the murderer, you have become the saint, you have become the whole universe. You are the self of everybody. There will be no difference between a murderer and you. You are that! You are the Self of the whole universe. You are the whole Leela, the whole Maya. That is all taking place within yourself, you are that! Yet you feel nothing but bliss. You are pure consciousness, all pervading. And the whole universe, all the games that are being played in the universe, the murderer, the person who gets murdered, all are within you.
Remember in the Bhagavad Gita when Arjuna refused to fight, Krishna explained to him, “Go and fight.” For in reality no one dies, no one is killed, no one kills. And this is the truth about us. Everything we see is a game of Maya, Leela. It has absolutely nothing to do with your true self. But when you’re coming from the stand point of mind what you said is real and true. All karma exists, it punishes. Retribution exists, it punishes. All these appearances seem to exist. But to whom do they exist? Only to the mortal being. To the I-thought. So who are you? Are you the I-thought or are you the self?
If you are the Self there are no thoughts. There is no one who wants retribution.
There is no one who wants punishment. There is no one who wants goodness. There is no one who wants happiness. You are through with all of these things. You have risen. You are free.
SK: (Student talks about being with Ken a student who attended satsang previously who Robert had mentioned had passed away that week. tape unclear.) R: This is good. All these things are good. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. I’m sure he is well merged in the infinite and all is well. It’s a good thing you did for him.
SI: (The student talks about transcending the body. Tape is unclear) R: Yes you rose higher. You let go to the extent that you are able to raise your consciousness to a higher level. And you are able to see that you are not the sickness, you are not the body that seems to be diseased. You are pure reality. And to that extent you observed your body and saw that it was the body that becomes sick not your true self. If you are able to see it more clearly then the body would just disappear and you would be healed and there would be no sickness to begin with. But if you could just see yourself as absolute intelligence, total reality. The total reality becomes your Self, it is your Self, it always was your Self. So what you do is you let go for a few moments, for a while out of
the mortal dream of sickness and you rose higher where it doesn’t exist and this is the experience you had.
Fred (SF): To consider somebody or something evil, I’m judging?
R: Yes. (SF: We’re told not to judge?) Of course. (SF: Sir?) You’re right! (SF: Thank you.) We shouldn’t even judge ourselves. (SF: Sir?) We shouldn’t even judge ourselves. (SF: The avatar, for me I’ve always felt the differences.) Leave yourself alone. (SF: To thine own Self be true, that is the Self with a big “S,” and not the self with a little “s.”) Leave everything alone, leave the world alone, leave your body alone, leave others alone. By that I do not mean that you isolate yourself. I simply mean, in your mind. Leave everything alone in your mind. You make your mind one pointed. So it stays in the heart. Then your associations with others will be beautiful. You will find that you are happy and all will go well with you. But learn to leave things alone. Do not interfere in the lives of other people, mentally.
Fred (SF): Did I ever tell you about the lady who felt so bad about what was written about Elvis in the enquirer…there was a headline on the front that said, “Statue of Elvis found on Mars.” (students laugh) They also had another one. They had a real good one it said, “Survivor of the Titanic found on Iceberg, the dress was still wet.” (laughter) R: Why do you read these things? (laughter) (SF: I don’t. I just see them enough to get a laugh out of them.) They’ll do anything to sell papers. (SF: Elton said, headlines at the front, sleeping with your wife to making marriage.) That makes sense. (laughter) SJ: Robert your address today was pretty much for people who were on this advanced level of understanding on the path, etc., of the self, do you understand what I mean? (R: People who what?) Your address today was for people who could understand what you were saying and work on it this way. (R: Yes.) There are a lot of people out there, healers who are out there that help alleviate some of their confusion and misidentification. So that they can actually get closer to understanding their true nature.
R: True, there’s a place for everything. (SJ: Yeah.) There’s a place for everything.
But we’re talking from the point of Advaita Vedanta. (SJ: Yeah I realize that. What is the relative truth of the heart being located on the right side of the chest?) That is exactly what you just said, it’s relative. It’s a relative truth. People want to know where the spiritual heart is located which is on the right side of the chest. They want to know where in the body the self abides. So we tell them that the self abides in the right side of the chest. Due to the fact when you talk about yourself and you point to yourself you say, “Who me?” Don’t you point to the right side of the chest, unless you’re left handed. (SJ: No.) Point to yourself.
