– Transcript 131
R: Om, shanti, shanti, shanti, om, peace, peace, peace. Good afternoon. It is good to be with you once again, this lovely Sunday afternoon.
We are here at satsang for one reason only and that is to awaken. This is the only motive we have. We are not here to improve our humanhood. Our humanhood will take care of itself. Just as the leaves grow on the tree, the law of the universe will take care of your humanhood. You do not have to be concerned about that. Everything will unfold the way it’s supposed to. There are no mistakes.
But we are here to awaken. To awaken to our true nature, which is pure awareness. This is the only reason we’re here. Do not concern yourself with your health or with your finances or with the world or with politics. Everything will unfold as it should without your help, strange but true.
You will appear to do certain things in this world yet in reality you are doing absolutely nothing. There is no one to do anything. It’s as if you were hypnotized and you can’t get out of it. You believe in a world that you see. People, places and things appear very real to us. We are not that! We have absolutely nothing to do with that. Yet it appears as if these things are real.
If you have ever been to a hypnotist. Hypnotists can make you believe that something is real that is not. This is sort of the same thing. You react to a world that does not exist. You are Parabrahman. This world appears like a bubble. It is here today and gone tomorrow. You can only be happy when you give up reaction to the world. Then true happiness which is your nature shines all by itself. If you are happy because of things in this world you will be disappointed. This world is in a universe of change, constant change, everything changes. The so-called happiness is here today and gone tomorrow.
As we go through spiritual practices we will come to this conclusion. That the world has absolutely nothing to offer us. Yet we appear to be in this world. Pulled in by Maya. Going through certain experiences and believing this is living, believing this is what it’s all about. It is only when you awaken to your divine nature that you live eternally. Not when you attach yourself to person, place or thing in this world.
So we’re only interested in absolute reality. We are only interested in awakening, liberation, moksha. Yet this is our real nature. We are already that! But because we don’t believe we are that, choice-less, effortless pure awareness, I have to sit here like a fool and talk to you. (students laugh) Tell you all these stories. For you refuse to awaken by yourself. You want to imagine that you’re a person, a human being. You want to play in the world. So here we are.
What are the prerequisites to awaken? In other words, what has to happen for us to awaken? What do we have to do? There are two methods to awakening. There are two ways:
One way is to spontaneously awaken. In other words you’ve never been interested in spiritual life. You’ve never read spiritual books. You haven’t been to spiritual teachers.
Then all of a sudden something happens to you and you awaken. Sri Ramana Maharshi was one of those who this happened to. At the age of sixteen without any prior knowledge at his uncles house he awakened to the reality. Shankara was another one. There have been a few people on this earth who have simply awakened.
Now when you ask about this and you ask, “How did this happen to them and not to me?” You are told sometimes it is God’s grace. God chooses the people that he wants to awaken. Again you are told that these beings karmically worked on themselves in previous lives. Therefore in this particular life they are born awakened. At a certain age in their lives they become awakened. These are stories to appease the masses. These are stories that answer the question to those of us who can’t understand anything else.
But the truth of the matter is no one has awakened for awakening was always there. There is no karma, there is no reincarnation, there is no God that awakens you with his grace. The truth is no one had to be awakened. This person was always awakened, just like you. Only this person knows it. Awakening just is. This is your real nature. You are that. You are bright and shining you are awakened. This is the real answer to why some people are awakened and some are not. To the Jnani everyone is awakened. There is no such thing as being in Maya, being in ignorance. We are all absolute reality and totally free. So there is spontaneous awakening.
Then the next set of people who become awakened are those who have practiced intense sadhana. Those who have practiced self-inquiry or any other method of sadhana.
When I say practiced I mean exactly that, making this first in your life. Not a part of your life but putting the awakening process, the sadhana, first! Number one!
Think of all the things that you are involved in. What you think is important in this world. This is what keeps you bound. This is what keeps you in a state of ignorance.
The belief that something in this world can bring you freedom or happiness or joy. It is only through the association with Sages, reading spiritual literature, attending satsang, practicing self-inquiry or any other method of sadhana that you will awaken.
Maharaj Nisargadatta was one of these. He awakened at the age of about forty-four. His guru told him, “Dive deep within and see the self, you are that!” Nisargadatta spent three years doing this, intensely. That is all he did, he did nothing else. He took walks, while he was walking he felt and realized, I-am-that. When he was going to sleep he realized I-am-that. When he was eating, when he was bathing, whatever he was doing the thought I-am-that never left him. And he awakened.
