– Transcript 140
R: Good afternoon. (Students: Good afternoon Robert.) I welcome you with all my heart. It is good being with you again. I love you just the way you are. Love is the Self and the Self is love. When I exclaim that I love you, I love the Self which is all pervading. Therefore how can I not love you? For the Self is all there is.
There was once a Zen Buddhist monk who used to bother his teacher everyday with questions like, “What is the ultimate truth? When am I going to become enlightened?
What practice should I use? When I become enlightened will I still be a monk? Will I want to see my family?”
One day the teacher told the monk, “I’m going to send you to a great Sage. She will show you the ultimate reality.” The teacher drew a map of where the Sage lives. It took the monk six months to get there. He had to swim across a mighty river where he nearly drowned. He had to cross a bridge a thousand miles up in the air. Pretty far up. (students laugh) He had to climb a mountain ten thousand miles high. He had to walk through the desert.
SY: How big was the desert? (students laugh)
R: Pretty big, pretty big.
Finally he got to her house. He knocked at the door and this disheveled old lady came to the door. She smelt like she hadn’t taken a bath in ten years. She was totally ignorant. She was deaf in one ear, couldn’t hear out the other. (laughter) She couldn’t see too well, she couldn’t talk too well. He was about to turn away when she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him in. And gave him a broom and told him to mop and broom…sweep the place, clean up the house. He did this then she had him wash the windows and paint the house and plough the fields and milk the cow.
Three months passed and he was wondering what he was doing. But he kept on doing it because he was looking for some wisdom from this old lady. That his teacher told him that she would give him ultimate truth. He believed the teacher. One day she pulled him into the house and sat him in the corner. He didn’t do anymore work from that day on. He just sat in the corner watching the old lady go through her routine. Of washing the dishes, sweeping the house.
Another two months passed by. He was really pondering all of this. What is all this about? Who is this lady? What is the ultimate truth? Until he got to the stage where didn’t care or give a damn about it. He just sat in total silence and went deeper and deeper within himself. Finally something clicked within him, he became self-realized and he started laughing hysterically. He picked the little old lady up and kissed her and left the house and never returned again. And no one has heard of him since.
What was the ultimate truth he found? He realized that there is no ultimate truth.
There never was an ultimate truth. There is no realization, there is no ignorance, there is no universe, there is no world, there is nothing. Everything just is. This was his discovery.
Everything is. Not this or that or something else. Everything just is. Just the way it is. Just the way it is. You do not have to do anything about anything. You do not have to change anything or fix anything or improve anything. Everything just is. If you can only understand this great truth you would become the happiest being on earth. For when you realize that everything just is you are living spontaneously. There is no past, there is no future, there is no birth, there is no death. Everything thing just is the way it is.
Look at your life. How many things you try to change or fix or remedy. Things that you’re looking for. Trying to become something. Trying to be somebody. Trying to achieve a purpose. When you do all these things then you’re not living up to the principle of everything just is. If everything just is, what is there for you to do?
You didn’t come to this earth to do anything. You didn’t even come to this earth.
But you appear as if you did. You appear real. You appear as if you’re somebody. And you’ve been trained to go after something in this world, to become something great, to be somebody.
Yet this is what causes suffering. The belief that you have to be somebody that you’re not. The belief that you have to have something that you don’t have. Look at your life. The so-called problems you believe you have. Something only becomes a problem when you want to change something or you want something to go your way. Then it’s a problem because it isn’t going the way you think it should go. But in truth nothing has to go any way. Everything is perfect just the way it is. Everything is total perfection.
You say, “Sure Robert, look at man’s inhumanity to man. Look at the wars and the dastardly conditions going on in this world.” You’re watching the movement of time.
Which really does not even exist. When you watch the movement of time things are happening. In the movement of time, things appear to be happening. But if you are spontaneous and you leave everything alone and realize everything just is you would be in between the movements of time and space. You would be able to see through the mirage.
Through the so-called magic of life and happenings. And you would be able to see the stillness, the oneness, the peace. But you see the situations as they appear.
You look at person, place, and thing and believe that is the way it is. Movement, time, space, these things are not for you. You who are ultimate reality. You who are pure effortless awareness. You who are Sat-Chit-Ananda. The world is not for you. The world is for the dreamer. The one who is dreaming the mortal dream. Who takes everything seriously. Who feels the world as if it’s real. For they believe that things are going the wrong way, according to their thinking.