SK: I’ve heard a lot of other people who use the same argument who say, “Don’t you point to the center of your chest?” And this person pointed to the center of his chest.
Jay (SJ): But there is also some people, they point to their heads. (R: Well they don’t count.) (laughter) Well there has got to be some other reason. (SH: I bet you that’s culturally determined.) R: This is something that was given by some Saints to make people understand that God resides in your heart and not in your physical heart. (SJ: Right, did Ramana ever tell you about it?) Yes. (SJ: He did?) He did. (SJ: So I think there is something a little more to it in a way?) No, there is nothing more to it at all. (SJ: It’s still relative?) It’s relative yes. Because many people…especially in India you have many ignorant people who have learned that God is within you. So the question is asked, “Where does God reside if he is within you?”
They couldn’t understand that there is no body, the body doesn’t exist. So we tell them, “God resides in your heart.” So where is your heart. It couldn’t be on your left side because that is where your physical heart is.
So there is a place called the heart center which is the right side of your chest and that is where God lives. That is where the self is. If you focus your attention on your heart center, it expands sometimes for some people and the whole center turns into light and the whole body becomes a body of light, by meditating on the right side of your chest of the heart center. (SJ: So there seems to be a kind of effective technique?) It’s actually because you are focusing your attention on it. And in your belief you believe that there is God within you on the right side of your chest. So you have all these experiences of lights. (SJ: Right.
It’s that several people here have been experiencing what you are talking about and some who want to know too.) Yes, so it’s valid, it’s good. (SJ: Like a trip in the park, good for the mind?) Sure.
Glen (SG): (Student relates an experience of his.)
R: You should of told him to start his own meeting. Everything is beautiful. I wish I can really share with you the joy and the beauty and the bliss that really is. If you only look through your body and transcend the body and see the reality of yourself then you couldn’t care less what the body is going through. But suffice is to see that all is well and everything is unfolding as it should.
That is another thing you can use. When things seem to go wrong some place or when you feel a sickness within yourself or whatever it is, say, “All is well,” to yourself and really feel it. There are no qualifications to that, all is well, period. Everything is happening at the right time, in the right place. There are no mistakes. None have ever been made, none are being made and none will ever be made. Everything is really beautiful.
SK: In that same vein is not everything blissful?
R: Both are the same thing, sure. (SK: Bliss?) Bliss. (SK: Bliss. Bliss. Bliss.) Bliss.
(laughter) All is well. Everything is bliss. Your real nature is bliss. From now we’ll call you Tom Bliss.
Another technique you can practice, especially those of you who are sitting with me in the morning from 6 to 9 am and from 12 to 3 am. A good practice would be to practice the I-am meditation…rather the who-am-I meditation, to give yourself a break from the I-am mediation. And the way you practice this, we’ll do this together again, you just close your eyes and you breathe naturally, peacefully and with your respiration, as you inhale you inquire, “Who am I?” before you exhale you say, “I am that,” and when you exhale you say, “I am not the body.”
“Who am I? - I am That! - I am not the body.” You breath naturally, do not emphasize your breathing. Let’s try this. Inhale say, “Who am I?” Before you exhale you say, “I am that!” And you exhale and you say, “I am not the body.”
(long silence then Robert continues)
R: …shanti, om, peace.
Any comment on this form of meditation?
All these things are very important to practice.
SL: So when we sit in meditation with you we should do the I-am or what we just did?
R: If you can sit in the silence and do nothing it’s better. But if the mind wanders as you do these things it’ll help.
Mary would you like to read?
(Mary reads the confessions of a Jnani refer to the beginning of this book for text) R: Do we have any announcements?
Mary (SM): We have more transcripts, the latest. And this is very very beautiful. This is “Beyond silence, beyond nothing.”
(general talk)
R: We have some delicious looking cookies here. Mary why don’t you pass them along. We have some…
(tape ends abruptly)
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.