– Transcript 139
R: (tape starts abruptly) …rainy day. I’m happy to be with you.
There are some teachers who tell us that the purpose of life is to unfold spiritually.
This is why you came here. But I say to you that there is no purpose to life and you never came here. (laughter)
SH: Larrikin. (laughter) That takes care of it. (laughter) R: That’s the end. You think I’m kidding? (laughter)
SB: We find it difficult. (laughter)
R: You don’t exist. So why am I talking to you.
SH: You should have your head examined? (laughter)
R: What head? (laughter)
(Robert continues) The truth is that you are not what you think you are. No thing is what you think it is. There is nothing that really exists the way it appears. I know it does sound strange and funny when you first think about this. You can bet your life you feel alive. You feel as if things are happening to you and your affairs. You believe you’re going through certain circumstances. Yet who feels this? Not you. You really have no life.
When you begin to think on these terms and you begin to really feel what I’m saying to you, that you really do not exist, you have no purpose, there is no spiritual unfoldment and you do not have to achieve anything, think how free this makes you. You’re totally free. There is nothing that binds you. There is nothing that holds you down or up.
You’re absolute freedom. Of course it is only when you begin to think that the trouble starts. So we get back to the mind again. Why do we talk about a mind that doesn’t exist?
You know that. You have no mind. You are mindless. Or you are out of your mind, whatever the case may be, yet you do not believe me. If you believe me you would awaken and be free.
You say to yourself, “That sounds good but I have all kinds of troubles and problems. I’ve got lack and limitation and sickness and all kinds of junk in my life.” Have you now? My friends you have absolutely nothing wrong with you. You have no life as it appears. You have no purpose. You do not exist. You’re absolute zero. (laughter) Yet you really want to exist don’t you. You want to exist because you’re afraid that if you find out that you did not exist you’ll go stark raving mad.
SH: Who would go mad? (laughs) (R: The person who believes they exist.) Yet this would never happen. For if you really discover that you do not exist, I don’t mean when you tell yourself, “I do not exist,” intellectually. Where you’re feeling body and you feel pain and you feel problems, but you keep saying, “I do not exist.” You’re fooling yourself when you do this. And we want to avoid fooling ourselves. But if you really knew what you were saying when you realize that you do not exist at all. Then you would turn into omnipresence.
When you do not exist, existence exists by itself. The absolute reality is existence.
But not the kind of existence that we’re used to. We’re used to existence in form. When we say something exists we think it has a form or it has to have a form. Whereas true existence, real existence has no form, has no shape, has no qualities as we know it. But yet it’s alive but not with the life we think about. Not with the life that we know. There is a life, there is an existence that is totally ineffable. An existence that you really are and you’ve always been. There never was a time when you were not. Yet words cannot describe this existence. There are no words that can describe this.
Yet you are alive, you are alive not as human being, you are alive not as a thing or an object, you are alive as consciousness, pure consciousness. But can you ever know that consciousness? Can you ever discover that consciousness? Can you ever become that consciousness? Can you ever just be?
Only when you let go of thought. Only when you stop thinking will the reality express itself. Will reality express itself, will reality present itself. Only when there is no thought, there is no movement, there is no pressure, when there is absolute stillness, will this real reality express itself. It is beyond anything we can ever imagine. There is nothing in this universe that can help you. There is nowhere you can go to find this reality, to find this truth. There is no one who can really give it to you. It comes at the strangest times.
You may be staring out the window and all time stops. This happens to most of us.
We stare out the window. We forget about ourselves, we forget about our environment. At that time reality is presenting itself. But what you do is go back into your old space where you think you’re day dreaming. And you don’t want to get caught day dreaming. So you return to your old self. The one with the problems. The one with the body. The one with the world and the universe. Yet when I say to you the universe does not exist. The world does not exist. You do not exist. This sounds like the ravings of a mad man and it is.
How many of us can have an experience where they find out that they do not exist and no one else exists either. I don’t really know why I had this experience. I wasn’t prepared for it. I didn’t ask for it and yet it came by itself.