So the first step to rectify all this is to quiet the mind. To make the mind quiescent.
Still the mind. You still the mind by not reacting. By watching, by looking, by seeing but not reacting. You sit in the silence observing your mind thinking. Observing your thoughts. Observing your feelings. And you leave them alone. You no longer try to change anything. You stop following your thought patterns. As we discussed before you “drop it!”
Whatever comes to you, you simply drop it! You no longer go along with your thoughts.
You catch yourself every time the thoughts start thinking. You keep remembering to catch yourself. To catch yourself thinking.
Little by little the thoughts begin to vanish. They stop. There are no longer any thoughts. There is no longer a thinker. You are no longer a body. If you are no longer a body there are no other bodies. You feel happiness. Infinite happiness. You feel joy, love.
These feelings are all synonymous. It’s really one feeling. It includes a great compassion, love, joy, happiness, peace. Only you can bring this about in yourself.
This is what the Zen Buddhist monk discovered. All of these years he was looking toward his teacher to become self-realized. But the old lady he encountered was totally opposite of any teacher he’d ever seen and this woke him up.
You have within you everything it takes to become liberated. All you have to do is to give up what is not reality. And what is not reality is everything the senses tell you is reality. Everything you taste, touch, hear, feel and smell is non-reality. Yet these things cause you to react to this world. You don’t want to react any longer. You want to drop everything. There is nothing in this world that is worth going after, chasing.
Many times when I talk this way people think, “I don’t want to become a nun or a monk. I want to live in the world. The things that Robert tells us is for a person who becomes a hermit or a person who lives in the forest or a cave. What about me living in this world.” On the contrary, everything I say to you, everything I share with you is living in this world. If you practice the things I share with you it makes no difference where you are or whether you are in the city or in the market place or on a mountain top, doesn’t make any difference. Everything is to be done mentally.
When I speak of giving up things not reacting, this is mentally! I’m not telling you to quit your job or to leave your family or to go far away somewhere. Stay exactly where you are! Be yourself! There is nowhere to go. Remember if you do not find yourself first wherever you run away to you have to bring yourself with you. And if you have problems now you’ll have more problems wherever you go. Therefore you do not leave town, join a monastery or run to India or go to the woods. You have to take yourself with you wherever you go.
The wise thing to do is to confront yourself. Just where you are right now. Confront yourself totally. See yourself where you are. Watch how you react to things. Watch your thoughts. From the moment you wake up in the morning begin to ponder yourself.
Try to observe the I, rising. The I rises as soon as you wake up in the morning, then you become cognizant of your body of the world and others. And by pondering, “From where has the I risen?” Just by pondering this, “Where does the I come from? From where has it risen?” This will take it back by pondering this. The I will begin to return to its source, which is the Self. And you will awaken.
But if you just go along with the I waking up then you forget about this and you get involved in the days work. You become involved in the days activities. You start to think about lunch, breakfast, what you’re going to wear, whom you’re going to meet, everything becomes external. But if you catch the I and you follow the I back to the source you will be quite a different person. You will still get out of bed, go to your work, do the job you’re doing yet you will not be the same person. You have found peace, total peace.
And it will not matter what kind of work you do or what kind of work you don’t do.
Things like hating your job will disappear. You will not think about it one way or another.
You will just do whatever you have to do. And this will all happen spontaneously.
Never believe that you are a human being. Never believe that you live in a world which turns around its axis and turns around the sun. This is not really you. There are no mistakes. No mistakes have ever been made and no mistakes are being made. It is your inner feelings, your inner emotions that feel all of these things in this world. Learn to leave the world alone. Learn to leave yourself alone.
(long silence)
It’s that time again to play “Stump The Guru.” Fred would you pass the…
Mary (SM): There is nothing in there Robert, I don’t think. There’s one.
Q: (Robert reads) Robert what is the sound current stream?
A: (Robert answers) The sound current stream is coming out of your mind. (students laugh) Why do you want to hear a sound current stream? You want to transcend everything not concern yourself about a sound current stream.
There are various yoga’s where you see certain visions, you hear sounds, you hear currents, you feel different feelings, always remember this emanates out of your mind.