Now let’s talk about you. You say you want to become free. You say you wish to awaken, become liberated, why does it take so long? Why do I have to go through this life? And go through all the various things that I go through? Take an honest look at yourself. Do you have humility? Do you have compassion? Do you have love? Or do you have anger, fear, hatred? You have to honestly take a good look at your life. See the kind of life you’ve been living. What are your beliefs? What do you feel about the world, the universe, your self?
You see you have to reconcile yourself with the universe. Be at peace with every living thing, with every sentient thing. Do not allow your mind to tell you anything. Your mind will always fool you. It will tell you all sorts of stories to make you fear. To make you act in a certain way. To make you believe a big catastrophe is going to happen unless this happens or unless that happens. The only catastrophe that can come upon you is of your own making. You are the one. Do not let the world show you anything that makes you fear or causes you to react. Rather begin to act from your own divinity.
Know who you are. Always be aware of the self which is you. There is absolutely nothing in this whole universe, this whole world that wants to hurt you. You have absolutely nothing to fear. Then where does the fear come from? Where do all these negative thoughts come from? These bad feelings we have sometimes? They come from misidentification.
As I explained before, you appear to be hypnotized. You’re hypnotized that you’re living in a world which seems real to you. A world in which you have to grow up and you can’t fool yourself. A world in which things happen all the time and you are in the center of all of this. Yet as you grow spiritually you will find that the world has no power to hurt you. Where would this power come from? Only you are the power. So you create your own reality. You create all these conditions yourself. You create the whole universe the way it appears to you right now. The whole universe emanates from your own mind. You are the one.
If you think you have a problem sometimes that keeps haunting you, some bad habit you can’t get rid of, think about the sleeping experience. When you are in deep sleep everything is forgotten. There are no worries, there are no problems, there are no sickness, there is no lack, there is no limitation. Everything is gone. Where did it go? If it were real wouldn’t it exist when you are in deep sleep? Why would it disappear at that time? This is a hint to make you believe and think and ponder the fact that if something is real on this earth, an emotional feeling, anything it is always there. But yet in deep sleep it is not there.
And also in the dream state. When you dream the entire world in which you live changes totally. You are now in a dream world. And all the feelings and emotions that you have of this world are gone. You’re having a dream which at that time appears real to you.
In that dream you grow up and you get married, you have children, there is an earthquake and your children die, you feel terrible, you’re totally upset and then you wake up. You laugh it was only a dream.Now in this particular life you get married you have children. An earthquake comes, your children get killed. So the question to you is, “For whom shall you mourn?
The children who got killed in the dream or the children who got killed in this life?” Now some of you have not heard me before are saying, “That guy is crazy,” and you’re right.
You believe everything is real right now, don’t you? Because you can feel, see, touch, see, smell. But don’t you do the same thing in the dream? Everything that you’re doing here can be done in the dream. And yet when you are having a catastrophe in your dream if I came over to you and told you, “You are dreaming,” just like I’m talking to you now. If I said to you, “All this is not the truth. Your children did not die. This is a dream,” would you believe me? Of course not. You would chase me away. You would throw sticks at me.
“Get away!” For all this has happened to you. Then you wake up. It never happened.
Can’t you see what I’m trying to say? This whole world is like that dream. Everything appears so real. We go through different experiences all of our lives and it appears so real. But I tell you the day will come when you will awaken. And you will realize that you are I-am-that-I-am. You will realize that you are absolute pure awareness. You are the self.
That there never was a time when you were dreaming the mortal dream.
But of course many of you here still do not believe me. For you feel the experience very strongly. You feel all the things that are happening to you. As long as you feel these things and you do nothing to stop the feeling the attachment to this earth will become stronger and stronger and stronger. This is why certain people can never be in a class like this. Certain people can never be in a meeting like this. For their ego, their mind is so strong that after they walk out this door all of the ugly thoughts come back into their mind. The problems they’re having. The things that are going wrong in their life. The things that appear to hurt them. The people who have told them the wrong words and they have become very upset. And they begin to feel this world again.
Yet you do the same thing in your dream and you awaken, where did the dream come from? It could only come out of you. The dream didn’t come to you, you all know that. It didn’t come from afar and enter your body. You yourself were the dream. When you were dreaming you forgot all about this body as it appears right now. You forgot all about your home, your family, everything. You dreamt about a new family, a new home, a new experience. And you felt it just like you do this world. And no one can ever tell you it’s a dream. But you awaken and you laugh. One day you will awaken from this dream and you will also laugh. The awakening can come faster or slower it depends on you. It is up to you my friends to begin doing something to yourself so that you may awaken from this mortal dream.