Therefore we can begin to understand that there is something else. This is the good news. Where Masters, way-showers, Sages can make so-called humanity feel good by explaining to them, there is no death, don’t worry, you will never die. It takes a load off.
When you begin to understand that you can never die.
The real you was never born, the real you does not subsist, the real you is beyond the senses. Beyond taste, touch, see, hear and feel. The real you is not even the observer or
the witness. It is beyond the witness. It is beyond the observer. It is something so gorgeous, so beautiful, so grand, so exquisite. This is what we call God and you are That.
When you identify with the material world you deny your reality. The greater the identification with the material world the deeper you’re sucked into this Maya, this illusion. That makes you believe things are real all around you. It makes you believe confusion, human harmony, unreality. When you give up thinking, when you surrender your mind and your body, when you surrender your affairs you’re at peace. As you go deeper into your affairs and into your so-called material life, you live a completely different life in a completely different world called the material world. Yet this material world does not exist. It has no validity. It is like the water in the mirage.
Look at yourself. No matter how many times I tell you this you still believe you are the personal self. Having to struggle to survive. Having to fight for survival. Yet it’s really simple, easy to overcome this kind of feeling to transcend the feelings of survival, basic instinct, to live in the world, by right identification. All you have to do is accept yourself as absolute awareness. Accept yourself as absolute awareness. You do this not by affirming that you’re absolute awareness but by letting go of the attachment to person, place or thing. As you negate the whole world and the whole universe the absolute awareness which you really are comes into play by itself. This consciousness is awakened as you and you begin to feel omnipresence. You begin to feel total freedom.
Those things that used to annoy you in your everyday experiences no longer have the power to do so. Yet most people are satisfied having a so-called mediocre good life.
They forget it’s going to end sometime. They forget all things are temporary. They forget, “This too will pass.”
But people hold on to the goodness that seem to come into their life sometimes as if it was going to remain forever. Nothing remains forever. As long as you identify with the material world, you have to suffer. Just the term, “Material world,” is enough to make you know you have to suffer because everything material is eventually torn down and disappears.
If you would only give up all your longings, all your desires, all of your cravings, even your craving, your desire to become enlightened, even your desire to become free and liberated, this is a false desire since you’re already free anyway. You are already liberated. There is nothing you have to do to become liberated. You do not have to practice sadhana, spiritual disciplines. You and I have known people who have been practicing spiritual disciplines for centuries. It makes you passive. It makes you dumb but it will not liberate you. Liberation comes by itself.
There is nothing you have to do to become liberated. There are no tests you have to take. There are no worshiping services you have to do. You do not have to have a guru. You just have to let go. Let go of everything. You sort of have to have an attitude that, “I don’t give a damn.” But not in a sarcastic and arrogant way. In a loving way. When you have the attitude, “Let the world do to me as it may, it makes no difference what experiences I’m going through. It doesn’t make any difference whether I’m sick or healthy, rich or poor, happy or sad. It doesn’t make one bit of difference.” When you begin to think like this you’re on the right path.
Stop thinking about yourself so much. Stop trying to improve your lot. Leave yourself alone. Nature will take of you. You will always know what to do. But stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about your health, your position in life, your relationships.
When you stop thinking about these things they will automatically improve and be better than you thought they could be.
Do not outline a plan that you think you have to live by. Do not believe that you have to live a certain way. Have a certain income. Have a certain family. Live in a certain country. Leave these things alone. Everything will take care of itself. Leave yourself alone.
Do not fight yourself. You’re fighting yourself every time you’re thinking something is wrong. You’re fighting yourself when you believe somebody is trying to do something to you, or there are bad people out there or good people out there or any kind of people out there.
Out there is only a projection of your mind. Otherwise there is no out there. All the things that appear to be out there is yourself. You are that Self that contains all of the people, all of the kingdoms of this earth, the galaxies, the Gods. It is all contained within yourself. You give it power by the way you think about it. Your thoughts projects itself as the world as the universe. And you find that you’re living in a world with certain people around you. Not remembering that you have projected this yourself. You get involved in your own projections and you worry endlessly. You try and make things a certain way.