When you touch reality there is nothing. There are no currents, no sounds, no visions. You have transcended this. So don’t look for sound current streams. Go beyond that. Become empty and you will be free.
Mary (SM): That’s it Robert.
R: One question. (students laugh)
Glen (SG): Robert as I understood the sounds is the original form of everything that you see?
R: Well form does not exist. Form is an illusion. Form is Maya.
SP: But is it true that Maya originally formed from sound?
R: Maya originally is nothing. (students laugh) Do not give Maya names. (laughter) You can go all the way back to all kinds of currents and teachings and sounds and figures that you see in the mind, geometrical designs. All these things come to one who meditates. But we want to go beyond that where there is no creation. Whatever you think somebody had to originate it, it had to come from somewhere. Where did the sound current come from? Where did all of the things you’re talking about come from? The mind!
Where else? We create our own world. We create our own conditions, our own situations.
We create these things. Drop it!
R: Fred writes in green.
Q: (Robert reads) Can one get rid of what one considers an undesirable identity? Such as “I am the body” by holding onto or accentuating the opposite or opposing identity? Signed Liverworst. (students laugh) A: (Robert answers) The answer is Liverworst. (laughter) That’s the answer.
(laughter) You do not wish to hold onto anything. To hold onto the opposite identity.
Whatever you hold onto is the mind again. You’re holding onto the mind when you hold onto the opposite. There is no opposite. It’s like saying, “Let’s get rid of the devil and think of God.” There never was a devil to get rid of and there’s no God to get rid of. There are no opposites. There is no thing but the Self. There is only the absolute reality and even that doesn’t exist.
Do not make the teaching complicated. You want to realize that the teaching brings you to nothingness. Where there is no body, no world, no God, where you no longer have a crutch in which to hold onto. You become completely, totally empty. Then you are the Self. So Liverworst is good. That’s the answer.
Would anyone like to say something.
Glen (SG): Robert I was reading… (R: You’ve been reading again?) (laughter) I was reading the Ashtravakra-Gita last night and my understanding of that is this somethingness is not a mere nothingness. What I mean is when saying nothingness it has a kind of like the Buddhist void which is kind of a negative?
R: Umm. When we talk about nothingness we’re negating all things of this universe. It all exists as mind. When the mind is totally destroyed then you rest in nothingness which is really something as you say. But it’s something ineffable, something that can be experienced and something you become. It is total being. It is beyond the void. But it isn’t anything you can explain or talk about or become. You have to experience this for yourself.
But when we speak about nothingness we’re referring to the negation of everything in this world and the universe. When everything is negated and everything is gone what is left over is the reality. Make it happen to you and see for yourself. Then you will see what you are, a good for nothing.
SH: That is the same as good for everything? (R: Sure.) Clean and void. (R: Yes.) SF: I’ve noticed some Buddhist scripture that seems to be parallel with what you’ve been saying. I know what you feel about scripture. (students laugh) By oneself the evil is done, by oneself one suffers, by oneself the evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified. Pure and the impure stand and fall by themselves. No one can purify another. (R: That sounds good Fred.) I’ll take it back.
(R: No it sounds good.)SJ: Dharmapada right? (SF: Huh?) Dharmapada? (SF: I don’t know I just saw it somewhere. It’s pretty accurate is it?) R: It’s very accurate but where do you come in? Have you experienced that for yourself? (SF: No. Intellectual.) So what good is it? Only when you can experience for yourself then there will be nothing to say. But that’s a nice poem. (SF: Just a poem.) SB: Robert, language is so absolutely imperfect to even point to this because you say even if we experience it for ourselves - are experiences of duality, subjects and objects of not that? And the Self - I’m going to experience it - that’s not it either - So language, this language is absolutely not capable of even pointing to it?
R: Any language is not capable of not pointing to it. It goes beyond language. (SB: So it’s like the language of silence is a known kind of language.) (laughs) Even when you think of silence, it’s not the silence you’re thinking about. It’s beyond that kind of silence. It’s a silence so profound that one cannot even begin to understand it.
SZ: Yeah. (R: He’s experiencing it.) (students laugh) SH: He’s in the silence. (students laugh)
Glen (SG): Robert can there be an absence of objects but still functioning of hearing and seeing and feeling and smelling those objects?