And the best thing you can do is self-inquiry. Self-inquiry is merely asking yourself, “Who am I?” Pondering, “Who am I?” When the world comes to you in thought you inquire, “To whom does this come? Who feels hurt? Who feels upset? Who feels their emotions so strongly?” As if they were so important. “Why I do. Who am I? What is the source of the I?”
As you keep practicing this you will one day realize that the I has all the problems.
The I-thought it is a thought because it doesn’t really exist, it feels all these things. For when you ask and you inquire, “Who feels this?” you say, “I do,” don’t you. This proves to you that I feels this. But the question is, “Are you that I?” If you can talk about the I separate from yourself that must mean the I is not you. For aren’t you saying, “I feel this?” Who says that? The self, the absolute reality, and the I that feels this is the ego.
So as you practice you come to the conclusion that all of the problems of this world, including this world, this universe, your body, what you call God is all attached to the I! You therefore do not try to solve your problems. For as you solve your problems new ones will pop up. There is no ending to it. As you solve one problem another one pops up here. As you get rid of this one another one pops up there. Do not try to solve your problems, you get rid of the I-thought. You work on the I-thought. When the I-thought disappears everything else will go with it. There will be nothing left. Or practice some sadhana that will make you think of the Self and not of your problems. As you continue to work on yourself subtle changes begin to take place. As the months pass, as the years pass you begin to feel different. The day will finally come when you will wake up. Just as you awaken from the dream. And you will laugh. You have become the Self. You have become Parabrahman, Sat-Chit-Ananda and you’re totally free.
So I ask you, “What are doing with your life? How much effort do you put into your spiritual practice?” The more you become involved with the world the more the world pulls you down. I’m not saying you should give up everything and go and meditate on top of a mountain or in a cave. I am saying continue what you’re doing but mentally give up everything. Mentally do not become attached to things by fearing them or loving them or doing anything to them at all. You observe the world. You watch what is happening to you, your affairs.
You remember the dream analogy. In the dream you’ve had these experiences and you woke up and you feel that you will awaken one day. And you practice. You make your life simple. You make your food simple, your living conditions simple. You do not become a complicated person. You live a simple easy life. You continue to work on yourself again and again. You do not look at time or space. Do not worry if you’re getting older for whatever you are doing with yourself will continue when you drop the body and you become happy.
The choice is yours. You can go back into this world after this lesson today. And begin to react to this world as you always do. As you’re driving home become angry as someone cuts in front of you. Curse, scream, holler. Or you can smile and realize what is really happening. There is no one to do anything. All is well and everything is unfolding as it should. It’s your life do with it as you will.
It’s that time again to play stump the guru. Here comes Tom with all the stumps.
Let’s see what interesting questions we have today.Q: (Robert reads) If everything is unreal and just a creation of the mind, what is the mind?
It must be unreal also? It can’t create itself if it doesn’t exist to start with, please explain.
A: (Robert answers) You’re absolutely right, there is no mind. There never was a mind and there never will be a mind. What appears to have happened is you have been hypnotized, as I mentioned before, into thinking that you are a mind, a body and an ego.
Yet you are none of these. These things really do not exist.
I know some people are here for the first time and this may sound very strange to hear. Yet go back to the dream state. In the dream state you had a mind also. And you were perhaps an accountant working in a big company using your mind continuously, using all kinds of computers and making all kinds of decisions. Then you woke up.
Where did that mind go? That mind never existed. Somehow you appeared to be a mind. So we trick the mind. We trick the mind by using the mind to get rid of the mind. It is like a policemen becoming a thief to catch a thief. The mind appears so real. You think you have something important. You believe your thoughts are real. They make you happy, they make you sad, they make you miserable, they make you joyous. Yet your mind is really a bundle of thoughts. Thoughts about the past and worries about the future. That is all the mind is. It is not an entity in itself. It is your thoughts.
And so it is if you inquire, “To whom do these thoughts come?” You’re really saying, “Who has this mind? Where does this mind come from?” And the answer will come, “I have this mind. I do. I think these thoughts,”… (break in tape) …until they totally disappear and you become one pointed. When you become one pointed the guru within your heart will pull your mind into the heart center. Where it will totally dissolve in the I-am. It will totally dissolve in consciousness and you will be totally free. So the mind does not exist, never has, never will.
Fred (SF): What does hypnotism mean when you talk, comment on that?
R: Hypnotism is just an analogy that I use to make you feel that something has happened to you. But in truth there is no hypnotism nothing has ever happened to you, you never existed, nothing is going on. But yet you can’t see that. So I have to use hypnotism as a source to make you understand how it is. It’s like being hypnotized, that is why I always say, “It is like.” I never say, “You’ve been hypnotized,” I say, “it is like being hypnotized.” It is as if you were hypnotized.