Whereas what you really should do is allow everything to go back into your heart center and then watch and observe from where the I rises. From where does the I-thought rise.
This is what you should watch. The I-thought as it begins to rise from the heart and becomes the world. Then you allow the I-thought to go back into the heart and you become free.
There is such happiness, such joy, such peace, such love. Everything is so beautiful.
(It seems Robert plays a song on tape)
Glen (SG): Robert… (R: Umm.) …that song reminds me of a question that I wanted to ask you, the Masters in the period back in the 1400s claimed that going to see the pavilion girls, I guess who were prostitutes at those times, greatly deepened his enlightenment. He happily embraced bodily existence especially after his enlightenment. And I wondered if you could address that as also a means to enlightenment? What it is I probably want mentioned it is a little about the role of perhaps sex in all of this because a lot of teachers talk about sex getting in the way and etc., etc.
R: The only thing that gets in the way is your mind. Sex is neither good or bad. It exists. It is part of the role of the aspirant. Do not deny it, do not praise it. There have been many Zen Masters who were enlightened and continued to have sex, there were many who didn’t. It’s all part of the world. It’s all part of Maya. It’s neither good nor bad.
Sometimes an enlightened being will have sex for teaching purposes. You have to be careful with this. For it makes you think you have license to do what you want. If you surrender your body. Surrender your sexual desires, your urges, then something will happen inside of you to make you go higher in life, to transcend the world and you will find at that time that if it’s part of the plan for you to have sex you will. If it’s part of the plan for you not have sex you won’t. What I’m trying to say there is no such thing as having to have it or not having to have it. It is something that takes place in each individuals mind and it’s up to them to live with themselves, to understand where they are coming from and have complete control over themselves.
SE: Do enlightened beings have sex for sexual purposes?
R: Not really for sexual purposes, for teaching purposes. (SE: What are they teaching?) They’re teaching that they can have this feeling without having sex. That the true feeling, the true orgasm is your Self. You are that and you can live in orgasmic states, orgasmic state, all of the time.
SE: Can this be the new meekness lab? (laughter) (R: Why not?) (laughter) SD: Yeah, but then would Jerry bounce it on us? (laughter) (SH: Well said.) (laughter) R: Never think you have to give anything up and never think you have to indulge in anything. When you are free what you do will come naturally. It will happen by itself.
But when you say I have to have sex or I’ll go crazy, then you’ve got a problem.
When you begin to understand your true nature and you like what you really are all the things will take care of themselves. And you will be able to have it and not to have it. But it will take care of itself, everybody’s different. There is no one way about it. There are no set rules. Independent of where you’re coming from, what you’re doing. What your purpose is. Sex for sex sake is a waste of time. But sex for raising your consciousness is interesting, as in tantric yoga. But all this is part of the mind. Therefore know yourself.
Know who you are and you will know what to do.
I was going to say, why do you want things to make sense? Because you want things to make sense. This is why you’re caught up in Maya. Break up your thinking, be spontaneous. Do not believe things have to come a certain way or be a certain way or follow a certain trends. The more you’re shocked in your system the faster you awaken. So all the things that shock you are good. When things are going too mediocre, straight, no shocks, you can’t go. All the shocks that come into your life are for your benefit. So all is well. Bob?
SB: You said in the Self there is an exquisite bliss and joy and love but I’ve heard what you said in the past that there is nobody left to experience anything? So what is it if there is no I to experience it, there is no mind to experience it. What is it that feels that joy, bliss, love?
R: There is nobody left to experience anything and there is nobody who really feels it. But the love, the peace, the joy is self-existence. It is just something that is that you’re not really experiencing as an I. But yet there is something there. It is self-sufficient.
SH: Is it non-experiential? (R: It’s non-experiential. SD: But couldn’t you say Robert than feeling it, you are it? You are joy, you are bliss?