R: If there is an absence of objects who is there left to smell or feel or touch or taste… (SG: You were saying about it if there was any “Who’ and you said that it cannot be seeing and hearing. Do you have to have a “Who’ for hearing?) Yes, somebody has to hear. There has to be somebody to hear or to think while hearing. The thinker is still there when you hear.
But you get to the point when there is absolutely nothing to hear, there is no one to hear and there is nothing to hear then you’re in a completely different ballpark. You’re totally away from this kind of hearing or this kind of seeing. You go way beyond that to a place where you can’t even imagine. (SG: Are you saying, there cannot be a state of no objects while there is still hearing and seeing going on.) Yes. As long as there is hearing and seeing there has to be a seer who does all this. There has to be a mind. When there is absolutely no mind you are in a completely different dimension. For there is no hearing or seeing but yet you function. You see and you hear but there is no one seeing or hearing. (SG: So you’re saying there is seeing there?) There is seeing and hearing but there is no one left to see and hear.
(SG: Now you’re saying there is seeing or hearing with an absence of objects?) But there is no one to see or hear and there is no absence of objects. (laughter) It’s a paradox. There appears to be a seer and a hearer and there is an absence of objects and then again there is no absence of objects and nobody sees or hears.
SE: Is that clear yet? (students laugh)
SH: Sort of a merry-go-round. (R: It’s worse than a merry-go-round. It’s a roller coaster.) (students laugh) Let’s get off it. (laughter) (SD: It’s the whole carnival.) To hell with it.
R: Yet it’s so simple. We just have to let go of all these things. Let go of all the intellectualism, the analyzations, the memories, the stuff we’ve been brought up to know. If we can only give everything up we will be so happy. We’ll be very very happy beings. Yet
most of us are afraid to give up our lives. Because we’ve had this kind of a life since we were born so-to-speak. And we’re afraid to give it up because we’re afraid of the unknown. And I say to you there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
(a tape is changed over)
Mary (SM): I don’t want to miss anything? (laughter) (SH: Just in time for the next jam.) R: All is well.
Mary (SM): It’s the death of the ego that’s such a horrifying thing, isn’t it Robert?
R: The death of the ego. Always remember that there is no ego that really dies because the ego has never really existed. (SB: So what is it that feels terror?) Whatever you imagine it is. (SB: Well that’s the ego then isn’t it?) That is what you think it is. So we talk about an ego and getting rid of the ego. But in truth there is no ego to get rid of. And there is no terror. Where did this terror come from? The ego? The ego doesn’t exist, there is no terror. (SB: And yet people crack up and end up in the mental hospital.) Of course this is part of Maya. It’s all necessary… (SB: And they suffer?) …in the grand illusion. Look at all the things that go on in this world. People crack up as you say, people don’t crack up. People are millionaires, people starve to death from want of food. This is duality, this is Maya this is the way of the world. Go beyond that. Go beyond these questions and these things you’re thinking about. To that place where there is perfect peace and nothing is happening. It is within you.
Jorge (SR): Robert what happens during deep sleep? The body shuts down and then the…
R: The body does not shut down when you’re in deep sleep or you’ll be dead physically. (SR: Right, but I mean, the mind shuts down?) The mind doesn’t really shut down either because it takes care of the body’s functioning. You are in deep sleep, you are in a state of realization when you are in a state of deep sleep. But a realization without the physical world, without the physical universe. When you are in deep sleep nothing happens. Nothing is going on as far as you’re concerned.
The I that knows the world, the I that sees the world, the I that is the world has gone back into the heart and there is no one experiencing anything. So as far as you’re concerned when you are in deep sleep there is no universe, there is no world and there is no body. But to the person who observes you in deep sleep they see your body and they see you breathing and they see the things going on, your respiration, yet you do not feel these things. Realization is when you are in a sort of deep sleep, yet you are cognizant of the Self, in deep sleep.
Jorge (SR): Like something awakens while you’re in deep sleep?
R: You are asleep while awake. But deep sleep is a very good example of letting go of the whole universe. It’s like death. It’s a sample of what happens when you die. When you appear to die you are in a state of deep sleep. But you don’t come back into this world as the same person. You experience other planes, which is your mind creating these planes. The subtle planes, the causal planes, the mental plane all these things come out of your mind.SH: But that’s no longer deep sleep then? (R: No. You awaken in those planes of existence.) You imagine them?