Other wise I’ll just say, “Nothing exists, you are that nothing and all is well. Go home and go to sleep.” (students laugh) So I use all these analogies to make you see that something has happened to you that doesn’t exist.
Q: (Robert reads) Why do you Robert meditate six hours a day or at all?
A: (Robert answers) Who said I meditate six hours a day? I sit in the silence. There is no one there to meditate. I sit there and I tell you to join me as I sit there. I’m not doing anything. I’m just sitting in the silence. When I close my eyes there is no Robert. There is just the infinite. When I open the eyes the infinite is still there and has become Robert for now. But there is no one to meditate. To meditate there has to be a subject and an object.
When the subject and object and the mind have been totally annihilated, totally destroyed there is nothing left. There is no one to do anything. So I really do not meditate I just sit in the silence. Like I’m doing right now.
SH: Who says?
R: Ask the question, “Who says?” And the answer will be zero. There is no one to sit. (SH: There is no sitting?) Again it is an analogy. There is no one to sit, there is no sitting.
No one lives, no one expresses. There is no being, there is nothing. We are dreaming this, I’ve explained this to you that this is all a dream. There is no substance to it. There is no reality to the world. It’s all what you imagine it is. So Robert appears to sit in the silence and when you sit with Robert then you become nothing, which is your real nature. And you live happily ever after. (laughter) (SH: It’s a fairy-tale.) Q: (Robert reads) Robert what is the role of spiritual rather than physical energy in this work?
A: (Robert answers) As you sit in the silence, as you ponder all of these things, the spiritual energy which is the energy of the Jnanis, the energy of the Self comes into play. It transcends all the physical energy. The physical energy is your body. Your body exists as long as you think it is alive. As long as you feel it works and it goes to sleep and it wakes up, it is hurt, it feels bad, this is all physical energy.
But spiritual energy is the energy of the Self, that transcends everything, that awakens you to reality. The spiritual energy again comes into play when you sit in the silence and either inquire, “Who am I?” And practice the I-am meditation then spiritual energy comes into play. So spiritual energy is very subtle. Physical energy is what we use to move around, to lift objects, talk.
(Robert speaks about something in the satsang, maybe the mic he’s using) I don’t like these people who take off these things.
Q: (Robert reads) What is the difference between I-am and I-am-that-I-am. What is the difference if any between using I-am with the breath and using the words I-exist, instead of the words I-am?
A: (Robert answers) Words only have a meaning in your own mind. If you can say, “I-am” or “Hershey’s chocolate bar,” and you feel that this means God. Then you’ll get something out of it. I-am is the first name of God. As you invoke I-am with feeling, the I-am which is your Self, awakens as the Self. When I say it’s the first name of God, God is you, as you. There is actually what we call God who is the Self that seems to be manipulating all of these things. I’m making you understand that you are that.
So when we say, “I-am,” we are putting our feelings of what I-am means to us into play and certain results ensue. When we say, “I-am-that-I-am,” we’re referring to the I-am which is the small self. When we say that, “I-am-that,” which is the universal Self, I-am which is consciousness. Therefore what you’re really saying when you say, “I-am-that-I-am,” you’re saying I am consciousness. I am not the body. I am not the mind. I am not the doer. I am pure absolute consciousness. Only consciousness exists. I-am-that-I-am is another name for it. All these words are synonymous. Effortless pure awareness, nirvana, ultimate oneness, Parabrahman, all the same and they’re all synonymous.
Q: (Robert reads) Many jobs as well as school require a great deal of thought are these incompatible with your practice which stops thought?
A: (Robert answers) On the contrary. As I explained to you before, many times, your body has come to this earth to do certain work, so it appears. And the work will go on without your thoughts, without you. You are not the work that you are doing. You are not the body you are using to do this work and you are not the mind that thinks about this work. You are the Self.
Therefore when you do your work do not think I am the doer. You are not the doer. The work will carry on without you. And you will notice when you don’t have to think about your work too much you are able to be more proficient in the work that you do. For you will not worry about it or think about it or compare it with anything, or want it completed at a certain time. You will do the work you came here to do.
Therefore do not think that as you become enlightened, as you become evolved spiritually that you’ll have to give up your job, give up your family, give up anything.
There is no one left to give up anything. You will be what you’re supposed to be physically but you will realize at the same time that physically you do not even exist. Everything will appear to be going on but in reality nothing is happening, nothing is going on.
Therefore do not concern yourself about the work, about the body. Keep your mind on the Self. Always keep the mind on reality. Everything else will take care of itself.
(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.