R: You can say that, but why should I? (laughter)
SB: So it’s really the Self that is perfect fulfillment, joy and bliss and peace. (R: But it’s not the Self as you know it.) No not the self with the small ‘s.’ But the self with a capital ‘S.’
R: You don’t know what that Self is, so it couldn’t be that. It is something so beyond those things that there are no words, no thoughts, no feelings, nothing to describe it.
SB: But yet it is peace joy and love and bliss. It’s not just like in Buddhism a void? Like everything is zero there is nothing there?
R: No it is beyond that. (SB: Something wonderful, something fun?) SG: Nobody’s there to enjoy it. (laughter)
R: Bob wants to enjoy it. (laughter) (SB: But you enjoy it, you enjoy it. You don’t enjoy it as the mind but there is still that happiness there.) There is something there. (SB: There is something there it’s not like you’re being completely obliterated and unconsciousness…) No.
Something is truly there. (SB: And that is an orgasmic bliss too, as you said?) If you want it to be an orgasmic experience then go, be it. (SB: But the whole physical sexual thing, isn’t it like a step down version of the bliss of the Self?) Everything that you can figure out in your mind.
Whatever you can talk about and describe is a step down.
SE: Robert I don’t have a clue do you? (R: A clue?) About it? About this teaching?
R: They used to have a game called clue.
(general talk between students)
(silence)
R: Thoughts and feelings are not real. Nothing is covering nothing. There are no coverings. There is no thing which is real and no thing which is not real. None of these things exist whatsoever. So the unreal is not covering that which is real. And why waste time working on illusions. Who is working on illusions? Who is wasting time? To believe you’re wasting time is an illusion. Who is doing all these things? It is yourself that thinks like this. Transcend the self that thinks this way. There are no covers. Thoughts and feelings appear real as long as you believe you are the body. When you realize you’re not the body there is no one left to be able to feel thoughts and things. Therefore there is no cover that is covering the reality. There is only the reality. There is only that which is real. Nothing else exists.
SD: Robert it’s not my question but I wonder if the person isn’t referring to working on illusion as doing sadhana?
R: Well we discussed this. Sadhana is only necessary for the person who doesn’t understand self-inquiry and does not want to wake up. Then they practice sadhana. Sadhana will eventually lead some people to the place where the mind is quiet and still and peaceful. But most of the time people get involved in sadhana get caught up in sadhana.
Make sadhana their life’s work and this is a hindrance many times to awakening. Awakening again comes by itself. (SD: So self-inquiry is not sadhana?) No. (SD: I thought it was.) Umm. Self-inquiry is self-inquiry. It is a thing by itself.
Fred (SF): Is it spiritual discipline?
R: It’s not even spiritual discipline. You exist! When you exist you can question yourself, “Who exists?” That is not really a discipline. And it is not sadhana. It is something that you do to yourself to awaken.
SH: Well what would you call it then?
R: Nothing. (SH: Yeah, okay.) Do not give it a label or a name. It spoils it. If you call it sadhana you get mixed up with mantra’s and pranayama’s and yoga’s and everything else.
Fred (SF): Those things are done by a doer.
R: Exactly. Somebody has to do these things.
Q: (Robert reads) You have pointed out that we are always thinking about ourselves, except when watching TV, etc., (laughter) but certainly that must differ from the non-thinking of Self that you speak of and if so, how?
A: (Robert answers.) When you’re watching TV you are not thinking of your physical self. You lose yourself. But then you become what is on the TV, you are part of the program. You’re part of what you’re watching. It is not like losing yourself to the Self.
You’re becoming sort of dumbified, by watching the TV or reading a book or a newspaper.
It’s true you forget about yourself for a while. But since you’re thinking about something else you become what you’re reading or what you’re watching.
The proper method is to be still without TV, without books, without anything.
And to confront yourself. Confront yourself totally and completely. By observing your thoughts and watching what they’re doing to you, how they control you, how they have power over you. And as you observe this as you watch this you inquire, “To whom does this come? Who is going through all these things? Who has all these things going on in their life?” Then everything slows down and you become still and peaceful.