R: Yes. They’re all out of the mind. (SH: Umm.) The mind has created this whole ball game. So deep sleep is a sample of that.
Jorge (SR): Yeah but fear comes out about death but we’re not afraid to have deep sleep in fact we need deep sleep. We have all these fears about death is in fact the …does the body has more programming about dying then it does about handovers?
R: Deep sleep gives you a sample of what’s happening when you die. It relieves you of all the pressures of the world. If you did not have deep sleep you would not be able to function. For the world appears very strong in it’s illusory force. But when you sleep you let go of the world for a period of time. And then you can go back into the world later on when you wake up and continue. So deep sleep is a sample of dying. This is how it’s going to be when you let go completely of this body and you go forward into the infinite.
SD: So you’re saying that the body can be dead but the mind still exists?
R: The mind always exists. (SD: Except there is no mind.) There is no mind, of course.
SL: What about the subconscious Robert?
R: The subconscious is the mind. The subconscious mind or the conscious mind or the unconscious mind they’re all aspects of the same mind. There is only one mind that appears to be real and it is this mind that causes all the trouble. This mind causes your subconscious experiences, your subjective experiences, your conscious experiences. They all come from this mind. This is the reason we are told to destroy the mind. Then everything stops.
SL: Robert also I think before you said that the subconscious is somehow linked to predestiny or something, is that correct? Or whatever comes into your subconscious is what guides you because that is your destiny?
R: The subconscious is the part of you that you’re not aware of consciously. The thing that you picked up inadvertently. Deep fears, deep frustrations, they’re in your subconscious. (SL: Maybe I didn’t remember correctly but I thought that you linked that up to predestiny your subconscious is where all your predestined to do something that is…) The samskaras.
You’re talking about the samskaras from previous lives. All of these things are entered into your subconscious, you can call it your subconscious mind. And that stays with you until you annihilate it, until it’s totally destroyed. It comes with you life after life after life.
Where you experience your prarabdhic karma, that’s you work out, the things that are happening to you that are karmic from a past life, from a previous life or many lives before. Until you give the whole thing up and become totally free.
So deep sleep, karma, different states of consciousness, those things are all synonymous. We go beyond all these things.
SB: Robert in Ramana’s books he says that even in deep sleep that awareness the reality is still awake because reality can’t go unconscious, so the aspect of being that’s reality is always
awake. (R: In deep sleep the I exists.) Yeah but it’s not associated with the mind and brain. So it’s like we’re unconscious of it.
R: You’re unconscious of the physical world. (SB: Yeah.) But the I exists. (SB: Yeah.
So consciousness exists in deep sleep and it’s wide awake.) The I. (SB: Yeah.) The I exists when you’re dreaming it exists when you’re sleeping, it exists when you’re awake. So what is this I? (SB: Why is it that it’s not awake as we seem to be awake now or maybe it is awake?) What?
(SB: When we’re in deep sleep.) What’s awake? (SB: Well the I-am is awake.) The I-am always exists. Consciousness always exists.
SB: Maybe while we are in deep sleep we are wide awake and when we wake up we forget that we were wide awake in a different quality? You know what I mean?
R: When you are in deep sleep you are dead to this world. (SB: Yeah and dead to the mind too. And dead to the ego.) The mind still exists. The mind exists while you’re sleeping.
SH: But there is no content? (R: There is no content.) Empty? (R: Empty mind.) SQ: Robert what happens when you have an out-of-the-body experience?
R: When you have and out-of-the-body experience your astral body appears to come out of it. And floats around some place. What did you say? (SQ: And you’re looking down at yourself.) You’re looking down at an illusion and the illusion is also the out-of-the-body experience. They’re both false. (SQ: How does it physically happen?) Your so-called soul, you think you’ve got a soul, there is no soul. Except the bottom of my shoe.
SB: No that’s a heel.
R: There’s a heel and soul. You appear to have an out-of-body experience when your soul so-to-speak leaves your body and that’s a different plane, it’s an astral plane trip.