Q: (Robert reads) You have said to do self-inquiry each time a thought arises and that the space between thoughts will become longer. But what about body sensations? They seem to be continuous are they considered thoughts?
A: (Robert answers) Body sensations are the same as thoughts. As you keep inquiring, “Who am I?” And you stay in the space between the answer, between the question. Then the body thoughts become less and less and the thoughts become less and less, they’re the same thing. The feelings and the thoughts are nothing as you practice self-inquiry. You ask, “Who does this come to? It comes to me. I think this. Who am I?” And when you keep still your body sensations will slow down, as well as your thoughts. And soon there will be no body sensations, there will be no thoughts. There will be nothing. So body sensations are the same as thoughts. When one goes the other goes also. You cannot have body sensations without thoughts. There has to be a thought about a body sensation. So when the thoughts dissipate, the body sensations will also dissipate.
Q: (Robert reads) It is said that the Sage is a mirror. Would you explain how that works?
A: (Robert answers) When you look at the Sage you are seeing yourself. Therefore what you see as yourself you’ll see as the Sage. The Sage takes shape to everyone in accordance to their thoughts. That’s why the example is the Sage is like a mirror. For you always see yourself when you look at the Sage.
For instance if you are a thief, you will see in the Sage a thief. If you are a loving person you’ll see in the Sage a loving person. Whatever you are you will see that in the Sage. But then again the Sage reflects back himself or herself. So if you really look at the Sage deeply you will go beyond your feelings and your actions and what you are. And you will feel the Sages peace and the Sages love and the Sages joy which will transcend all of the stuff that’s going on in your life.
You will begin to see the one Self if you look at the Sage deep enough. You will see the one Self. The absolute reality. But if you just glance at the Sage and just look at the Sage once in a while you will feel the Sage as yourself again. But your material self and the self you think you are. And all the attributes that you have, bad, good or indifferent you will also do it to the Sage. But again if you stare at the Sage deeper and deeper and you think of the Sage deeper and deeper you will bypass all that. You will go deeper inside the Sage and you will become the Sage yourself.
SD: Robert, a long time ago you told a story like I can’t unfortunately remember the details and it was something that happened to you in which you were confronted by someone who was potentially violent. And that was setup for a violent situation and I remember you said that he looked at you and was somehow able to transcend from the look you gave him, whatever he was feeling and later thanked you. (R: Oh yes.) So could you tell that story again and how it ties in. If he looked at you, if he was about to do something violent or whatever, what did he see? Did he see his true self in you?
R: This happened in the subway, New York. Everybody was hanging onto the straps it was rush hour. And this fellow was drunk. He was bothering everybody and being really obnoxious and rude. And he looked at me and I stared at him. And all of a sudden he became still and quiet and peaceful. And the next train stop and he looked at me and said, “Thank you,” and he got off the train.
Apparently what had happened, as he was in a drunken stupor where his senses were not working too well. Which was to his favor. He was able to see through, through the surface. Through the body deep into the Self. And was able to feel the peace and the joy that was there. That is why he said, “Thank you.”
SD: Or is that an example of where he saw the true Self in you?
R: Something like that. He was able to see himself as a higher person, as a peaceful person, as a happy person. The drinking made him like that. If you were not drunk you
would have only seen the surface which wouldn’t help him at all. But because he was drunk he was able to let go of the surface and go deep within and this helped him.
SH: So you advocate getting drunk. (laughter) You should work for the liquor industry.
R: Sometimes it helps.
(general talking, joking and laughter)
SB: So he couldn’t transcend his poisoned liver.
R: Who knows what happened to his poisoned liver.
Jay (SJ): There really is something about that isn’t there? (R: Yes. ) I’ve been looking for God all my life and finally him in a bottle. (laughter) (R: Was that a personal testimony?) Yeah (R: Jay is on a new path.) (laughter)
SH: The way to God is through alcohol. (laughter) (R: That’s possible.) It’s time for you to say something Fred, you’re the old alcoholic. (laughter) SF: Something I have to say about thought and Krishna Murti said thought is always old.
R: Always what? (SF: Always old) Old. (SF: Thought can never see anything new.) Umm. (SF: Would you agree with that?) Sure, because what else would you think about except the past. (SF: Thought is responsive memory when it gets the facts right.) Sure that is true. Every time you think you can only think about the experiences that you had in your life. (SF: In comparing them with what is going on right now?) SD: Even though when you think about the future I suppose it’s based on past experience.
R: Of course. It’s all based on the past. For thoughts to be fresh and new, there has to be silence.
Fred (SF): Umm. It comes from another place.
SH: But you can’t think reality, you can’t think…
R: No, you can’t think of reality at all because there is no thought in reality.
Thoughts are only about the past. When you live in the now, you don’t think. That is why we’re told to live in the moment, in the now. Not in the future, not in the past.
Glen (SG): So would that account for people like Mozart? (R: What about Mozart?) Is that where they’re pulling it from, that way?
SH: Mozart we hear of, pulled the symphony in one moment. And then he rationalized them out in time.
R: All great thinkers, people like that were very spontaneous. They were just able to imagine everything going on in the now. They saw everything like Henry said, “In the moment.” There was no past, there was no future. But to write a symphony sometimes took time. But it all came into a split second.
Fred (SF): Time is a fabrication of the mind, anyway, time is a…
R: A lie. Space, time is a lie it doesn’t exist. It appears to exist because you believe you are the body. When the body notion is conquered there is no time, there is no space.
SB: Robert how is it that thought is a motion in consciousness? Why is it that that little motion in consciousness obscures that consciousness of reality.R: Why is thought a motion in consciousness? Why do you say thought is a motion in consciousness? (SB: Isn’t that what it is? It’s just a movement?) In consciousness there is no movement. Consciousness is self reliant. Self sustaining. It knows nothing about a thought. The thought comes from the ego, from the Maya. Consciousness has no thoughts.
(SB: But if consciousness is all there is how can thought be outside of all there is.) Thought is not outside of all there is, thought is part of the ego, part of the nonexistence. Thought does not really exist. It’s like the body that doesn’t really exist. And the world does not really exist. And the mind does not really exist. And karma does not really exist. So thought does not really exist. (SB: So the motion doesn’t really exist.) Motion doesn’t really exist. (SB: That is why it’s an illusion. It just appears pretty real.) An illusion does not really exist.
SH: How can what doesn’t really exist appear at all in the first place?
R: It doesn’t appear. (laughter) (SH: How can what is visioned appear to be?) It doesn’t appear and there is nothing to be!
SD: How can it appear to appear?
R: Who asked that question? (SD: The appearance.) (laughter) So let the appearance get rid of the appearance.
Glen (SG): That’s paradoxical to do.
R: Well the whole teaching is paradoxical. (SB: Nonsensical?) For in truth nothing appears, nothing exists. We said in the beginning, “There is no appearance that exists.”
SH: And this is a flat-out by the mind truth. From which there is no other. (R: Exactly.) We’ll throw all that out too. (R: There is no Henry.) Thank God for that. (laughter) SD: Just your appearance. (SH: My what?) Your appearance. (SD: That’s your illusion.
SB: When I find God I’m gonna kill him. (laughter) ( SH: It’s the other way around he’s going to kill you. You’re a done duck but you don’t know it.) (laughter) (SH: Slay him!) SB: I think it’s a cruel joke. (R: For whom?) For me. Very cruel, to all be at satsang. (R: Speak for yourself.) Cluttering up everything for me, who lives in the world. (laughter) SN: The Buddha’s in the room. (R: Where?) I’m that Self. (SD: The Buddha is the room.) (rain pours outside)
SE: Let it go for another half hour or so. (SL: Yeah right, until the rain stops.) R: Anyone else like to entertain us? A song or a dance? A pie in my face?
Okay Mary has some announcements.
Mary (SM): I’ve got some transcripts. This is number 58 “The Silent Word,” and I have five copies, no four copies to give out.
(tape ends with Mary giving out transcripts to students for copying)
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.