The astral… (SQ: Consciousness is up there looking down at your physical body?) Not consciousness, the astral body. We have an astral body, we have a causal body so-to-speak. We have a physical body, we have a mental body. These bodies all seem to be in one. They’re all inside together. When we have an out-of-body experience. The astral body leaves the body it appears and is able to roam around and have some fun and do whatever it likes to do. While the body is sleeping. (SQ: Well this is when you’re awake.) When you’re awake you have an out-of-body experience? (SQ: Yeah.) The same thing. Makes no difference, they’re all false.
Glen (SG): Robert what is the difference when teachers talk about not having these experiences in an astral body or a causal body but having these experiences in a soul body.
R: In a solo body? (SG: In soul body?) A solo body? (S: Soul body, soul.) Oh soul body. What about that? (SG: It’s just that there is a big difference because these are very conditional bodies but the soul body is the spirit body and has these experiences and go through these various realms and levels sorts of things…) As long as there is a body it’s false. All the bodies do not exist. Soul body, heel body, any body. There are no bodies. Bodies come out of the mind, the mind is the emanation of the universe and everything that exists. When the mind is destroyed there is no longer any bodies. SG: There seems to be a different point of view in your teaching, trying to tally this with some others because other teachers say that to account for all manifestation there is a positive which is like the spirit and there is all the various planes of manifestation from the subtlest to the grossest and that is like the negative aspect, like a battery, negative and positive, not negative being bad but just two aspects of one battery which accounts for all manifestation.
And the other teachers say these planes of existence all of this manifestation it’s not a bad thing, karma is not a bad thing it’s more of a creative type of manifestation. And I’m hearing when you say, “It doesn’t exist,” that there is no counting for it. That’s where other teachers in other philosophies on this do account for it. The Zen Masters would say that it’s blasphemy, heresy to say the absolute is just nothingness and then exclude all of manifestation. Because they’re both are together, they’re both the same things. Samsara is nirvana, nirvana-samsarra.
R: This is a Zen teaching. This is a Buddhist teaching, I understand what you’re saying. But the question is, “Where does it all come from? Where does samsaras come from? Where does the soul come from? Where does everything come from?” This all comes out of the mind. And where does the mind come from? The mind doesn’t exist. So if the mind does not exist there is absolutely nothing else that exists in this universe or anywhere else. There is total emptiness. Total freedom. Total liberation. Which is beyond anything you can ever think about. (SG: Is that the same as saying that as Zen teachers say, that emptiness is form and form is emptiness.) At that level you can say that, yes. You can say emptiness is form and form is emptiness. But what good is it? Why do you want to say that?
SE: Still shoveling Maya. (laughter) From one system to another system. (R: True.) The Maya comes in, the Maya goes out. (laughter)
R: True. As long as there is something going on the mind is active. The whole idea is to go beyond all these teachings. Go beyond everything. And there is not a void, you go beyond the void. There is something as I say which is very ineffable, something that cannot be spoken of, something beyond anything you can ever imagine, feel or be.
SH: So that is the plenum, when they say, “Plenum void.” You lead these two together.
The Buddhists call the Plenum void. Which you refer to as ultimate reality. (R: Yes.) Same thing.
SE: Still Maya.
SH: Still words. (R: You are beyond that.) You are beyond the beyond. (R: Beyond the beyond the beyond.) The list goes on redundantly forever. (R: Until it stops.) Until the mind stops. (R: When the mind stops.)
SK: Robert regarding the mind stopping you frequently suggest that self-inquiry is somehow a useful thing. Last week or sometimes you talk about living in the moment. (R: Umm.) And living in the moment…self-inquiry seems to imply dropping the senses or moving beyond the sensory experience. Being in the moment it’s a very continual fight out, are they both heading in the same direction?
R: Yes they both go in the same direction. Those are methods to go beyond the mind. Methods to destroy the mind and go beyond everything there is, to become totally
free and totally liberated. Use whatever method is suitable for you at the time. Whatever you have to do, you do to become totally free.
Glen (SG): Well Robert it seems like we’re in the best of both worlds here because the great majority of the population out there is not concerned with any of this. They’re going about their business most of the time. And then there are people such as yourself, who are there, enlightened and here we are in this limbo. And it seems to be the most frustrating place to be…I mean what is it that we can do to avoid suicidal despair in the mean time and frustration?
R: You can stop thinking the way you’re thinking. (laughter) (SG: I’d like to.) Simply observe your mind, observe your thoughts and observe what you said. Watch your thoughts, watch what you’re saying. Drop it! Get rid of it. Do not carry it with you. Do not allow your mind to make all of these long statements. Catch yourself when you start thinking like that and drop it or inquire, “To whom does it come?” And follow it through.
Do whatever you have to do to stop the mind from thinking that way. And it will happen.
You have to go within again and again and again. Until the day comes when you don’t have to go within anymore. The deeper you go within the faster you get rid of all of the stuff.
SH: Whatever arises in the mind the only thing to do is to throw it away. It’s all garbage?
R: Yes. Throw yourself away while you’re doing that too. (SH: Good idea.) SB: Can I recycle it? (students laugh) (R: Do whatever you want with it but get rid of it.) Repackage it.
R: Again make your life very simple. Keep your thoughts very simple. Do not become too abstract in your life. Leave everything alone. Live in the moment. Do not try to analyze things or try to figure them out or come up with solutions. There are no solutions, there’s no hope. Forget everything you ever learnt. Become like a new born babe. Remember the practice of divine ignorance and be yourself.
SL: What is the practice of divine ignorance?
R: When you realize that you do not know what anything really is. When you begin to see that everything is because you are. The things that exist you have no idea what they really are. Take a tree for instance. What is a tree? Nobody really knows. We give it a name, a tree we say, “This is a tree.” But we have no idea where it came from why it’s here. We know we chop it down and use it as wood. We make furniture. We have no idea where it came from. We could have called a tree a dog or a bird but we call it a tree.
So we take it for granted. Divine ignorance is therefore when you realize that you know nothing about nothing.
SL: Will you call it a practice. How do you practice to achieve this?
R: You simply look at everything and you develop a great humility by realizing that everything is something that you know nothing of. You get rid of the wise guy attitude - that you know about this and you know about that and you know about everything - whereas in truth you don’t know about anything. You just have memories.SL: So in self-inquiry is where you negate?
R: In self-inquiry you can negate all these things.
SL: It seems like it’s better in self-inquiry in “Who am I?” or “Who is feeling angry?” If you take it that way say, “What is the tree?” I don’t know what a tree is or…?
R: You don’t really have to do that as far as these things are concerned. Just realize that everything in this world has been given a name by you when you were born. You were told to call a cat a cat, a dog a dog and so forth. But in reality you have no idea what a cat or a dog is. You just appear on this earth with your body. This makes you very humble. It causes a lot of humility to come into your consciousness. When this happens then you’re able to go further.
Remember it’s really impossible to go any further on the path unless you develop a great humility. If you think you know too much, you know things, this keeps you back.
All human knowledge keeps you back from experiencing your true self. Therefore when you develop a great humility you can go back further and further until you touch that place of truth which is really you.
SB: Can you say that the practice of divine ignorance is resting in that disposition of, “I don’t know what anything is,” instead of resting in the disposition of familiarity? Like I is mine and my memory and you know what everything is. But divine ignorance is resting in the disposition of knowing absolutely nothing about myself or anything or having no craving no wanting, just “I don’t anything and it’s unknowable.” That disposition.
R: What a dumb guy. (laughter) (SB: It’s resting in that disposition from moment to moment.) True you can say that, yes.
SE: Or you can get a job working with Jerry Brown, where you know that nobody has the slightest idea what’s going on at any point in time, from Jerry on down. (laughter) R: Yes you can say that. You already said it.
SB: That seems to be the most wonderful essence of the whole teaching, I think.
R: It’s the beginning. (SH: Beginning of the ending of me.) Yes. Me-me-me.
R: Kerema would you like to sing a song? (SC: Oh I didn’t come prepared.) That’s okay. (SC: Yeah right, spontaneously. Alright I’ll sing an old one.) (Kerema sings) (then Mary reads the Jnani)
R: Thank you Mary. (SM: Thank you Robert.)
R: We have any announcements?
Mary (SM): No Robert. Transcripts are coming in, which we’re thankful for.
R: Remember to love yourself. To pray to yourself. To worship yourself. To bow to yourself. For God lives in you as you. You are that…
!
(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.